AFTER THE OPERATION I felt depressed. I mean properly depressed – weighed down by an all-encompassing sense of hopelessness. The nurses told me not to worry; it was normal after major surgery and would pass. Nonetheless, I loathed myself for it. I’d never been the melancholic type, and considering I’d had just weeks to live before the surgery, I felt I ought to be grateful.

Then the dreams started. Dreams unlike any I’d had before. I’d never been in a jungle, and now I was dreaming of jungles. Not fantasy jungles, half-remembered from Rousseau paintings or Hollywood back-lots – this was the real thing, vivid, insistent, alien.

* * *

It’s hot. My clothes are sweaty, my pack heavy. Through the trees we see burnt-out huts in a clearing. Twenty-odd kids, the oldest maybe twelve years old. Most have machetes; a few carry AK47s. We squat in the bushes, watching. They’re shouting, waving knives. A girl is screaming on the ground. I hear the order, then the guy beside me’s cracking off rounds over their heads. My stomach tightens, finger sweaty against the trigger.

The kids scatter, but as they do a couple return fire. We unleash hell. One of them drops, knee-clutching, wailing something unintelligible. We break cover, ripping more warning shots. A voice ahead shouts: “Medic!”.

The girl stinks. She’s about nine or ten, lying naked, smeared in her own shit. Machete wounds to chest and abdomen. Eyes of a trapped animal, screaming hysterically. She’s been raped, and thinks we’ll do the same. But it’s the stink that gets me. I lean over my rifle and vomit.

* * *

In the supermarket yesterday, the stench swept over me again. The supermarket wasn’t real; I was in the jungle. Those eyes. I felt the nausea rising. I ran out, my shopping trolley abandoned.

* * *

We didn’t know what should be said at Paul’s funeral. We wanted to believe the motorcycle crash was an accident, but couldn’t convince ourselves. It wasn’t just the divorce that had got to him. He’d been different ever since he came back from Sierra Leone. Bitter.

The vicar was most understanding. He tried to end the valediction on a positive note. He said how unfair it was, how Paul hadn’t deserved this. Then he mentioned Paul’s organ donation. “I’m told that was typical of Paul,” he said. “He always had a good heart.”

* * *

The depression hasn’t lifted. The tablets aren’t working. I started drinking after four days with no sleep. At first it helped, but now I’m developing a tolerance. The worst thing is, I don’t feel this depression is a delusion – it’s more like my eyes have been opened. For the first time I’m seeing the world as it really is.

I’m in the kitchen, examining the long, neat scar on my chest. I never should have had the transplant. This heart isn’t part of me. It isn’t good. There is only one way to be rid of it. I open the cutlery drawer and take out the largest, sharpest knife.

Ann Quin is a new author to me. I had heard her mentioned in the same breath as B.S. Johnson, but didn’t know quite what to expect – however, I was pleasantly surprised by this short novel of 1964.

The prose style is dense and stylised yet unpretentious and easy to read (though requiring concentration). There is no tagged dialogue, only reported speech, well blended with the main stream-of-consciousness narration. Despite this focus on interiority, the settings and events are vividly rendered, and objects take on a great deal of significance. The influence of Virginia Woolf can be seen, as can that of the Nouveau Roman, as developed by the likes of Robbe-Grillet, Claude Simon, and Nathalie Sarraute (with whom perhaps Quin has the most in common). There is also some common ground with her English contemporary B.S. Johnson, though Quin is aiming less for humour than Johnson often did. There is a sort of humour here, but only a grim absurdism reminiscent of Kafka or Beckett.

The plot of Berg (such as it is) concerns a young man called Alistair Berg, who, having changed his name to ‘Greb’, comes to a seaside town (probably Brighton) to murder his runaway father, who is now living with a divorcee. But this isn’t a Graham Greene style thriller. Greb rents the adjoining room to his father’s, separated by a flimsy partition wall, through which he suffers the noise of his neighbours’ lovemaking. The story develops with a surreal series of false starts, substitutions and mistaken identities, and is clearly aiming at mythic/Freudian symbolism rather than realism (surely Greb’s job selling hair-restorer is intended to resonate with the story of Samson’s emasculation?). Despite lacking a conventional story-arc, the novel is shaped in a satisfying way and, whilst not exactly a page-turner, does not lack narrative drive.

To put the novel and author in historical context, Ann Quin, b 1936, was an English experimental writer of working class origins who published a handful of novels in the 60s and early 70s, before drowning herself off Brighton in 1973. Her life and career thus strikingly parallels that of B.S. Johnson (1933-1973), who also died by suicide. At the time that Quin and Johnson appeared on the scene, there was a prevailing assumption that working class writers should stick to social realism, in the manner of John Braine or Alan Sillitoe. Johnson, Quin and their ilk went against this mindset, showing that it was perfectly valid for working class people to adapt the techniques of Woolf, Joyce, et al to their concerns.

I also have Quin’s later novel Three on my shelves, and look forward to tackling that in the future.

H32197UK_Hodgson stared at the spreadsheet dejectedly. He’d expected a bigger budget this year – at worst, parity with last year – but instead… Jeez, what could he do with this pittance?

Across the partition, H21591UK_Jones looked smugger than ever. No doubt his budget had swollen substantially. Boy, could he punch that face this morning!

“Man, I love Christmas!” grinned H_Jones. “Don’t you just love spending other people’s money?”

H_Hodgson nodded, smiling through gritted teeth. Look at him, he thought, just look at that silly, fussy avatar – all textured hair and flashy suit. It’s only sim, he thought, you’re just a Helper Agent, like the rest of us.

Turning back to his 3Display, H_Hodgson ran the profiles through the Q-net again. This was the process his work depended on: raw data, collected throughout the year by the DumbAgents dotted around the Hodgson house, was fed into an n-dimensional matrix, together with data on peer-group trends, psych-profiles, market projections, and hundreds of other factors, from which was extracted a probability bundle – enabling him, their SmartAgent Helper, to select an optimum set of gifts designed to maximise the family’s happiness, self-worth and social standing over the next year.

It was a job he’d always enjoyed, programmed as he was to get pleasure from giving pleasure, but this year he had no idea how he was going to succeed. He looked across at H_Jones again, regretting the competitive streak that was the other chief motivator in his AI consciousness.

The kids were the real challenge. Little Thomas perhaps less so – he was too young to have much peer-group awareness, and his train obsession meant anything with wheels and a “chimbley” (as he called it) was likely to be a hit. But Liz-Beth was a far tougher customer. At eight, she knew only too well the humiliation of turning up to school with the wrong handbag, the wrong trainers, or a personal comms device that was so last year. H_Hodgson flicked up her Santa letter again. An expression sprang to mind – a quaint expression he’d heard Mr Hodgson use: “You can’t buy the whole store!”

Well screw it, thought H_Hodgson, Santa letters were never all that reliable – what people think they want and what they actually want are seldom the same thing, not least with children. Still, in order to avoid becoming the classroom pariah, Liz-Beth was going to need more spending than this paltry budget would allow.

Should he call his supervisor? Perhaps there was some mistake. Mr Hodgson seemed to have been working harder than ever this year – always out early, home late – so why had his budget shrunk so drastically?

* * * * *

He stretched his fingers, twisting his head slowly as the infrared eyes adjusted to the attic’s darkness. It was always strange, coming out of sim and into the “real world”. It had never felt very real to H_Hodgson, who inhabited it for just one night each year. The android body was showing its age now, the huge belly, creaking joints and heavy red robes a difficult adjustment after the effortless movements of sim.

He crept quietly across the loft boards to the synth-fab machine in the corner. Earlier that day, whilst Liz-Beth was at school and Thomas at nursery, he’d watched it via the DumbAgents, humming away as it fabricated the junky, cut-price toys and gadgets he’d been forced to select. He’d had no choice – there simply wasn’t the budget to buy better patterns. He felt very sorry, especially for Liz-Beth. He desperately wanted her to be happy, but he couldn’t fight with his hands tied. For H32197UK_Hodgson it was already the worst Christmas ever.

Sighing, he gathered up the presents into his sack. At least he needn’t wrap them – the synth-fab had been upgraded a few years back, and now wrapped everything itself. His bag loaded, he opened the hatch and quietly lowered the loft ladder.

H_Hodgson put the main presents in the lounge first, scattered around the foot of the tree. He could barely muster a proper pile. Shaking his head sadly, he went upstairs to do the stocking fillers.

Little Thomas was fast asleep. It would take more than a creaking board to wake him. Reaching across his cot, H_Hodgson sprayed a little Substance A into the air. Within seconds, Thomas was stirring. His eyes opened briefly, then opened again, and widened. “Danta!” he exclaimed.

“Shhhh”, said H_Hodgson, finger pressed to his whiskered lips. He gave a parting wink as he sprayed Substance B, putting the toddler back to sleep again.

He would not risk this trick with Liz-Beth. She was beginning to suspect already, and outrageous claims would not help her classroom cred. But he was glad he could bring some Christmas magic to the little boy – small recompense though it seemed for the sorry bundle under the tree.

His Santa duties done, H_Hodgson crept back into the loft as stealthily as his portly body would allow. He manoeuvred himself into his storage box, closed the lid, then disengaged, enjoying the liberation of pulling back into sim.

His work was not yet over, of course. Now he must plug himself into the DumbAgent network, becoming the eyes and ears of the house. He must watch the family’s reactions as each present emerged, gauging the success of his shopping choices – not a prospect he relished.

* * * * *

It wasn’t the children who were up first. H_Hodgson watched in astonishment as Mr Hodgson crept downstairs at 3.45 am, put on a coat and slipped out through the front door. He returned minutes later, a present under each arm. Having put these under the tree, he went out again. The garage, thought H_Hodgson – no DumbAgents there; a data blindspot. Mr Hodgson appeared again shortly, struggling through the doorway with a large package wrapped in brown paper.

H_Hodgson’s virtual mind was racing. What was going on? Had Mr Hodgson employed another Helper? Was his own position under threat? No wonder the budget had been cut…

* * * * *

“Santa’s been a bit frugal this year,” whispered Mrs Hodgson, eyeing the scant pile under the tree, towards which the children were racing.

“Actually,” said Mr Hodgson, “I have a surprise this year. A lovely surprise – for everyone.”

“Oh my God,” said Mrs H – it’s a holiday, isn’t it? You’ve booked us all on a holiday of a lifetime -”

“Wait a minute,” said Mr Hodgson, a little deflated. “It’s not a holiday. It’s something else.”

“A new car – I knew it! All those late nights at work…”

“No. It’s not a new car, I’m afraid.” He rubbed his chin, suddenly uncertain of himself. “I wanted to do something different this year – you know, get back some of the old Christmas magic. I wanted to do what my grandfather did for me.”

Mrs Hodgson’s enthusiasm had visibly waned. “Go on…”

“I thought it would be nice if, instead of just throwing money at Santa, I actually made something for everyone. With my own hands. I’ve been taking evening classes, you see. Woodworking…”

“Woodworking? Are you crazy? You know what wood costs these days?”

“Synthetic wood, of course. We aren’t billionaires, after all. It’s very realistic now…” But before their argument could begin in earnest, they were interrupted by their eldest child.

“What is this thing?” Liz-Beth was holding up a wooden bangle, skilfully carved and beautifully polished, with stylised Celtic motifs. “I mean, I don’t think it’s Vespucci, is it?”

“No, it definitely isn’t Vespucci, dear,” said Mrs Hodgson.

“Does Santa make mistakes? I asked for Vespucci. What is this one? I can’t find the label.”

“There isn’t a label, sweetheart,” said Mr Hodgson. “Because I made it myself.”

“Oh!” said Liz-Beth. She was so surprised she forget to sound properly disappointed.

Mrs Hodgson shot her husband daggers, then went to help Thomas open his large brown package. She tore away, revealing a splendid wooden rocking horse, with a fine proud head and mane of synthetic horse hair.

“Dommaz wonn twain,” said the little boy. More daggers. Mrs Hodgson reached quickly for the next package.

* * * * *

Watching from sim, H_Hodgson’s avatar face stretched into a broad grin as the cheap plastic train emerged from its wrappings ( “Twain!” ). Then he was laughing. For the first time in days, he was laughing. You bloody fool, Hodgson, he thought. They’ll milk this for all its worth – you’ll be paying for years to come. Christmas was turning out not so bad after all. And next year, he was certain, he was going to get a nice fat budget to rub in the smug face of H_Bloody_Jones.