Authors: Matt Greene
Ostrich: A Novel (30 page)
Dear Mum,
Right now I’m really angry with you. However, I don’t think I always will be. Therefore, I don’t want you to worry.
I was here; I am there.
With love and thanks,
Alex
P.S. As official executioner of my will, I have two things for you to do:
1) My hamster is to go to Chloe Gower. Please give it to her. Moreover, tell her his name is Richey.
2) Go to my bedroom. In the tissue box on my bedside table you will find four secret compartments. One of these secret compartments has a picture of a monkey whose name is Coco on it. Inside this compartment is an object. It is something that I once guarded with my life. It is for you and Dad.
I
t’s funny how the world looks out of a plane window. It’s pretty much exactly like a paint-by-numbers puzzle. On the way out to La Rochelle it was foggy and moreover nighttime so I didn’t get to see very much at all, but now, flying back into Luton on only my second ever airplane, I have plenty of time to look and think as the ground rises through the clouds. A minute ago the stewardesses came round and told everyone to get ready for landing, which meant stowing their tray tables and putting their chairs in an upright position (i.e., upright) and also making sure that the shutters on the windows were up. However, they didn’t have to tell me the last bit. I don’t understand how anyone could ever have their shutter down on a flight. Why would you read a magazine when you’re thousands of feet in the air and there’s a window to look out of?
I’ve never been very good at art, because I always draw
what I think I should see instead of what I actually do, so right now I’m trying extra hard to really look. However, the closer we get to the fields, the more I see a patchwork quilt. If you think about it (which I’m only really just starting to do), it’s weird how neat everything is. All of the fields are color-coded and separated with straight lines into regular quadrilaterals (which is the plural of a square and a rectangle). The hedgerows are dark and permanent-looking. For some reason they remind me of the time I started doing a crossword in pen before I’d whispered in the answers first in pencil and I got all the way to the second-to-last clue before I realized I’d made a mistake. It’s scary how someone obviously had the confidence to divide the world up like this, with such definite boundaries, especially because they won’t know until the end whether they were right or wrong. I don’t think I could ever be that certain about anything. It’s like the Bolognese and the Ragú. Sometimes one thing just becomes another.
I look over at my parents, who are asleep in adjacent seats, which is a better way of saying side by side. Mum’s head is on Dad’s shoulder.
There is only one thing in the world that I’m certain about. It’s in my pocket, and when we get home I’ll put it somewhere safer still.
It’s a one-Franc coin, and it is mine.
To my parents, to whom I owe everything
(at a relatively competitive rate of interest)
Some essential thank-yous: my editor Jennifer Smith (for her guidance and expertise), my agent Gordon Wise (for his faith and wisdom), my friends and family (for their support and scutiny, in particular those who read and commented on early drafts: Tom Peters, Jonathan Hollis, Hannah Greene, and Darren Richman, who once sent me an email without which I probably wouldn’t be writing this), my parents (who’ve really earned their dedication), Michael Mitchell (for his time and medical insight), and Imogen Haines (whose contribution cannot be measured between parentheses).
PHOTO: © IMOGEN HAINES
M
ATT
G
REENE
was born in Watford, England, in 1985 and studied English Language at the University of Sussex, where he edited
The Badger
newspaper. He is the co-author of four plays, including the Edinburgh Fringe sell-out farce
The Straight Man
. This is his first book.