365 Read online

  James Robertson

  365

  Stories

  Contents

  JANUARY

  1 January

  2 January

  3 January

  4 January

  5 January

  6 January

  7 January

  8 January

  9 January

  10 January

  11 January

  12 January

  13 January

  14 January

  15 January

  16 January

  17 January

  18 January

  19 January

  20 January

  21 January

  22 January

  23 January

  24 January

  25 January

  26 January

  27 January

  28 January

  29 January

  30 January

  31 January

  FEBRUARY

  1 February

  2 February

  3 February

  4 February

  5 February

  6 February

  7 February

  8 February

  9 February

  10 February

  11 February

  12 February

  13 February

  14 February

  15 February

  16 February

  17 February

  18 February

  19 February

  20 February

  21 February

  22 February

  23 February

  24 February

  25 February

  26 February

  27 February

  28 February

  29 February

  MARCH

  1 March

  2 March

  3 March

  4 March

  5 March

  6 March

  7 March

  8 March

  9 March

  10 March

  11 March

  12 March

  13 March

  14 March

  15 March

  16 March

  17 March

  18 March

  19 March

  20 March

  21 March

  22 March

  23 March

  24 March

  25 March

  26 March

  27 March

  28 March

  29 March

  30 March

  31 March

  APRIL

  1 April

  2 April

  3 April

  4 April

  5 April

  6 April

  7 April

  8 April

  9 April

  10 April

  11 April

  12 April

  13 April

  14 April

  15 April

  16 April

  17 April

  18 April

  19 April

  20 April

  21 April

  22 April

  23 April

  24 April

  25 April

  26 April

  27 April

  28 April

  29 April

  30 April

  MAY

  1 May

  2 May

  3 May

  4 May

  5 May

  6 May

  7 May

  8 May

  9 May

  10 May

  11 May

  12 May

  13 May

  14 May

  15 May

  16 May

  17 May

  18 May

  19 May

  20 May

  21 May

  22 May

  23 May

  24 May

  25 May

  26 May

  27 May

  28 May

  29 May

  30 May

  31 May

  JUNE

  1 June

  2 June

  3 June

  4 June

  5 June

  6 June

  7 June

  8 June

  9 June

  10 June

  11 June

  12 June

  13 June

  14 June

  15 June

  16 June

  17 June

  18 June

  19 June

  20 June

  21 June

  22 June

  23 June

  24 June

  25 June

  26 June

  27 June

  28 June

  29 June

  30 June

  JULY

  1 July

  2 July

  3 July

  4 July

  5 July

  6 July

  7 July

  8 July

  9 July

  10 July

  11 July

  12 July

  13 July

  14 July

  15 July

  16 July

  17 July

  18 July

  19 July

  20 July

  21 July

  22 July

  23 July

  24 July

  25 July

  26 July

  27 July

  28 July

  29 July

  30 July

  31 July

  AUGUST

  1 August

  2 August

  3 August

  4 August

  5 August

  6 August

  7 August

  8 August

  9 August

  10 August

  11 August

  12 August

  13 August

  14 August

  15 August

  16 August

  17 August

  18 August

  19 August

  20 August

  21 August

  22 August

  23 August

  24 August

  25 August

  26 August

  27 August

  28 August

  29 August

  30 August

  31 August

  SEPTEMBER

  1 September

  2 September

  3 September

  4 September

  5 September

  6 September

  7 September

  8 September

  9 September

  10 September

  11 September

  12 September

  13 September

  14 September

  15 September

  16 September

  17 September

  18 September

  19 September

  20 September

  21 September

  22 September

  23 September

  24 September

  25 September

  26 September

  27 September

  28 September

  29 September

  30 September

  OCTOBER

  1 October

  2 October

  3 October

  4 October

  5 October

  6 October

  7 October

  8 October

  9 October

  10 October

  11 October

  12 October

  13 October

  14 October

  15 October

  16 October

  17 October

  18 October

  19 October

  20 October

  21 October

 
22 October

  23 October

  24 October

  25 October

  26 October

  27 October

  28 October

  29 October

  30 October

  31 October

  NOVEMBER

  1 November

  2 November

  3 November

  4 November

  5 November

  6 November

  7 November

  8 November

  9 November

  10 November

  11 November

  12 November

  13 November

  14 November

  15 November

  16 November

  17 November

  18 November

  19 November

  20 November

  21 November

  22 November

  23 November

  24 November

  25 November

  26 November

  27 November

  28 November

  29 November

  30 November

  DECEMBER

  1 December

  2 December

  3 December

  4 December

  5 December

  6 December

  7 December

  8 December

  9 December

  10 December

  11 December

  12 December

  13 December

  14 December

  15 December

  16 December

  17 December

  18 December

  19 December

  20 December

  21 December

  22 December

  23 December

  24 December

  25 December

  26 December

  27 December

  28 December

  29 December

  30 December

  31 December

  Follow Penguin

  365

  James Robertson is a poet, short story writer and essayist, as well as an acclaimed novelist. His five novels are The Fanatic, Joseph Knight, The Testament of Gideon Mack, And the Land Lay Still and The Professor of Truth. The Testament of Gideon Mack was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize and picked by Richard and Judy’s Book Club. Joseph Knight received both the Scottish Arts Council Book of the Year Award and the Saltire Society Book of the Year Award in 2003–2004. And the Land Lay Still also received the latter award in 2010.

  By the same author

  The Fanatic

  Joseph Knight

  The Testament of Gideon Mack

  And the Land Lay Still

  Republics of the Mind

  The Professor of Truth

  At the beginning of 2013 I began an experiment. Could I write a short story on each day of the year? The stories would all be exactly the same length: 365 words. By the end of the year, if the experiment was successful, there would be 365 365-word stories.

  Despite some anxious moments on days which seemed reluctant to reveal or release their stories, I completed the task. Then, throughout 2014, the stories appeared, one each day, on the website of my publisher, Hamish Hamilton (www.fivedials.com). Now they are collected here in one volume, their third life. I hope they have more lives to come.

  James Robertson, 2014

  JANUARY

  1 January

  The Beginning

  Before the beginning there was nothing. And nothing came from nothing, since nothing can. But something, somehow, did, and that was the change. Was it a moment or an aeon – and who among us is bold, clever or foolish enough to define the difference? Well, anyway, there was a time when change happened – and that was the change, the first pulse or tick or fractional movement that signified the arrival of time. Chronos. And the how of that change has ever since been the fuel of legend, faith and science, and arguments among them. In the end – which is itself a subject of similar contention – everything is theory and speculation. Priests, shamans, physicists, philosophers, evolutionary biologists and natural historians are as one on this, though they might vigorously deny it: nothing they can offer us is much more than informed guesswork.

  Ahead of these pretenders came the mother and father of them all – the chronicler, recorder, teller of tales. One day the mist rose from the ground, and the thought was, What is this? The mountain rose in the sunlight and the thought was, How did it get there? The river ran, birds chatted and sang, animals bellowed and grumbled, and the thought was, What are they saying? And hard behind that one came others. Who am I? Who are we? What is this strange mystery in which we find ourselves?

  The night came down – or up – as it had done before, the moon was in the night or it was not, the stars were there or they were hidden, and – something was different. The storyteller saw a pattern and began to trace it. Or there was no pattern, it was just guesswork. And this was the beginning, before which was nothing (and of that ‘before’ nothing was or could be known). This was the beginning, when fire, that had burned dry grass or leaves outside, was brought inside, to a circle of stones, and was fed through the night. And our ancient forebears gathered round and looked at the flames, and held out their hands to the heat, and waited for the dawn.

  The beginning was when the storyteller first said, ‘In the beginning …’

  2 January

  Story

  for Jamie Jauncey

  What is a story? A writer friend tells me that if he said he went on a train from Perth to Doncaster, changing at Edinburgh, that wouldn’t be a story, but if he said it was only when he got to Doncaster that he realised he’d left his bag in Edinburgh, that would be. Something has to change for it to be a story, my friend the writer said, something has to happen.

  A boy goes out to the shop and doesn’t come back.

  A boy goes out to the shop and doesn’t come back for seven years.

  A boy goes out to the shop and when he comes back seven years later he is a girl.

  These are stories, if I am not mistaken.

  Here is another.

  A boy goes out to the shop for a pint of milk but coming home he turns left instead of right, and walks through the woods. In the woods he finds a strange mound covered in thick, soft, green moss, and he sits down on it, and he falls asleep. And while he sleeps, out from a door in the side of the mound come the fairies, who drag him away to their underground world. They beat him and starve him and make him their slave, and put a spell on him so he forgets who he is. After seven years’ hard labour they let him go, and he wakes on the soft green mound with a confused memory of that terrible time. And the pint of milk is there on the ground beside him.

  So he hurries home and in through the door, and in tears he tells his mother and father what happened. How sad and worried they must have been all the years he’s been away. They smile at him. That’s a good story, they say, but you’ve only been gone twenty minutes. And he sees that they are no older than they were when he left, and he looks in the mirror and neither is he. But when his mother opens the milk it is shrunken and solid, like cheese, and – according to the stamp on the carton – seven years out of date.

  3 January

  At the John Bellany Exhibition

  What are these rooms full of ? What are these pictures about? You walk past blood and fish-guts, unspeakable horrors real and imagined, unremitting toil, raw sex, turmoil, violence, and the symbols of a religion that goes beyond sect or creed in its relentless chess-game of life and death. There is something local about this ferocious art. When a Scottish Calvinist goes round the back of the world into darkness he will meet a Scottish Catholic coming the other way. And Hell may be there, but what sign of Heaven, or God?

  This art has no peace. Even in the late landscapes of Italy the sky looms over towns and villages, threatening destruction. Through all these rooms you feel you are following a man who still, at seventy, can only wrestle and grapple with life.

>   But in one small section you do find tranquillity. Addenbrooke’s Hospital, Cambridge, 1988. Bellany’s liver has packed in under the abuse he has dealt it. He is admitted for a transplant. The operation, like so much that has happened to him, is a challenge. He comes through it. The new liver takes to him. Regaining consciousness, he cannot yet believe he is alive. He asks for pencil and paper and starts to draw. His hand. Himself. Self-portrait after self-portrait. He draws and paints himself back into life. He stares out at himself, at the place he is in, at life returning. And because he is still weak, at the mercy of tubes and wires and the healing process, there is a kind of peace, a kind of acceptance, and something else – a bright, clean, heavenly light.

  You remember these hospital images from when you first saw them, a quarter of a century ago. You were a young man then, and the Bellany you were looking at was in his mid-forties, younger than you are now. But you had thought you were looking at an old man, at the resurrection of an old man. It is a shock to realise how young he was, how much more life he had in him.

  And you too. And still have. Here you are today, his paintings and you, on this grey Edinburgh afternoon, alive.

  4 January

  Cannibal Lassie

  The Glack of Newtyle is a long, narrow, twisting defile between the hills of Hatton and Newtyle in Angus. It runs south to north from the high ground of the Sidlaws down to the rich, fertile land of Strathmore. The Glack has always been a place of uncertainty, and sometimes of danger for the unwary. Today, especially on early winter mornings when the sun has not penetrated its gloomy bends to melt black ice, or at night when deer haunt the trees that line its many bends, it catches out drivers who have their minds on something other than the road – the over-confident, the careless or weary. Broken fences and the debris of smashed vehicles in the ditches are testimony to these not infrequent mishaps. But centuries ago, according to legend and chronicle, the Glack harboured perils of a more horrific kind.

  A cannibal and his family had their lair nearby, and would lie in wait for travellers making the journey from Dundee northwards. Men, women and children alike were taken and devoured – the younger the victim, it was said, the more tender and sweet did they judge the flesh. At last these depredations could be tolerated no longer, a force was assembled and the ‘brigant’ and his wife and offspring were captured and burned, with the exception of a daughter who was only one year old at the time. She was brought to Dundee and raised and fostered there till she came to womanhood. Then she too was condemned to be burned, though whether for having participated in her family’s crimes as an infant or because she had reoffended is not clear.

  A huge crowd, mostly of women, cursed her and spat on her as she was led to the place of execution in the Seagate. The lassie turned on them angrily. ‘Why do you chide me so, as if I had committed some unworthy act?’ she cried. ‘Believe me, if you had experience of eating the flesh of men and women, you would think it so delicious that you would never forbear it again.’