Human Remains

me to launch into a process that involved activity. No: what I wanted was the absence of activity. I wanted to cease. I wanted to lie still and let the world carry on. Nobody said the word DEATH but it was in my head. It was the same thing as LIFE. For some reason, they were the same thing, linked by an invisible band, the end and the beginning and the end, an endless circle going round and round, a wheel. If I was not afraid of life, then I was not afraid of death. They were the same.
    I think they had been on the verge of discharging me at that point, but instead they moved me from a medical ward to a psychiatric ward.

Colin
     
     
    You want to know how it all started, don’t you? You want to hear how I went from a mind-numbing adult education course in how to make friends and influence people, to steering strangers down a path of self-destruction?
    This is what happened.
    In the beginning, there were three: Eleanor, Justine, Rachelle.
    Eleanor was studying Italian in the room next door at the university, on a Thursday night. I saw her and wanted her. She had long hair that was heavy and dark and looked as though it would feel silky if you touched it. I would go early to the class and hang around in the refectory first, hoping to see her. She was always alone. She didn’t sit with others, even the other people from her class. Sometimes she would arrive half an hour before the class started and sit in the refectory with her textbooks, reading through something in them, or looking over a printout of what was probably her latest assignment. I sat at the back and watched her: the way her shoulders hunched, the way she sat, her legs crossed at the ankle under the plastic chair.
    And I kept seeing Eleanor, each Thursday evening. Each time I saw her I wanted her a little bit more. The hardest part of the process, of course, was making that initial contact. Having the guts to go up and talk to her. I asked Nigel, making subtle changes to the situation since the whole point of the class was not soliciting for sex but rather for business. So I asked him about cold calling (which I’d cleverly worked out was probably the workplace equivalent).
    He told me that people buy from human beings. Make the initial contact personal, open and friendly. Think about how you talk to your friends, Nigel said. Think about the tone of voice, the posture, the way you smile at them.
    Easier said than done, of course.
    If you don’t ask, you don’t get, said Nigel. Quitters are never winners. The only thing stopping you is you.
    In the end, I just sat down in front of her one Thursday in the refectory. ‘My name is Colin,’ I said, offering her my hand.
    She looked startled, but shook my hand nonetheless. ‘Eleanor,’ she said.
    ‘What class are you taking?’ I asked.
    ‘Italian,’ she said. ‘Room six.’
    Up close, she was even more attractive: dark eyes, a clear, pale complexion. I cleared my throat. ‘Is it any good?’
    ‘It’s OK.’
    It wasn’t going particularly well so far. She was holding her coffee cup with both hands, as though she was cold. I mirrored her position, even though I didn’t have a drink to hold. I searched around desperately for something to say, something intelligent, something engaging.
    ‘
Il miglior fabbro
,’ I said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Eliot. It’s his epigram to Ezra Pound, for
The Waste Land
. “
Il Miglior Fabbro
” – he made it better, he was the better craftsman. I believe that’s what it means, in any case.’
    ‘Oh, right,’ she said. Then, ‘We’re still on “Please can you direct me to the railway station?”’
    I smiled at her. ‘Well, you can keep Eliot in mind for the future, then.’
    She seemed to be relaxing, if her posture was anything to go by. She moved one of her hands under the table and I did the same.
    ‘Do you live locally?’ I said. It sounded lame. Why was this so bloody difficult?
    ‘Just in town,’ she said.
    ‘Will you come for a drink with me, after class?’
    The question, so carefully prepared and phrased – no ‘I wonder if you’d like to’ or ‘I don’t suppose you’re free…’ – just a definite, firm, confident question. She could only say no, after all.
    She looked startled. I thought she was going to refuse, so I tried again. ‘I’ll meet you outside, at half-past nine.’
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Alright, then.’
    That was the moment when I knew it was going to work. You can’t have doubt when you’re trying to bring people