Altered States (14 page)

‘Come with me,’ I said. We walked to a quieter part of the bar and found a table to sit at.

‘Close your eyes,’ I asked, and she did. ‘Now imagine your life as a timeline stretching back into the past and out into the future. Can you do that?’ She nodded. ‘Now point to the past.’ She raised a hand and pointed over her shoulder behind her. Some people point left, some point down, some point in really whacky directions, but behind is most common.

‘Good,’ I continued. ‘Now, move backwards slowly along your timeline, until you reach a point where you were not worried about being good enough.’ I gave her a moment to do this. ‘Are you there?’ She nodded. ‘Good. Now, tell me, how good are you at journalism now?’

She looked perplexed. ‘I’m six. I don’t even know what it is.’

‘Good. Now move forward, slowly, until you arrive back at the present.’ I gave her a moment. ‘Think about how good you are now. Are you better?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good. Now, finally, move forward a little further, into the future. Tell me, do you see yourself having learnt even more? Having grown better still? Can you see that?’

‘If there is no need to be limited by the abilities of your six-year-old self then there is no need to be limited by
any
of your past selves. They are just other people, and as Bannister understood, there is no need to be limited by others people’s achievements.’

She took a sip of her wine and I took a gulp of my beer.

‘I’m not saying anyone can do anything. That’s patently not true. But the message is this: don’t focus on
limitations
, focus on the
task
. Focus on improving; a little bit at a time.’ She nodded pensively. ‘Do you think that is something you would want to do?’ I gave her the option rather than an instruction.

‘So, what do
you
do?’

I finished up my drink and stood up. ‘I’ve just done it,’ I said, and I offered her a formal handshake. ‘Good luck with your course,’ I said.

Then I left.

I know this may come across as a little creepy and mysterious, and in a way that’s exactly how it’s supposed to be. A little mystique adds potency to the message. She will carry this anecdote with her, maybe tell other people about this time she met a weird guy in a bar, and it will only grow stronger. Much more so than if she’d visited her GP for words of wisdom and all the time was wondering if five minutes ago the doctor had had two fingers up somebody’s rectum. That takes the edge off.

I don’t know if it made a difference in her case, whether she was successful in her goals. I don’t even know her name. But I like to think it helped.

And so that was me. That’s what I did. Odd, I know.

Things continued this way for a couple of years. I became a transitory figure in many people’s lives. Usually just a few hours – but a few hours can make all the difference. It can make people look at the world differently. React to it more productively. It can change them. Just a little. For the better.

The
One
.

The One

I lived in a second floor apartment for a while when I was working on the Hide system. The second bedroom was employed as an office, the window of which looked out over a municipal park. I used to sit at my desk most evenings, half working, half watching people walking by. After a while you start to recognise people, the regulars. Particularly the dog-walkers. Partly because of their regularity, but mostly because there was more to identify with. They came as a set: human and beast.

One particular young woman came by mid-evening most days with an old tired-looking golden retriever plodding slowly along by her side. She piqued my interest because she was always reading; strolling along slowly, with her nose in a book, whilst her dog ferreted lazily in the grass. I thought this was odd. Dog owners usually interact with their dogs when out walking. She didn’t seem to. I wondered if maybe the dog wasn’t hers.

The other thing I thought was that she was pretty cute – as if you didn’t see
that
coming – at least from the distance I was sitting at. Men have this tendency to bestow angelic beauty upon any woman if she is (a) a long way away; (b) facing the other direction but has nice hair; or (c) on the other end of the phone. The assumption of beauty is a dangerous one, but it gets us through the day – and long conversations with call-centre staff.

I’m ashamed to admit that I momentarily considered taking up jogging and doing laps of the park every evening, such that I might bump into her; but I figured that would be tantamount to stalking.

A few weeks after my obsession had begun, I was picking up my post from the mailboxes over the road and who should turn up to collect hers? Mystery dog-walker.

She had been living in an adjacent apartment block all along. Now, the first narcissistic thought that flashed through my mind was that I was right about the dog she walked not being hers, because they didn’t allow pets in these apartments. And off the back of this smug self-congratulation came my opening gambit, which can only be categorised as suicidally inspired.

‘So, no dog today then?’ I announced.

What the fuck was that? Great job, Aaron. You might just as well have introduced yourself as the voyeuristic pervert from C204 and confided which of her outfits you most enjoyed observing her in! (Dark blue denim jacket, brown skirt and suede boots, in case you were wondering).

I’ll save you the transcript of the floundering conversation that followed, suffice to say that she obviously got a kick out of meeting voyeuristic perverts because two hours later we were sharing a meal at the Chili’s restaurant down the road. I had already eaten that evening but I wasn’t going to mention that when she suggested we go for some food. At least I think that’s what she did. She said she’d just come back from a long session at the gym and was starving. I recommended Chili’s and that was that.

Anyway, so I had the chance to get to know her slightly more intimately than as a passing pedestrian. And, as we made our way down the street, the first thing that struck me was that she had an infectious spark of fun about her. Lots of people come across as bubbly, but it’s often just a façade. Hers was a genuine manifestation of her optimism, which is a very rare quality and one I was beginning to find incredibly attractive.

I remember exactly what we ate for that meal. For starters we shared a
Triple Dipper Combo
. Then Gemma had
Chicken and Portobello Sizzling Fajita
, plus a
Caesar Salad
and
Loaded Mashed Potatoes
on the side; whilst I went for the more modest
Jalapeño Bacon Burger
with
Homestyle Fries
. By the time I was done I felt like I’d ingested a small housing estate, but apparently I just wasn’t going to escape without also devouring at least some of a
Chocolate Chip Paradise Pie®
. Fortunately, Gemma did a good job in helping out with the pie – as did the Long Island Ice Teas in a lubricating capacity.

Good job this girl was a gym-fanatic, I figured, because she certainly knew how to eat. She must have read my thoughts or been overly self-conscious about her feast, as she offered an explanation.

‘I used to be in the gymnastics team at school,’ she declared. ‘You wouldn’t believe just how insanely hard parents push their kids here. From beauty pageants to Little League baseball; which, by the way, is a national televised event – for fricking kids. So, being a gymnast, where body size is everything, I basically wasn’t allowed to eat for the first sixteen years of my life. So I’m making up for it now.’ She smiled. Every time she smiled the little scar above her lip became slightly cuter. As did the slightly crooked tooth which dented her lower lip. It’s those little imperfections that make a girl so perfect.

During the meal I learned that she was a teacher. And I discovered that the dog she walked was for an elderly friend of the family who lived a couple of blocks away and who was now wheelchair-bound.

After our mammoth eating session – which might just as well have consisted of an actual mammoth – Gemma took her cue to visit the bathroom. This was when it all slotted into place. This was when something fairly obvious finally dawned on me. And it meant that I knew how I could help her; that my question
was
relevant. When she returned, I popped it.

Hold on
, I thought –
I
was supposed to be the mind-reader around here
.

‘I want...’ she said, finally deigning to give me an answer, and she leaned in closer. ‘I want you to stop worrying about
other
people.’

You will not understand just how that answer blew me away. Partly because it was not self-centred, like everyone else’s had been. Correction, not everyone else’s answer had been self-centred. Some people said they wanted world peace, and such like, but they didn’t mean it. I’m not saying everyone doesn’t mean it, but they didn’t. They just felt that was the kind of answer they should give.

Her answer was not self-centred, but, more importantly, it took me aback for another reason. It meant she understood me. That ... had never happened before.

The walk home was silent to begin with. Not an awkward silence, a companionable one. I was considering the evening’s events, which was not wise. Considering and cocktails should not be mixed. In this case it led me to decide what I was going to say next. And what I was going to say next was just about the most dangerous thing I could possibly say. If I ever wanted to see this girl again – which I did – then steering well clear of this subject should have been considered absolutely essential. And yet something made me feel sure I could talk about it. I’d only known her a few hours, but I felt it was safe.

‘Gemma?’ I queried.

‘Yes?’

‘How long have you been making yourself sick?’ I knew the answer of course. It was just a way of bringing up the subject – so to speak.

‘Because of how silly this is, and because of how nobody
realises
how silly it is.’

‘What do you mean?’

She stopped so that she could look at me.

‘Okay. We just went out and ate a huge amount of unhealthy food.’ She indicated the quantity with her arms. ‘Like lots of people do all the time. And that’s okay, right?’

‘Good. So, if you are allowing people to indulge in this way, then tell me this. At the end of the meal, which is better: to allow frightening quantities of saturated fat, salt, artificial additives – not to mention two-thousand calories – to be absorbed into your body and metabolised; or to flush the whole lot out of your system?’

‘But...’

‘No buts.’ She started walking again. ‘It’s a no-brainer. And I resent the fact that people consider that anyone who does this has a psychological problem. If someone goes out and gets absolutely wasted on alcohol and ends up throwing-up all that poison into the gutter, they aren’t pitied and sent for therapy. Apparently, it’s called having a good time. Everyone knows that it’s not good for your health, but every now and then it’s considered acceptable. So where’s the difference?’

‘Yes. When I was a gymnast it was drummed into us that we couldn’t weigh an ounce. But fourteen-year-old gymnasts have problems just like any other girl, or boy, and sometimes those problems require ice-cream and cookies and doughnuts to solve them. So we had to deal with it.