A FOOL’S ALPHABET Sebastian Faulks has written eight novels, including Birdsong (1993). He is also the author of a biographical study, The Fatal Englishman (1996). He lives in London, is married and has two sons and a daughter. 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 ALSO BY SEBASTIAN FAULKS The Girl at the Lion d’Or Birdsong The Fatal Englishman Charlotte Gray On Green Dolphin Street Human Traces Engleby 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 ‘The novel moves backwards and forwards through time, yet for this glancing at literary self-consciousness there is also a strong reassuring sense that the author knows exactly what he is doing. An intelligent, philo- sophical novel, this makes for surprisingly easy and absorbing reading. It places Faulks undoubtedly at the forefront of contemporary writers, as challenging in his way as any of the great modernists, but with the rare advantage that he also knows how to tell the story and to entertain through a comfortable complicity with the reader . A Fool’s Alphabet lies somewhere between Paul Theroux and Colin Thubron, with a splash of the stylishness of Julian Barnes. This is truly distinguished writing, produced with flair and panache but also with serious thought. I expect to see it on this year’s shortlists, and recommend it as the most impressive, but also the most enjoyable, novel of the year’ Literary Review ‘It is a delightful novel, full of wit, humour, tender- ness, affection and understanding, and the apparently haphazard, and potentially irritating, structure is in the end completely justified. It is a serious novel, and the most enjoyable one I have read this year’ The Scotsman 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 SEBASTIAN FAULKS A Fool’s Alphabet 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 Published by Vintage 1993 28 30 29 27 Copyright © Sebastian Faulks 1992 Sebastian Faulks has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser First published in Great Britain in 1992 by Hutchinson Vintage Books Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2SA www.vintage-books.co.uk Addresses for companies within The Random House Group Limited can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk/offices.htm The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009 A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 9780099223214 The Random House Group Limited supports The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), the leading international forest certification organisation. All our titles that are printed on Greenpeace approved FSC certified paper carry the FSC logo. Our paper procurement policy can be found at www.rbooks.co.uk/environment Printed in the UK by CPI Bookmarque, Croydon, CR0 4TD 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 FOR VERONICA 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 There is only one alphabet, which has spread over almost all of the world. A. C. Moorhouse, Writing and the Alphabet When you’re a married man, Samivel, you’ll under- stand a good many things as you don’t understand now; but vether it’s worth while goin’ through so much to learn so little, as the charity boy said ven he got to the end of the alphabet, is a matter of taste. Mr Weller, Pickwick Papers, Chapter 27 All letters form absence. Edmond Jabès, Livre des Questions 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 CONTENTS ANZIO, ITALY, 1944 1 BACKLEY, ENGLAND, 1950 20 COLOMBO, SRI LANKA, 1980 33 DORKING, ENGLAND, 1963 40 EVANSTON, ILLINOIS, USA, 1985 49 FULHAM, LONDON, ENGLAND, 1964 58 GHENT, BELGIUM, 1981 66 HOUCHES, LES, FRANCE, 1967 77 IBIZA, BALEARIC ISLANDS, 1966 86 JERUSALEM, ISRAEL, 1982 89 KOWLOON, HONG KONG, 1980 114 LYNDONVILLE, VERMONT, USA, 1971 125 MONS, BELGIUM, 1914 140 NEW YORK, USA, 1983 148 OXFORD, ENGLAND, 1976 159 PARIS, FRANCE, 1979 169 QUEZALTENANGO, GUATEMALA, 1974 178 ROME, ITALY, 1978 186 SORRENTO, ITALY, 1958 191 TERMINAL 5, 1988 198 UZES, FRANCE, 1987 205 VLADIMIRCI, YUGOSLAVIA, 1986 218 WATSONVILLE, CALIFORNIA, USA, 1974 232 XIANYANG, CHINA 240 YARMOUTH, ENGLAND, 1991 250 ZANICA, ITALY, 1970 260 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 ANZIO italy 1944 VESUVIUS WAS ERUPTING.The trembling of the ground which was common in the Campania district was intensified so that cars would not remain still, even on level ground, but began to shudder and bolt like frightened horses. The sea in the Bay of Naples was being sucked back from the beach and swallowed by the ocean, leaving driftwood and stranded creatures on the suddenly revealed sand. Inland from the volcano a huge black cloud hung steadily until it was ripped by thick and wavering lengths of flame, which were like forks of magnified lightning. After a time the cloud began to sink down and cover the sea, obscuring the promontory and removing the island of Capri from sight. In the streets of Sorrento, on the other side of the bay, the people ran to their houses. There was the sound of car engines being revved and rubber tyres squeezed against the roads by sudden acceleration. Shutters were brought together with a wooden thud before the iron arms descended to bolt them. The dense black cloud that hung across the bay seemed also to have loomed behind them, covering and flooding the hills. The flames remained distant, but ashes began to fall in the streets in dense showers. Safe behind the glass doors of the balcony on the first floor of the convalescent hotel, Corporal Raymond Russell tapped a cigarette against the side of the packet, revolved it slowly between his fingers and poked it into the corner of his mouth. ‘On your way tomorrow, then,’ the medical officer had told him that morning. ‘Got your orders?’ 1 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 A FOOL’S ALPHABET ‘Yes. Back to A Company,’ said Russell. The doctor briefly examined the healed shell wound in his left shoulder. ‘Shouldn’t give you any more trouble,’ he said. He looked out of the window. ‘It would be nice to spend the summer in Rome.’ ‘I’ll do my best,’ said Russell. He had passed the day listening to the rumbling from across the bay, smoking cigarettes and thinking what still awaited him at Anzio. Vesuvius had taken his mind off it for a time, though the noise and violence of the eruption also reminded him of the forward positions in the beachhead. He slept well, despite the volcano. In the morning he rose at seven, packed his kitbag and made his way downstairs in the old hotel that the Red Cross had taken over. There was a smell of coffee and the sound of Italian women talking and laughing in the kitchens. He felt caught in a trap of time, neither soldier nor civilian. He liked the sound of the women’s voices and the everyday life they represented. He wanted this quite ordinary world of airy rooms, new bread, curtains, children. He forced the thought from his mind as he pushed open the swing doors of the hotel. His loyalty was with Sugden, Bell, Padgett, the Major and the other men in the icy slit trenches. He reconciled himself to the thought of further weeks of their undrinkable distilled alcohol, their sexual frustration and the slow hours of boredom punctu- ated by minutes of extreme terror. The sun was out on the streets of Sorrento. As he began to walk downhill he passed a magnificent sign in which the iron was wrought like arthritic fingers to read ‘Pasticceria’ and hammered into a pink wall on the corner of a street. Under his feet the pavements were ankle-deep in grey dust from the volcano. Four weeks earlier he had been jammed in between Bell and Padgett in the small landing craft that cast off from the mother ship in the Bay of Anzio. Bell’s face was close to his, and he was breathing fast. 2 34693_A_Fools_Alphabet 09/02/2010 10:22:02 ANZIO ‘Gallipoli,’ he said, his eyes showing white through his blackened face. ‘That’s what our general thinks. Another bloody rat-trap. What do we want a Yank general for anyway?’ Russell felt the bevelled edge of the craft’s iron rail beneath his hand. Next to him Padgett was praying with a rapid mumbling sound. It was a beautiful winter night, star-pocked, calm and mild. There had been cases of seasickness when they headed south towards Africa in some cumbersome diver- sionary move, but since the ships had swung round towards their true destination, carving a mile-wide circle of foam through the Tyrrhenian sea, the wind had died and the groaning had ceased. Russell could see the dark outline of Anzio to their right. It looked a charming place: he imagined holidays and fishing. He had never been abroad until the war. Although in four years he had seen Holland, France and more of North Africa than he wanted, he was still excited by the sight of the small Italian coastal town and was disappointed that their craft would take them to the north of it.