Man with a Seagull on His Head Read online

  Praise for Man with a Seagull on His Head

  “All the lonely people, where do they all come from? This lovely, evocative, slim novel about the way humans connect to each other is heart-rendingly beautiful. Every sentence in this book is perfect.”—Mary Cotton, Newtonville Books (Newton, MA)

  “Reading Harriet Paige in advance feels like I’ve been privy to a special secret. I’m so glad I finally get to share this book with the world.”—Lesley Rains, City of Asylum Bookstore (Pittsburgh, PA)

  “A quirky, interesting, original story of life lived one foot in front of the other.”—Beth Carpenter, The Country Bookshop (Southern Pines, NC)

  “Truly unique. A quirky and intelligent read with a deep beating heart.”—Kevin Elliott, Seminary Co-op Bookstore (Chicago, IL)

  “It’s a rare novel that reminds you of one by Virginia Woolf and doesn’t fall short in the comparison. Makes ordinary life seem perpetually on the edge of epiphany.”—Laurie Greer, Politics & Prose Bookstore (Washington, DC)

  “The story sings off the page with tender lyricism. This is a quirky gem.”—Linda McLoughlin Figel, {pages} a bookstore (Manhattan Beach, CA)

  “The opening of Man with a Seagull on His Head tempts you with its brisk prose and summery seaside setting to pick it up as a momentary diversion, but it quickly establishes powerful links among its many characters, connecting hearts and minds across distance, time, and cultural barriers.”—James Crossley, Island Books (Mercer Island, WA)

  “A beautiful fable about art and inspiration and humanity. Outsider artist Ray Eccles has something of Melville’s Bartleby about him, but the narrative—smartly—focuses on those whose lives he influences. A gorgeously written, tender debut novel.”—Lexi Beach, Astoria Bookshop (Astoria, NY)

  “Anyone interested in the mysteries of memory, art-making, and missed connections will be charmed by Harriet Paige’s odd, funny, and wise parable.”—John Francisconi, Bank Square Books (Mystic, CT)

  “Explores the somewhat psychotic lengths inspiration can take someone paired with the exploitative facets of the art world—and it’s rendered with such a fantastic combination of distance and intimacy. The world could maybe be made better if more seagulls fell on our heads.”—Rebecca George, Volumes Bookcafe (Chicago, IL)

  “You want to extend a hand and wish the characters well. A fine read. Refreshingly recommend.”—Todd Miller, Arcadia Books (Spring Green, WI)

  “Man with a Seagull on His Head is an enthralling read unlike anything I have ever read. It makes you feel crazy, sane, upset, and euphoric. Harriet Paige is a remarkable writer with an amazing muse.”—Nick Buzanski, Book Culture (New York, NY)

  “Sad, hopeful, perfectly poignant and because the internal mechanics of the novel are so well metred, it also ends beautifully. With echoes of Brian Moore’s Judith Hearne and a bit of Marilynne Robinson’s Lila, Harriet Paige is more than a writer to watch. She has arrived.”—David Worsley, Words Worth Books (Waterloo, ON)

  “The compelling characters, fable-like pacing, and funny take on “outsider” art keep the pages flying by.”—Pete Mulvihill, Green Apple Books (San Francisco, CA)

  “Lovely, quiet, and quite beautiful. I found myself slowly reading so that I wouldn’t miss any poetic descriptions of people and places. Admittedly, it’s a hard novel to pin down—is it a mystery? A family story? A story of mental illness and art? It’s unlike anything I’ve read, really, and I find it hard to describe and truly convey its beauty.”—Sarah Letke, Redbery Books (Cable, WI)

  “If you like your fiction smart and surreal, you will love Man with a Seagull on His Head. A strong, compelling debut!”—Carol Schneck Varner, Schuler Books and Music (Okemos, MI)

  “So many wonderful things in one book! It is an odd, well-written, fully realized, moving and unsettling novel. It reminded me of Tom McCarthy’s novel Remainder. A rather brilliant first novel; I will be watching for Harriet Paige’s next offering.”—Susan Chamberlain, The Book Keeper (Sarnia, ON)

  “A deeply thoughtful quick read. Harriet Paige has crafted a diverse array of characters, each captivating as they bare their most vulnerable moments and stand firmly in moments of surety or pride. This rich novel kept me company long after I put it down.”—Carrie Koepke, Skylark Bookshop (Columbia, MO)

  “A powerful little book. Haunting.”—Kay Wosewick, Boswell Book Company (Milwaukee, WI)

  “This brief, captivating novel introduces the fascinating world of outsider art through steady pacing and nuanced characters.”—Emily Adams, Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park, WA)

  “Ray Eccles, a nonentity, goes for a walk on his 40th birthday. He seems almost reassured by the thought that he is “past the age when something interesting was likely to happen to him.” He assumes he is all alone on a deserted beach but then, in quick succession, a woman appears, they lock eyes, and Ray is knocked cold by a seagull plummeting from the sky. Is it Ray’s salvation or doom? Is Ray’s ensuing story, told in Harriet Paige’s gem-like prose, the stuff of tragedy or farce? Or are we all Ray, so placid and so longing, dreaming of rising into the sky?”—Ezra Goldstein, Community Bookstore (New York, NY)

  MAN WITH A SEAGULL ON HIS HEAD

  MAN WITH A SEAGULL ON HIS HEAD

  By Harriet Paige

  Biblioasis

  Windsor, ON

  Copyright © Harriet Paige 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher or a licence from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Paige, Harriet, author

  Man with a seagull on his head / Harriet Paige.

  Originally published: Hebden Bridge, Bluemoose Books Ltd., 2017.

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77196-239-1 (softcover)

  ISBN 978-1-77196-240-7 (ebook)

  I. Title.

  PR6116.A44M36 2018 823’.92 C2018-901719-8

  C2018-901720-1

  Readied for the press by Daniel Wells

  Copy-edited by Jessica Faulds

  Cover designed by Zoe Norvell

  Typeset by Chris Andrechek

  For Joseph, Anton, Tabitha, and Cosmo

  One

  For a short time you couldn’t go to the opening night of an art exhibition without someone mentioning Ray Eccles. It didn’t matter if it was at The Tate gallery or some loft in Clerkenwell, someone had something to say about the Eccles portraits. Which is impressive if you remember how conventional they really are. No shock tactics needed. Of course the materials he used weren’t conventional. And maybe you remember how many young artists around that time—which was the early 1980s, before the Young British Artists broke onto the scene—tried to copy him in that respect. For a while it seemed every art-college student in the country was using the contents of their kitchen cupboards to paint with, in the hope that they’d capture some of Eccles’ raw power.

  In June 1976, though, there was nothing interesting about Ray Eccles. It’s true; he knew it himself as well as anyone. The interesting thing was just about to happen.

  It wouldn’t have happened at all if it hadn’t been for the Water Board, which had moved into Belvedere Close to do something to the pipes, something that involved shut
ting off the water all day, which was quite inconvenient since it was a Saturday.

  That day, which was the 12th of June, was also his birthday although that didn’t interest him much, even though it was the big four-zero. All that meant was that he was now past the age when anything interesting was likely to happen to him, and by interesting he meant the kind of thing other people might consider pretty normal, pretty uninteresting really. Like getting married. Having a child perhaps, although probably not. Ray was an only child. His parents, too, had both been only children and, having found himself solitary at the tip of such a neat, straight branch of the family tree, it seemed like it had fallen to him to put a stop to things rather than spill over into new generations. There wasn’t a lot of point in prolonging things, in his opinion. Getting something done, out the way, finished with: this was what got him through his days, whether that something be the washing up or burying his mother or, if he had thought much about it, his own presence in the world.

  He’d been a late arrival in an unhappy marriage, an embarrassing and binding reminder of a final, desperate grasp at intimacy on his father’s part. The union continued as an extended standoff. Mr. and Mrs. Eccles dominated their son with silence. And although he found some solace in corners and small places, he grew up, effectively, in a waiting room—life, he understood, was something to be got through, and his mother had finally got through hers only a month ago, when Ray had at last left the family home and moved into Belvedere Close.

  His house was number eight, although it wasn’t a house but a bungalow like all the others in the Close, and it wasn’t his, either, but his Auntie Mary’s—not a real auntie (he didn’t have any of those) but a friend of his mother’s, although not much of a friend either, for Mrs. Eccles had never had a good word to say about her. She could never understand why Auntie Mary had to go and live in Shoeburyness for a start. Why not choose Prittlewell, as she had done, or, better still, Rochford, both of them tucked tidily inland rather than lolling out of the mouth of the Thames towards the open sea—all that salt and wind couldn’t be good for anyone.

  Auntie Mary no longer had the salt and wind to contend with though, because she had moved up to Cumbria to be near her niece, Claire. Unlike Mrs. Eccles, who, without ever having expressed any pleasure at being in her son’s company, had seen to it that he never left home, Auntie Mary had waved her own daughter, Louise, off to a better life in Australia, leaving her to Claire and the care home in Cumbria. She kept hold of the bungalow in Belvedere Close because, she told Ray, she might want to come back one day, but until she did (until she died, he understood) she was happy for him to live in it for a minimal rent.

  There were many things in Auntie Mary’s house. China ladies with geese at their feet, bunny rabbits sitting on leaves, little mice nibbling cheese. Ray tried his best to keep out of their way, although it didn’t occur to him to move them or anything else, not even Auntie Mary’s many, many photographs, which he could have done without having to look at every day: Louise as a baby, Louise as a little girl, as a teenager at school, with the Australian, and now the baby. Louise and Ray used to play together as children and Auntie Mary would joke that they’d marry one day—until it became clear just how much of a joke it really was. When he’d first arrived, he’d stood for a while and smelled the air in the room with the double bed that he imagined Louise sharing with the Australian on her visits. But thereafter he’d kept that door shut.

  Today he woke early, at six-thirty, in order to be out of the house by the time the water went off at eight. The lack of water was impetus for an excursion he’d been contemplating for a while: a trip to East Beach, to the open sea. He’d had it in mind that East Beach was somewhere he’d like to go ever since he’d overheard them talking at work about an unexploded bomb that was lying there under the water. Just a rumour, they’d said, but why else was there a line of posts running out from the shore into the sea at the far end of the beach? It was to stop swimmers or boats from entering the danger area, they said. It would be the end of Shoeburyness if that went off, they said. And the girl whose name was Frances said it was enough to put you off living there. “Don’t you live in Shoebury, Ray?”

  There were few places that Ray felt comfortable, and standing at his Xerox machine when they got to chatting and carrying on around him like this was certainly not one of them. But standing by the edge of the sea knowing that there was an unexploded bomb sitting there underneath was somewhere he’d like to be. He thought that bomb might be good company.

  Plenty of curtains were still shut tight in the Close when he left the house, and he wondered if others had forgotten about the water going off. The possibility gave him a small puff of pleasure; he thought of Mrs. Foyle rising to find there was nothing to fill the kettle and realising it was too late for a bath. He didn’t dislike his neighbours but did his best to avoid them, all the same. They’d come, each of them, bearing casseroles and condolences and to make themselves known: Mrs. Foyle, Mrs. Hinton, Mrs. Coates, Mrs. Timms, Mrs. Robinson. Most of these Mrs. had a Mr., and they were all of an age not to work anymore, which made it a rare occasion that he could leave the bungalow and not have to smile or raise his hand or make a remark about the weather. Being out early with not a single one of them pottering around their front gardens pouring bath water on the flowerbeds or bringing the milk in from the step was as good a start to the day as he could have hoped for, and it even made him believe there might be a bit of breeze in the air, a tiny tremor that could grow and mount an uprising against this dreadful heat.

  He left the Close and turned onto Elm Road. So far it was familiar territory, but the awareness that he’d have to branch out at some stage was already tingeing his surroundings with a trace of the unknown. His life here had worked out a certain route, like the number nine bus, from which there had not yet been reason to deviate. He went from number eight Belvedere Close to the bus stop on Elm Road, where he caught the bus to the Civic Centre in Southend where he worked, and occasionally walked on a little further to the High Street and the little row of shops there that saw him through the week. That was it. He knew the sea was somewhere

  beyond, he could even smell it sometimes, but he had never been there.

  He passed his bus stop and the sight of it, empty, made him wonder if he had a job anymore. Mr. Turner had not really made that clear yesterday. “Give yourself some time” had been his precise words. Some time. Ray said the words again to himself, and whereas yesterday they’d sounded like something that could be counted in days or weeks, they sounded today like a long time—indefinite, infinite, for how would he know when some time was over?

  His job was to serve the photocopying requirements of Southend District Council, who were based now in the new Civic Centre off Victoria Parade in Southend. He considered himself good at this job and did not like to think others thought differently, especially when their reasons for doing so were unjustified.

  The office he worked in was on the ground floor of the Civic Centre, just a few doors down the corridor from the main reception. He shared the room with four other people. He knew the names of these people, which were Pamela, Frances, Paula and Mr. Turner, and he knew that Mr. Turner was in charge, but, beyond typing and talking on the telephone, he didn’t know what any of them did. This didn’t worry him, nor did the fact that their desks were all a lot bigger than his and grouped congenially beneath the room’s two large but permanently blinded windows. He was on the opposite wall alongside the door, separated from his colleagues by a large area of rough brown carpet, marked here and there by darker patches representing accidents with the tea and coffee tray. His own desk could hardly be called a desk at all, it being just a small square table by the side of the Xerox machine, identical to the tea and coffee table on the other side. It was never referred to as “Ray’s desk” by his colleagues, but always “the Xerox table.” He did, however, have a chair to sit on while he waited for a big run to go through, and
this chair, which was made of brown plastic with a brown cushioned seat, was of exactly the same sort as those sat on by everyone else in the office, including Mr. Turner.

  That the tea and coffee table resided in his area pointed, in Paula’s mind, to the fact that he should be the one to make the tea and coffee. In her opinion, it was a duty she should have relinquished to him along with the photocopying when she was promoted from his position to one of the desks under the window. All this he knew from her mutterings and sighs and “accidents” with the milk all over his photocopying pile, although he had never been asked to make a cup of tea and had never refused to make one. It had not been listed as one of his duties and, since he made a point of not drinking tea in the office himself, he saw no reason why he should make it for others.

  As far as he was concerned there were only two sides to his job. One was to keep the forms topped up, and each morning he checked the grey plastic trays arranged along one wall of the office to see if they were running low. Any fewer than five and he’d take one out and make a further fifty copies to ensure they never ran out. The other side was to fulfil the Xerox orders given to him by council workers throughout the entire building. These arrived in his tray, located on a small table in the corridor just outside the door. Whatever it was that needed Xeroxing would be accompanied by a small white slip giving space for people to write how many copies were required, their initials, the department to which it should be returned, and whether or not the sheets should be stapled.

  It was not an easy job keeping track of all these bits of paper, and in the springtime especially, when demand for forms was at its highest, it could take most of the morning just keeping the trays topped up, which meant a buildup of orders for the afternoon. And everyone thought their order should have priority. Even though the Xerox slips had a clear format, it was not unusual for people to depart from it in an attempt to grab his attention, using red pen for instance, or underlining the number of copies with a couple of strong black lines, or putting a scribbled star next to it, or going so far as to write “urgent” across the top. He had even, while walking down the corridor back from the Gents, caught people interfering with the queuing system, putting their document to the bottom of the pile as if it had been there all morning. He never said anything on these occasions, just slipped the papers back into the correct order once they’d gone, knowing that only under direct instruction from Mr. Turner could a document jump the Xerox queue.