Читать книгу So Many Ways to Begin - Jon McGregor - Страница 14

When David told Julia that he wanted to be a museum curator she didn’t nod and say that’s nice, or make a face, or ask him why; she clapped her hands and said it was a wonderful idea. You’ll have to invite me to your first exhibition, she said enthusiastically and whenever he saw her after that she would ask how his collections were coming along, what lessons he’d learnt from the museums he’d been to since she saw him last, whether he’d have any jobs going for a work-shy duffer like her once he was open and ready for business. He started telling her about the sort of museum he would run, the exhibitions he would put on, the archives he would collect. I’ll have some displays that people can pick up and hold, he said, and more people to explain what things are. And I won’t have anything in storage, he said. It’ll all be out on display and if there isn’t enough room I’ll buy a bigger museum because it’s not fair to hold on to things and not let people look at them. And I won’t have any replicas or artist’s impressions, he said.

He reminded her about the boat he’d seen in the Maritime Museum; it was sitting in a small white-washed room of its own, beached on the bare floor and propped up by a pair of painted timbers. He’d walked around it, just able to see over the gunwales and into the plain interior, a couple of bench seats the only sign of comfort. The display panel on the wall had said that this boat, all twenty undecked feet of it, may well have been sailed across the Atlantic by the Vikings. He’d read those words over again and turned back to the boat, a storm of excitement breaking over him, pressing his hands against it breathlessly, wanting to climb in and run his hands all over it, to push his face into the rough-grained wood and smell the salt tang of sweat and sea and adventure, to sit on the bench and imagine the lurch of the open ocean, the endless tack and reach towards an unrelenting horizon. He’d looked at the wood, which must have been eight or nine hundred years old, and wondered why it wasn’t roped off from the public, why it wasn’t a little more crumbling and worn, why the varnish was gleaming under the spotlights. And he’d gone back to the display board, and read the last short paragraph explaining who’d built the replica and how, and he’d wanted to kick the whole thing to pieces.

It didn’t mean anything, he told Julia later. It wasn’t real, it was made up. You can’t learn anything about history by looking at made-up things, he said, talking quickly and urgently. It’s stupid, it’s not fair. It’s a lie, he said. They’re lying. She held up a hand to steady him, smiling at his earnest scorn. It’s better than nothing though, isn’t it? she asked gently. It gives you an idea at least, wouldn’t you say?