A Year in Fife Park Read Free Page A

nut. 100% so. Lived in the dark, died your hair semi ginger, wore the worst clothes, smashed up your guitar, and had strange issues. So... it’s all down to interpretation.’
    It’s hard to argue with that comeback. For one thing, it’s all true – so it would be kind of an uphill struggle. For another, he’s right - this is my interpretation. Who else would I look to? Please understand, I’m not making any great claims to my own mental health, but if it’s really all down to interpretation we won’t be using Craig as the benchmark for fucking apple-pie ordinary.
    True, I did smash up my guitar, but not until much later in the year. Also true, I dyed my hair, with limited success, and this had a lot to do with the guitar getting smashed. But taken out of context, that gives kind of a false impression. It makes it sound like I was being pretentious and post-punk, but actually coming off like an asshole. In fact, I skipped the facade entirely – I was being a straight-up asshole, with no subterfuge. It was an emotional time, and I handled it with my usual aplomb. But I’ll get to that.
    Guilty as charged on most of the other stuff, as well. The clothes, for example. I was going through kind of a flamboyant phase that I’d nurtured during first year. It wasn’t about fitting in with any social group, or any style as such. I didn’t ascribe to any ethos regarding dress sense or personal politics, and if I’m honest it’s probably because I didn’t really know how. I had a lot of half-formed opinions; some of them might even have been interpreted as ‘strange issues’.
    Unlike Frank, I wasn’t out of control because I thought life was more fun that way.  I was just one of life’s bad drivers, swerving all over the road, desperate to be in control. Fuck, I wasn’t thrilled to be all angles at all times. I was happy, but I was frantic. I was happy, but I didn’t think things were right. They felt like they were, but I knew that they weren’t.
    How can I even describe that feeling? I’m looking to get it back; I don’t even know what it is. It felt like calm, while I was raging round it.
    Craig doesn’t think this book tells the truth.
    ‘ It’s all down to interpretation, ’ he says.
    He must be right, because I think it does.

Raspberry Canes, Nineteen Eighty-Six.
    You maybe think I’m a miserable person already, because of how I introduced myself. I’m actually kind of fun most of the time. At least, I hope so. Regardless, I’m pretty easy to entertain. And if the last couple of thousand words haven’t clued you in already, I’m pretty easily distracted, as well.
    For example, I’m going to talk about something that happened over twenty years ago in this chapter, which even the most patient of us would admit is almost completely unnecessary. On the other hand, I explain things best by points of reference.
    Where am I? Literally, right now, I’m thirty, I’m at my desk, in my flat, in Edinburgh, and I’m trying to remember being twenty, because I think there was something worth knowing back then. Something worth feeling, at any rate. You remember how I came in on that? Now, I know what you’re thinking, if you’re thinking at all, and if you’re anything like me.
    How do I know that what I am searching for was ever really there?
    You’re wondering, maybe, if I’ve deluded myself about the wonderful year I spent in Fife Park. Maybe you’ve even seen Fife Park for yourself. Maybe, you’re thinking, I’m just wearing my rose tinted glasses.
    That’s a good point. Sometimes, even I’m given to wondering if I was ever really as happy as I remember. After all, it’s been a while. And Oscar Wilde famously said that ‘Nothing ages like happiness.’ What if I’m only remembering the good, and discarding the bad?
    I’m quite sure that’s partly true. I don’t see that as too much of a problem. Good riddance to the shitty times, I say. There were a few of them, after all. But I’m also