The Pen Friend Read Free Page A

identical to another thing, then it would occupy the same space as that thing, and be that thing. And because God sees everything, we may be sure He has enumerated those blades of grass, and every blade of grass in the world. And in a like manner He knows all the names that Man has given to things, in every language, in order to distinguish one thing from another.
    The trees swayed in the breeze like a line of galleons and I thought of the blue strip of sea in The Yellow Bungalow where ships of the Armada might well have foundered. Of course it was a melodeon, I said, and I could hear my father playing it on Sundays, ‘Nearer My God to Thee’, I said, with the slightly wonky treble notes shimmering above the dark bass, and my reverie was interrupted when my father said, Gabriel, are you listening to me?
    So I’m writing this with the Wearever and I can feel the pen writing. The tip of the steel overlay of the nib is slightly upturned, allowing the gold point underneath some play, while keeping it in check when too much pressure is applied. If this were a car, you’d say it had a comfortable suspension. The writing has a spring to it, a bounce which I found difficult to control at first, accustomed as I was to the rigid point of a ballpoint pen or rollerball. But from the beginning I’ve enjoyed using the Wearever, writing whatever came into my head, practising my signature with it just for the feel of the nib and the measured flow of ink on paper. I’m writing this with the Wearever, I’d write, nice Wearever nib to use Wherever wears forever, before moving on to more elaborate nonsense – the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog, colourless green ideas sleep furiously. Or, driven by fountain-pen-induced nostalgia, I’d carefully delineate my name and address, as written in my school copy-books a good half-century ago, Gabriel Conway, 41 Ophir Gardens, Belfast, County Antrim, Ireland, Europe, The Northern Hemisphere, The World, The Solar System, The Universe , and wonder, as I did then, what came next in that hierarchy. Or did I write Northern Ireland ? I can’t remember. Wherever.
    That’s all very well, you said, but you can’t expect everyone to know what you know when you’re looking at a painting. And what do you know of what I knew when I looked at that painting? The Yellow Bungalow , whatever you want to call it. Don’t you think The Yellow Bungalow is just a bit too easy, too descriptive? Why not The Cat and Fishes ? What does it matter, if you’re looking at it with your own eyes? you said. You bring yourself to a painting, you said.
    So what brought you to write to me again? You remember our letters? We used to write to one another even if we were to meet that day, letters as addenda to whatever we’d discussed or fought about the night before, letters as agenda for the next day, adumbrations of the pros and cons, retractions or advancements of positions taken, communiqués that opened up the possibility of renegotiation or compromise; for we believed that written words were sometimes a more accurate record of our thoughts and feelings, because more pondered, whereas spoken words are often ill-advised or ill-considered, and once uttered cannot be retracted; but letters can be drafted and redrafted until they sit better with our thought than the words which first come to mind; moreover, as we write, trying to articulate ourselves, unexpected thoughts sometimes occur to us, that were not part of our original intention, and we change our minds as we write, arriving at conclusions wholly other than those we first envisaged, so that writing to each other, we discovered what we thought. We were the authors and protagonists of an epistolic novel. Meeting in the XL Café, we would read each other’s letters in each other’s presence, silently, as a long-established couple might read the morning papers. Then we would discuss our written statements, seeking clarification on this point or that, like