Ideas Above Our Station Read online

  God, I’m good. I love this Weeble image, and it came out of nowhere. It would be really helpful if I knew more about the science of Weeble-making. Why do Weebles always swing upright? Do they have magnets or lead weights in their bottoms? I turn my paper over and draw two large egg shapes. I draw a horizontal line across the middle of each one. In the first, I write ‘Happiness’ in the top half and ‘Misery’ in the bottom half. I draw a little black cylinder next to ‘Misery’ which is intended to represent the magnet that keeps misery below happiness. In the second egg, I put ‘Misery’ at the top, and the magnet in the ‘Happiness’ section.

  I chew my pen, thinking hard. So am I saying that, in order to remain happy, one needs to make sure one’s magnet is in the misery section? I smile, realising that if I stick too rigidly to the Weeble image, I’ll ruin it. I turn the paper over and write, ‘Make sure negative feelings are weighted down (like when drowning kittens) so that they can’t surface. Make sure positive feelings always spring back up.’

  Greg has lost his signal again. He hisses a sequence of obscenities, and throws his phone on the floor in disgust. It lands in the aisle, between us. I lean over to pick it up. As I hold it out to him, I say, ‘Would you like to use mine?’ I imagine that this might lead, somehow, to my solving the mystery of Greg. I am probably being naïve. Still, who could be happy without being naïve time and time again? The trick is to make sure you don’t remain naïve about any one thing for too long.

  ‘Cheers.’ Greg holds out his hand without looking at me. When I pass him his own phone, he tosses it down onto the empty seat beside him. He holds out his hand again. This time he looks at me, but he doesn’t smile. His expressionless face tells me that he is not even remotely interested in me.

  I lean over to give him my phone, already regretting the offer. What if there is no mystery of Greg? He is sweaty, drunk, prone to violent rages, but it is not a mystery. ‘My phone’s usually pretty good on trains,’ I tell him, ‘but if you lose the signal, please don’t smash it against anything.’

  ‘All right,’ he says, already pressing buttons. ‘Andy? It’s Greg. Did you? I never got no message. When was this? Oh, right. Oh, no, I must have been on the phone to Darren. Hey? No, it’s not. Yeah, I’m not, I’m using someone else’s phone, on the train.’

  I sigh. Why did I offer him my Nokia, an expensive new one? Will it mean anything to Greg, that he has agreed in advance not to bash it against anything hard? Perhaps there is no mystery of Greg but a substantial mystery of me that needs to be solved. I write, ‘One key to happiness: never finding self boring. Then will never find others (life) boring.’

  I need to go to the toilet, but am reluctant to do so until Greg has given me my phone back. His conversation with Andy does not sound as if it is nearing an end. It is all about Steve: what he said, what was said to him. Andy, I assume, is supplying all the detail; Greg seems only to be responding. Either he’s a bit slow or the information he’s being given is confusing. I hear the fizz of another lager can opening.

  Sighing, I start a new paragraph. ‘Since never given a talk about happiness before, asked Dr H what sort of thing he had in mind.’ I have always known that I was going to include this snippet about Dr Helmandi in my talk. And, actually, his paying clients have a right to know that the owner and manager of The Haven has a completely inside out persective on something as important as happiness. If I don’t tell them, who will?

  ‘Dr H said it was up to me what I said, how I structured the talk, from what angle I approached subject,’ I write. ‘I told him that I have always found an excess of freedom to be a restriction. Did he want a personal list, the things that make me happy, numbered one to ten?’

  I could have done this easily: 1) my husband, 2) my children, 3) the rest of my family, 4) my close friends, 5) my work, 6) holidays that involve sun, beaches, pools and beautiful hotels, 7) having lots of money, 8) art - good books, films, music, paintings, 9) lovely meals and drinks, 10) capitalism – the fact that, three years ago, I invested a substantial amount of money that I’d saved in an equities-based fund, and now every year I get interest on that money that is more than a lot of people’s salaries. My money grows into more money; I find this magical and miraculous. When I asked my financial adviser how exactly it happened, he said ‘Capitalism’.

  I jot down my ten favourite things, because I love making lists, especially nice jolly ones like this.

  ‘I asked Dr Helmandi if he wanted a list of that sort,’ I write beneath my top ten, ‘or if he wanted me to offer advice about how other people might make themselves happy.’ I realise I have lapsed into complete sentences. Maybe that’s better. I can reduce it to notes on the train to Portsmouth, but for the time being, writing it out properly will help with the flow.

  ‘Because the two would be very different animals, I explained to him. What made me happy was unlikely to work for any other individual.’ This is true, I think. Stupid things make me happy. I am happy now because my phone has not yet cut out, and Greg already looks a little more relaxed, slumped in his chair with his feet up on the back of the seat in front.

  ‘In the end, because I needed a bit of context, I asked Dr Helmandi what other people had said, the year before. What sort of talks on happiness had his last troop of eminent guests given?’ I refused to use Dr Helmandi’s word, celebrities, because that suggests, to me at any rate, people who are famous for no good reason. ‘‘Well,” he said, “it was very interesting. They all had one thing in common, which I could never have predicted, gratifying though it was.” Aha, I thought, knowing this would be something I could get my teeth into.’

  I frown, then draw a line through this last sentence. By teeth, I mean my sarcastic, condemnatory, superior teeth; it would be unwise to admit that I was eager to sneer at the one thing all the happiness talks had in common before I even knew what it was. The sort of people who go to The Haven believe in a community ethos – that phrase is all over the brochure – so I probably shouldn’t say that it’s only slightly dim people who go around saying exactly the same things as other slightly dim people.

  ‘Dr Helmandi said, “All the talks, without exception, focused on being, not on having or achieving. People shared how they wanted to be, the changes they felt they needed to make within themselves in order to be happy. For some, it was about becoming more spiritual. For others, it was about making more time for themselves, or slowing down a bit. Some people felt they were on the verge of burning out.’’’

  I drop my pen, frustrated. Greg still has my phone, and my bladder is starting to feel uncomfortably full. Maybe notes would be better after all. At this rate I’m going to end up writing down every single thing Dr Helmandi said to me. I’m wasting my time if I’m hoping that my audience will be alerted, by his hackneyed use of language, to his tired and unprofitable way of thinking. Holistic types like him always put ‘becoming spiritual’ at one end of the scale and ‘burning out’ at the other, just as presenters of property programmes on television use ‘living the dream’ and ‘getting a reality check’ as their north and south poles. But who at The Haven would think of this, and draw the appropriate conclusions?

  I pick up my pen again. ‘Dr Helmandi dismissed having and doing in the same breath. Or rather, his previous speakers did. They all said that achieving things in the world, and having things in the world, did not make them happy. The focus of all last year’s talks, according to Dr Helmandi, was internal, not external. What made the speakers feel fulfilled – the only thing that did – was being a certain way in their hearts and selves. Curiously, it was the same way for all of them: they all said they strove to be unmaterialistic, unambitious, calm, still, accepting, part of nature.’ I pause, as it occurs to me that I might be describing a corpse, a dead person’s way of being. A striking image, but to be on the safe side I’d better not use it. ‘When they succeeded, they were happy; when they failed, they were unhappy.’

  It was lucky Dr Helmandi couldn’t see the expression on
my face at that point in our conversation. The bloody charlatans, I thought to myself, taking The Haven’s money and spouting, in exchange, the sort of new-age claptrap they imagined would please the punters. And I bet it worked, I bet all the symposium’s participants fell for it. What could be more seductive – if you have poor self-esteem, if you need to pay to attend lectures on how to be happy – than hearing a lot of famous people whine about how their big houses and flash cars haven’t solved any of their problems? Money, fame, having lots of people in the world who think you’re fantastic, even people you don’t know -– all of these are things that contribute hugely to a person’s happiness, and anyone who says they don’t is a liar.

  Deciding to let rip, I write down these last few thoughts. This is what I want to say, so this is what I will say. Dr Helmandi won’t approve, but he will still have to pay me. I have the letter of agreement in my file at home, with his signature at the bottom. ‘The irony,’ I write, ‘is that now you all think I’m a terrible, crass person.’ I picture forty-odd bodies, badly dressed, cross-legged on the parquet floor in front of me. Flecked socks that look as if they’re made from muesli. ‘But you’ve got it the wrong way round. The people who say that all you have to do is be calm and still and spiritual – they’re patronising you.’ I decide not to name names, though I know from last year’s programme who the culprits were. ‘Think about it – these people are all well-known and well-off. That’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it, when they profess not to care about worldly success? Of course they care – but they think it’ll be better for you if you don’t, because they believe you’re not like them - you’re not as good as them. They don’t think you’re capable of achieving anything, so they tell you the secret of happiness is not to bother trying – essentially, to give up.

  ‘While it is of course true that if you are happy in and with yourself, it will be harder for circumstances, events and other people to rob you of your self-esteem, it is also true that if you start from a position of high self-esteem, the world’s good opinion and rewards can make you feel even better. If you are fundamentally happy, your happiness is that much more elastic and capacious – there is no limit to how much it can grow. That’s why you should try to achieve, that’s why, if you can afford to, you should buy a beautiful house and go on holiday to a luxury beach resort in Mauritius rather than to a manky caravan park in South Wales. Aim for the better thing every time, and in every sphere of life, big and small.

  ‘As for this distinction between being and doing – it’s totally spurious. What’s the point in being if you aren’t going to do anything in the world? We are all grown-ups here, most of us are well over the age of eighteen.’ I imagine the cross-legged bodies again; yes, they will mainly be middle-aged, and mostly women, I think. Many will recently have been abandoned by husbands or partners. ‘We should have sorted out who we wanted to be a good while ago. If you haven’t already done it, do it quickly, get it over with, and then you can turn your attention away from yourself and towards the outside world, and everything it has to offer.’

  I’ve come to the end of my piece of paper. I didn’t bring a second sheet with me, so I start to write on my Daily Telegraph. I’m gaining momentum and I don’t want to stop. ‘Get as much as you can out of life – love, friendship, money, fame – the works. Instead of paying through the nose to come here and get a pseudo-spiritual pat on the head from people who secretly despise you, spend your money on nice new clothes and make-up, perfume, a diamond ring, a Ferrari, throwing a brilliant party. Take unpaid leave from work and canoe across the English channel.

  ‘Do you want to know how I know that I’m a truly happy person? It’s because the only things I want, now, that I haven’t got, are the luxury extras. That’s because I’ve got the basics sorted. And to stop wanting – not to want anything any more – that’s my worst nightmare and it should be yours too. So, I would quite like a team of live-in servants and a home large enough to accommodate them in rooms that are adjacent to but separate from the main house. I would like to have a twenty-five-metre heated swimming pool in my garden, and I would also like a full-time pool attendant, since I don’t want to have to faff around with water filters myself.

  ‘If all this sounds shallow and frivolous, it’s only because I am already completely, utterly, happy with who I am, my way of being. Which doesn’t mean I think I’m a wholly good and ideal person. On the contrary: I can be a complete bitch, as I’m sure you have no trouble imagining.’ I will pause here so that they can laugh. ‘But I suppose what I’m saying is that I am the best person that it’s feasible for me to be, and I decided a long time ago that I wasn’t going to be attempting any more unrealistic changes to myself.’

  I am tempted to punch the air, so pleased am I with my little thesis. ‘I’ve done well professionally,’ I write, ‘but I could still do better – and only if I surpass my previous levels of achievement, only if I out-perform myself, will I gain greater recognition, my swimming pool and servants, and greater happiness.’

  I can’t wait any longer to go to the toilet. Greg is still talking to Andy about Steve’s likely perambulations. As I stand up, he looks at me and points at the phone, as if to remind me he’s still got it. I wonder if he will keep an eye on my handbag if I leave it on my seat. I decide not to take the risk, but I point at my notes and The Haven’s brochure and whisper ‘Mind these for me?’

  He gives me a thumbs-up. I grab my bag and walk to the toilet, smiling. So far this journey has been very productive. I have written my talk, and Greg and I have reached an amicable understanding.

  I wash my hands with a small round lavender soap I have brought from home (because train soap is always so foul) and dry them on my jumper because there are no paper towels and I don’t want to touch the filthy cloth towel that dangles from its holder like a baby’s sagging nappy.

  I return to the carriage and blink several times, looking quickly left and right, like a character from an absurd cartoon. Greg isn’t there. My papers have gone – there is nothing on my seat or on the table. And his plastic bag full of beer cans is gone too. He’s stolen my talk on happiness, and my phone. The bastard. I can’t believe it. Why would he do that? Why? Notes for a talk on happiness have no street value. It makes no sense.

  I vow to hunt him down, which will be easy, as he must still be on the train. I know this route very well, know that there have been no stops since Greg’s theft of my possessions. I march in the direction of the buffet in search of a member of staff, but find myself walking into the toilet again, the same one I’ve just left. Once the door is locked, I burst into tears. I can’t let anyone see me like this. Greg has deliberately stolen my things. He’s a savage; that was clear from the start. I should have moved, sat somewhere else. Anyone else would have. I’ve always been the biggest idiot I know.

  Greg is still on the train, which means there is a chance we will see one another again, and I won’t risk him seeing me with tears streaming down my face. Now that he’s done this to me, the only way I can play it is to pretend I don’t care. Maybe I’ll pretend it was some sort of trap – that I wanted him to steal my possessions in order to prove some theory I was working on, for my talk. Something about the lower orders.

  Oh, God, my talk. I think about the notes I made, my stolen diatribe, and realize there is no way I can say those things to those people. Just because I believe it doesn’t mean I can say it.

  Has Greg read my notes?

  Once I’ve stopped crying, I cover the red blotches on my face with concealer and unlock the toilet door. I see the ticket inspector at the far end of my carriage, and start to walk towards him, but I never get that far. I am stopped by a sight that I find even more surprising than what I am already describing to myself as Greg’s strange and motiveless betrayal of me. My things are back on the table, including my phone, and Greg is back in his seat. His carrier bag – now empty, for he is on to his last can of beer – is at his feet.

  ‘Where…you…?
’

  ‘Cheers,’ he says, as if there is nothing wrong. ‘What do I owe you for the call?’

  ‘You took my things away,’ I say. ‘I thought you’d stolen them.’

  He looks at me as if I am crazy. ‘I went to the bog,’ he says. ‘I took your stuff with me, so no one’d nab it. You told me to keep an eye on it.’

  ‘Oh.’ I can’t think of anything to say.

  ‘How can I keep an eye if I’m in the bog? So I took it with me.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I sit down and turn my face away from him. I feel as if I might cry again, and that would be embarrassing. He was looking after my things more conscientiously than I would ever have expected him to. But why hadn’t he waited until I got back? I was less than five minutes; he could have waited. Didn’t he anticipate my coming back and being worried? The issue is not resolved, at least not as far as I am concerned.

  ‘Are you that woman?’ Greg asks.

  I could say, ‘Depends which woman you mean’ but I can’t be bothered. I say yes.

  ‘I read what you wrote about happiness,’ he says. ‘On the bog.’

  I look at him. ‘And? What did you think?’

  ‘Thought it was good.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say.

  ‘Do you really want a swimming pool and servants?’

  I tell him that I do.

  ‘Reckon you’ll get it? Ever?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ I say sharply. Secretly, I am certain that I will one day, but I don’t want to appear presumptuous.