Paper Man
part 1
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part 2
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Paper Man
I don’t have a woman made of paper.
I’d like one.
I read about a man who had one once. Of course, she wasn’t a real woman -it was all about how obsessed he was with his building work, how he laid the blueprints out on his hotel bed like a paper lover. I’ve got the book around here somewhere. Maybe I’ll find it while I’m clearing out.
The landlord told me I have to throw away my papers. “Now, Mr Spelnik, I know you like to collect your magazines and newspapers and stuff, but really, don’t you think it’s getting a little over the top? To be honest, it’s turning into a fire hazard. You’ll have to get it sorted out, okay?” He speaks to me slowly, his voice rising slightly at the end of each sentence. He puts a hand on my shoulder and tips his head in a concerned manner. He thinks I don’t notice. I suppose to him I’m just a strange old man, scruffy and small and slowly being buried alive under my collecting habit, someone to be pitied. Perhaps I am.
He’s right though, in a way. My papers have got a little out of control – I am running out of space. Newspapers tower up to the ceilings, in stacks along the walls. Piles of magazines in the middle of the front room have become a coffee table – I have covered them with an old tablecloth. My bookshelves…well, my whole flat is a bookshelf; they can’t really be singled out as individual pieces of furniture. The mess is all my own doing, of course.
After the landlord told me to clear everything out, I went and got some heavy-duty bin bags from the supermarket. It’s so bright in there, so shiny. No dust coating the surfaces, no motes of it drifting in the air. Just harsh, antiseptic smells and cool temperatures and wide aisles. I was glad to get back home to my burrow – but then I always am. Going out, for food, or even to buy new papers, is always an exhausting experience. So much noise, so many people, endless hazards to avoid; the cars rushing past as you try to cross the road, the angry dog barking and straining at its lead, the screaming babies in their tank-like pushchairs that will mow you down if you don’t step smartly out the way. I suppose to the mothers of those babies and all the other people who see me scurrying along I must look like a very odd little figure, rather like a mole, squinting and hurrying along clutching whatever I had to buy close to my chest, white hair blowing in the wind. Yes, a bit like Mole from Wind in the Willows, all nerves and fears until I’m back home safe. Leaving my nest where the thick piles of paper muffle all outside sound, where the light is filtered by newsprint and dust to a reassuring dim glow, even for more papers, is no fun for me. I get as much as I can delivered.
My papers reach up past the living room windows – the ones in those piles have turned yellow and crinkled. They smell of sun and ink, and now I have to decide which ones of them to cast out. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever. No getting them back, no re-reading, no re-visiting half remembered stories. Mind you, if I’m honest, I don’t get the chance to re-read them all, there’s just too many. But I might. I might need to dig out that almost forgotten article one day, I might need to find something out, and the answer would be right here in my flat, waiting for me to uncover it and put it to use. If I throw them out, I will lose the chance to find them. Lose my chance.
But I have to start, so I’ll start in the hallway. First place the landlord will see when he comes to inspect, so I’d better make a good impression. You only get one chance at those too, so they say. The piles of papers run along either side of the narrow passage, most of them reaching about shoulder height. I take the first one off the top of the pile to my left, and scan the front page; Eight in Court Hearing Today, it tells me. I put it on the floor in the middle of the hall, where I can make a pile of ‘maybes’. I pick up the second paper, then the third, and before I know it, time has passed. The window at the end of the hall shows a slip of darkening sky, and I have to flick the light switch to be able to read. When I turn back to my papers I realise I have just shifted everything into the ‘maybe’ pile. This is no good; I’m never going to get them sorted out like this. I sigh, lean down and pull one of the bin bags off the roll. Without reading, without really even looking, I start loading it with papers.
My trouble is I’m interested in too many things. History, art, literature, science, politics, people. I suppose people are my weakness, really. All those subjects hold endless fascinations, unlimited stores of things to discover, and most of them are about people. What people have done, or seen, or invented, or felt. And once I’ve thrown away the half that the landlord requires for his safety inspection, I will have discarded the only opportunity I’ll ever have to meet those people, in my mind. And once people are gone, you can’t get them back. All my own fault, of course. I should get out more; brave the wild wood and the riverbank and meet real people instead of ones made of words that I can keep in my flat. I did use to, of course, before. But I’ve learnt my lesson; now I know there is too much risk involved that way, with real people. With my paper and ink people I can find them, I can know them, and I can shut the pages before they shut themselves. Much easier, gentler that way. And I don’t want to let them go.
I have made it into the living room. The coffee table papers can stay, you can’t even see those under the cloth. And I won’t throw away any books. I don’t care what the landlord says – he wouldn’t go down to the library and call that a fire hazard, so he’ll just have to be satisfied if I get rid of some of the newspapers and magazines. I’ll just make sure he can see a bit more carpet when he comes to inspect. I can make the coffee table higher, maybe a little longer, too. If I take a few bags of clothes to the charity shop, I’ll be able to squash what’s left into fewer drawers in the dresser, and I could lay some of the papers in the empty ones. That would be rather nice, like those lovely map chests that they have in the library. I’d like one of those. I could lay my paper woman on it, if I had one. But some papers will have to join the black plastic mounds in the hall. I know that, I’m not deluded.
I could use the space in the kitchen cupboards – the two big ones under the counter with the pots and pans in – I could line them with papers and magazines, I think I could get at least ten deep and still have room for the pots on top. I’ll have to make sure I dry them properly after washing up before I put them away, though. But that’s not hard. The important thing is to get the papers out of sight, away from the incinerating eyes of the landlord.
Now to the bedroom. My nightstand, like the coffee table, can stay as it is. I have taken out some clothes to make space for my improvised map chest, and both inside and on top of the wardrobe hold as much as they can. Under the bed, I have found her letters. No, not found, I always knew exactly where they were, in the box under the head of the bed. I have taken them out again is all. This clear out is just a useful excuse to look at them. I say them, because there should be a thick bundle tied with string, dog-eared and lovelorn. But there are only two, one from the beginning and one from the end. They tell me everything I knew and everything I ever will know about her. How she was then, full of promises and smiles and trust, and what happened to her when I went away. I thought I could come back to her, you see. That there would be other times, later chances to pick her up and pour over her, learn all the details of her face, her life. But as it turns out, she could not wait for me, I left it too long. When I got back, she had gone, and there was only the second letter to hold, to treasure, to read again and again.
In the first, she signs her name at the bottom. She has the most beautiful handwriting.
Evelyn
In the second, her hand is just as beautiful, but broke my heart.
Mrs E Carran. Breaks my heart still.
I take the two letters and spread their pages out over the bed. I kneel down as if saying my prayers at the bedside and trace her handwriting with my old fingers. I really am a fool. I’ve had a woman made of paper for years.