Anthony was by all reports not a solitary child. He enjoyed games and was mediocre at them. At the age of seven he became, according to his later recollection slightly less garrolous. By the age of ten he was, according to one of his old teachers, ‘a sullen boy who spoke rarely and who did badly at most subjects, not, as far as I could see because of any lack of talent, but because of an almost total lack of attention. One felt one was trying to communicate with another planet using only two tin cans and a piece of twine.’ Anthony Woods seems to have made an impression on more than one teacher, not least for this deep introspection.
There seems to have been a great difference between Anthony at school and Anthony at home, or as he appeared to his teachers and his contemporaries. Wheras his teachers brand him sullen and uncommunicative from ten or so, his contemporaries, as we shall see, post-date the melancholic element in Anthony’s character.
With the kind assistance of all Anthony Wood’s schools, whose reputations I will not tarnish by naming, I have been able to contact most of his earliest friends and, from the period later on, when friends were harder to come by, contemporaries. Interviews with these people provide the basis for the next couple of chapters.
One of Anthony’s earliest and closest friends told me:
Anthony, as I remember him, was always very violent. He had so much bloody energy! He was fiercely competitive, and hated to lose at anything. This was unfortunate, because he wasn’t very good at anything.
One of his favourite tricks was to attack somebody, to start an actual fist-fight with them, if they beat him. And he would often threaten physical violence, usually with the words “I’ll duff your head in”, if he or his side looked in danger of losing. In other words he was a cheat.
But he was also, at times, surprisingly gentle. I can clearly remember how moved he was by the death of a sparrow run over when it tried to fly under a moving car. I can still hear the thumps it made as it hit the exhaust-pipe. It died in his hand, leaving jammy blood all over his fingers. He didn’t mind. In fact, I think, we used it as warpaint or became blood-brothers with it, or something like that. He liked playing cowboys and indians very much.
Another close friend of the seven year old Anthony, another member of what he called “Anthony’s gang”, told me:
Ant never showed any interest whatsoever in books of any sort at all. In fact, I would say, and I’d be pretty sure in saying it… that I never saw him voluntarily, that is, fully of his own accord, pick up a book, except, that is, of course, to throw it at somebody. Usually me. Now I’ve always known what I wanted to be… But Babel didn’t seem to know. Even at the age of ten he still wanted to ride the wild west, kill dragons or some other airey-fairy, totally impractical thing. I told him, I said, who’s going to pay you to kill dragons? You know what he replied? “The Princess.” He never wanted to be a chemist, that was for certain. He’d get sent to school, his knees all bandaged up, with iodine and what-not, lots of medicines, and he’d just rip them off and give out anti-biotics as sweets. Irresponsible child. Oh, yes, he was a rebel. He enjoyed the days when he came into school with a bandage on, I’m sure, because at playtime he’d rip it off and run around the playground, chasing the girls, chasing everybody, and shouting, “Lurgy, lurgy. I’ve got the lurgy.” And of course they all ran screaming.
Another friend also remarked on Anthony’s injuries:
He had the scabbiest knees of anyone in the gang. I can remember once asking him why? “Too much praying at home.”, he replied. I, of course, imagined Ant being forced down on his knees on broken glass and nails by his demonic parents. Well, you think like that when you’re young.
A fourth member of the gang, who didn’t attend the same primary school as Anthony, but was part of the gang during the long summer holidays knew a more contemplative boy:
He liked to climb up trees, and just sit there. And especially he liked finding a shady den at the centre of a bush. Any kind of bush, even gorse bushes, and sit there, on his own usually. He was always disappearing. You got the impression we needed him more than he needed us. He took me to a couple of his less-favourite haunts, but I’m sure he had some secret ones. We could never find him, except by walking round shouting. Then he’d step out of a bush, usually behind us, and we’d start the next game.
But this idyllic life was soon to end1.
Pushing slightly too hard at the end, young-Toby.
However, there’s some okay stuff here. What I notice is autobiographical, at least in the language. I’m sure it was used elsewhere, but duff you up is a very Ampthill way of threatening unthreatening violence. (If someone’s duffing you, you know they’re only aiming for body shots; they’re not going to break your nose.) Duff you in is more serious than duff you up.
The non-literary form that young-Toby is imitating is the TV biography, full of talking heads reminiscing upon the central subject’s life. By keeping these voices distinct, and having them say new things about Ant/Anthony/Babel, and unwittingly give themselves away, there’s a sense of purpose to the narrative — even though it’s all expositional.
This comes close to those oral biographies, like George Plimpton’s Truman Capote (1997, so not an influence) where one voice cascades upon another. Or that’s the intended effect.
A curated ongoing conversation of correction and recorrection.
He was like this. Yes, but he was also like this.
This is a way for young-Toby to work around his uncertainty about writing something as simple as a scene, in which people talk and act and think. He hadn’t done a great deal of this, maybe 15,000 words, and looks down on it a little as the meat-and-potatoes of narrative. But that might mean he risks serving up something like veggie slop, overcooked and insufficiently seasoned. Nothing to bite.
Later on, if I remember right, the novel becomes more dramatic.
We’re not going to get there, this time. In a couple of days, young-Toby is flying out to Mezinárodní letiště Praha-Ruzyně, Prague-Ruzyně International Airport (renamed Václav Havel Airport Prague in 2012).
In many ways, his adult life is about to start. And what better place for that?
