The Terrible Privacy Of Maxwell Sim

Score. What time was that on? 4.40, I think. Yes, that would be about right. Kick-off at three o’clock, game over at 4.45. Then the results would start coming up on that little automatic typewriter thing. What did they call it? The teleprinter, or something. God, 1960s technology! We’ve come a long way since then. How old would I have been when I started watching that – seven, eight? I bet every eight-year-old boy in the country was doing the same thing, sitting in their front room at teatime on a Saturday afternoon, glued to the telly. I wonder how many of them had their fathers with them at the time? Did my father sit down and watch it with me? Well, come on, Emma, what do you think? Take a wild guess. Of course he didn’t, the miserable fucking bastard. He was too busy sitting next door in the dining room reading T. S. Eliot and his String Quartets. Or planning when he was going to have his next wank.’

– Come on, Max, have a bit of sympathy for your father.

‘What the – … ? Did you just answer me back?’

– Proceed on the current motorway.

‘OK, I’m turning you off for a bit now. I think you’re getting too big for your boots.’

‘Better off without her, for the time being. Till I need her again, anyway. Not much chance of getting lost at the moment. What do I want to go to Aberdeen for, anyway? There’s no way I’m getting on a ferry this afternoon. Look at this weather, for one thing. What I should really do is go back to Alison. Turn round at the next junction, go straight back to her house, apologize. Poor woman. Pig of a husband cheating on her. What would she say, if I turned up looking like this? She’d understand. Trained psychotherapist, after all. Shoulder to cry on. That’s what I need, really. Someone to talk to about … all this. All this stuff. Everything that’s come out, in the last couple of weeks. Bit too much to cope with, really. Bit much to take in all at once. We all need somebody to talk to. How did you think you were ever going to manage it, Donald? Nine months at sea, was it? – ten, something like that? With no human company at all, just a radio transmitter that barely worked. Unimaginable. And, of course, you didn’t manage it in the end. Was that what tipped you over the edge, finally – the loneliness? The terrible privacy, as Clive called it? I’m not surprised. Nobody could be expected to handle solitude like that, and why should you be any different? You’re human like the rest of them. But you should have turned back when you had the chance. When you first realized that the boat was never going to make it. I don’t know, though, maybe things were already too far gone by then. Perhaps what you should have done, that day, when you realized the mess you’d got yourself into, instead of putting it all down on paper and trying to work out the way forward yourself … perhaps you should have used the radio, made contact with your wife, somehow. I bet she would have told you to turn round and come back.

‘Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.

‘Still, you know – for me, it isn’t too late. I should phone someone now, shouldn’t I, while I still have the chance? I need to talk this stuff over. Who shall I phone? Lindsay, Caroline, Alison? What do you think? Poppy, even?

‘Lindsay, I suppose. She’ll have the most practical take on it. Yeah – Lindsay. She’s the one. Let’s go for it.

‘Ha! Battery’s dead. Run down completely. I saw it was getting pretty low last night. Meant to charge it when I got to Alison’s. Maybe I can find somewhere to charge it later.

‘Anyway, it’s out of action for now – just like your radio transmitter, at the time when you needed it most.

‘There’ll be call boxes at the next service station, I suppose.

‘Oh, fuck it. It wouldn’t have made any difference anyway.’

– In one mile, heading left at the roundabout, take first exit.

‘Ah, welcome back.’

– In one mile, heading left at the roundabout, take first exit.

‘I heard you the first time.’

– In one mile, heading left at the roundabout, take first exit.

‘All right, there’s no need to nag. If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s a nagging woman.’

– In a quarter of a mile, heading left at the roundabout, take first exit.

‘I’m sorry, Emma. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. Not feeling my best, to be honest. Haven’t eaten since last night. Driving around the outskirts of Dundee while pissed – not a good look. On top of that, trying to come to terms with the fact that my whole … existence, apparently, is nothing more than a horrific mistake on the part of my parents, and my father in particular.’

– Heading left at the roundabout, take first exit.

‘So – thanks, Dad, for clearing that up. Just in case there was the slightest chance I might ever start feeling good about myself. Not that it was ever going to be very likely, in the near future, but it’s good to know you’ve knocked it on the head anyway. Just when I was starting to feel that my life couldn’t get any more disappointing, I now learn that I should never really have had one in the first place. So, there’s something new to put on my gravestone: “Here lies Maxwell Sim, the most unnecessary person ever born.”’

– Straight on at the roundabout, take second exit.

‘Is that how I’ll have to think of myself, then, for the rest of my life? A non-person? The square root of minus one?’

– Next right.

‘Or is this somebody’s subtle way of telling Maxwell Sim that he isn’t wanted any more? That perhaps it’s time for him to disappear?’

– Straight on at the roundabout, take second exit.

‘OK, I need to think about this. Leave me alone for a while, will you, Emma? Just give me a little space?’

*

‘Now then.’

– Proceed for about one mile on the current road.

‘I think the time is fast approaching. The time when … the time when …’

– In a quarter of a mile, heading straight on at the roundabout, take second exit.