Free Inch Levels by Neil Hegarty Page B

means of quelling the spirit of adventure. Any urge he actually did – honestly did – have to be in the thick of things: naturally, life took care of that. He saw where such urges led and he began to recast his dreams, his inclinations.
    Now, though, lying under his blue NHS coverlet, with an abundance of time to think, to consider and reconsider, Patrick was coming around to the idea that his spirit of adventure had always been a myth.
    ‘An explorer?’ Sarah scoffed – and there it was; perhaps she was right after all. He had always been comfortable with maps, charts, atlases, with pocket encyclopaediae of Flags of the World: more comfortable than actually going to any of these places.
    More desiccated, perhaps, that he had allowed: and now in his bed, he closed his eyes tightly.
    There was a postcard on the corkboard hanging on the wall to the left of the bed: a lurid affair, a cartoon map of a Greek island portrayed in blues and hot, mustard yellows. ‘Which island is that?’ he had asked the nurse when it arrived in the post, peering at it (this was one of his bad days) through eyes that were yellow too.
    The nurse peered too. ‘It’s from – Jim, or John, or – I can’t really read it. Does a Jim or a John make sense?’
    ‘Which island is it?’ he asked again, sharply; and the nurse flashed a glance.
    ‘Zante, it says.’
    He knew Zante. He knew all the Greek islands: had set himself to learn them all, long ago: to learn all their names and all their little island capitals. In the same way as he had learned all the capitals of the world, all the flags of the world – long ago, to please his teachers, to please himself.
    More dry, yes: more desiccated than he had ever allowed.
    ‘Now where’s Zante?’ the nurse asked, thawing a little. And he was able to tell her. And later, to tell himself that he was nothing more than a Casaubon, comfortable with his lists and his reams and his charts. More comfortable than he would ever be with real life. He had walked the fields at Inch Levels that day with Margaret: that was all the real life he could stomach. No other examples were needed.
    Not an explorer, then. More like one of those pond-skating insects that stars, from time to time, in the less expensive natural history programmes.
    An inglorious demotion, he knew. But he also knew that it made more sense.
    They would glide around exploring their environment, these creatures: they were deft, they never punctured the surface of the water, they observed and regarded and absorbed. Their antennae were never idle. Human explorers saw more of their world, but a pond-skater saw everything.
    It experienced perfection.
    Easy to imagine himself as just such a creature.
    In the interests of balance, of course, he had been obliged – ‘I’m obliged,’ he told them – to give Mr Porter and his adolescent pals the other side of the story, there in the stuffy classroom under the eaves.
    ‘Obligated, sir,’ said one of these cronies, from the front row of seats.
    ‘Obligated?’
    ‘It’s what the Americans say, sir. It’s what my brother says they say,’ the student said, drawing himself up a little. ‘He’s an attorney, sir, in Philadelphia.’
    ‘Oh, an attorney , who is obligated from afar to correct my English,’ Patrick told him drily, and the class laughed. ‘Well, there you are now. Well, boys, I’m obligated to give you the other side of the story. Listen up, Mr Porter, you’ll like this.’
    And he told them. About the privileges accorded explorers down the years. To shed experiences as rapidly as they are acquired. To move on, to have others enter the space that has been created, in order to set this new world to rights. To allow horror and degradation to ensue: think, he told them, of the history of America in the aftermath of the Mayflower ’s arrival on the scene. Think of the Vikings landing on Irish shores, the Spaniards coming upon the Incas, the British arrival in Tasmania and the Maori