It was the first time Eric had picked up the landline phone in months, if not years. He only ever received communication from his agent, and he always emailed, or messaged before calling, and then only to his mobile phone. After holding the plastic receiver in his hand for the duration of the conversation, he felt its physical absence after returning it to its cradle. At the end of the call the Academy had said someone else would be in touch to discuss practical details, the precise dates, which hotel would host the event, the transport to the ceremony, how he’d receive the prize money. They said his debut book, The Loneliness of the Ladder, was a work of such depth, a work that exhibited the beauty of aloneness, the solitary working life of a simple man, a sublime meditation on the working-class experience of a life of labour. They used so many variations of the words ‘work’ and loneliness’ within the five minutes they spoke. The first of those words having only ever meant money in return for time, the second word never having had any relevance to Eric until he started writing about his work.
Following the news from The Academy, Eric remained in his armchair and fell into a reminiscence about ascending a forty-foot ladder for the first time. It was within his first month as an apprentice. The job was to paint the soffit and fascia on the gable end of a Victorian three-floor home in the wealthier part of town. There were no windows on the side of the house, the required work was to paint the hefty, ornate wooden eaves that hadn’t been touched by a brush for at least twenty years. He and his boss hauled the ninety-pound ladder off the roof of the van, angled it to the wall, its weight increasing against their arms, pummelling their biceps, as they got it into a vertical position. His boss ran the extension as far as he could from the ground, then told Eric to go up and run up the rest of its length to the height of the gable point. As he ascended, the ladder lurched and dipped in arching bows to and from the wall with increasing proportion in unison with Eric’s steps. By the point he was at the top half of the ladder each two steps further came with a two-foot undulation to and from the red bricks. Once at the top the sound of the street shrunk away, and Eric realised to himself that he had become the highest person for the day on that street of over a hundred houses.
His thoughts were moving to consider the scraping, sanding, and dusting down of that same vertiginous gable when his mobile phone started buzzing on the table next to him.
‘Eric, I just heard! You didn’t call me!’
‘Hello, Hugo. I was about to. Just letting it sink in I suppose.’
‘Well, congratulations of course! This is going to do absolute wonders for sales, Eric. And, sorry if I’m getting ahead of myself, and I know it’s far from your favourite thing, but there’ll be media responsibilities too.’
‘I know Hugo. I know, but can we talk about that another time? Soon, but not today. It’s a lot to get my head around. I suppose I have to go to the ceremony first of all.’
‘Yes, okay Eric, we will of course need to attend the ceremony, and, yes, let’s talk about details soon. Today is all about congratulations and keeping it quiet for a few more days until the media is informed. Then we’ll talk more about the award ceremony.’
‘Thank you, Hugo. Yes, let’s speak soon.’
‘Yes, and just remember, this is a serious step. Not just the prize money, but the sales that’ll come. This will make you rich, Eric.’
‘Thanks, Hugo, thank you. We’ll speak soon.’
Until the age of fifty-two every penny Eric had ever made came from holding a paint brush. In the early days his wages were handed out in the yard at the end of Thursday’s shift, a sealed square envelope with the gross salary, tax deductions, and net pay scribbled in Biro on the blank, preprinted form on the front. A brown packet that held a fold of notes and a few loose coins, usually a little over a hundred pounds per week. Then in the nineties, the brown envelopes were replaced with payslips inside blank white envelopes, the money deposited into his bank account that cleared the day after receiving the payslip, taking the arrival of his earnings from Thursday evening to Friday mornings. In the end there was no need to wait in the yard, no paper, just a weekly emailed attachment and the deposit in the bank.
This was Eric’s sole income, payment for painting the houses and buildings of his town and surrounding areas for almost forty years, up until a few years ago when he sent off a short story into a competition about ‘workplace fate’ and won a hundred pounds for writing about a decorator who falls off a step ladder on a high scaffolding platform when his mind drifts to a tragedy in his earlier life. A completely made-up story, and just a confection he’d sent off, then been surprised to win third prize and the money. A story he later regretted writing for being purely fictional, cloyingly plotted, knowing that a decorator would never fall clean off a ladder for simply thinking about something. He was happy with the hundred pounds, but it was after that he focused on making his writing as honest as he could, even if that meant being dull, monotonous, boring, without plot, without purpose, nothing other than describing the act of the work he did.
That was the entire intention of his book, having no expectation it would ever be published, that an agent or editor would ever get past the first few pages, and definitely not far into the close to six hundred it ended up being. With its sprawling sentences, sentences he had a near aversion to ending, describing rungs, the give in them as he stepped up them, how some pillowed under his feet more than others, that he’d know them by number, the seventh wobbling most, the ninth the firmest, how, depending on wind, angle, the ground the bottom of the ladder stood on, the required height, the necessary level of extension, how all these elements brought miniscule adjustments to the experience of walking up a ladder. Then the main part, being at the top, commencing the work, be it preparing for painting, the scraping, sanding, filling, sanding again, an initial priming coat if necessary, the undercoat, the additional light sanding, then the final coat of gloss on the surface of a window frame, a soffit, a fascia, sills, brickwork, wooden panelling, gutters, or pipes. His only purpose to describe the years of the same process, the being at the extended height of the ladder, the only sound being traffic whirring past, nearby birds, an occasional distant plane, and the self-made sounds of the brush slaps inside the paint kettle, the scraping of old paint, the crisp rattle of sandpaper on old wood and Polyfilla, the metal scratch of moving wet filler from one scraper to another. Sounds, touches, smells that were with him for decades, tens of thousands of hours with just himself and these sensations. That was all the book did, describe that work, his labour and its tedious processes, the book he was sure no one would ever read, and was now, a few years after sending it off, and hearing from Hugo that he would be certain to find a publishing house who wanted it, about to win a major literary prize.
Over the coming weeks Eric allowed Hugo to arrange everything. He just asked that he email, rather than call, to let him know what he needed to do. Hugo sorted out the travel arrangements in the UK, the rental of a black-tie outfit, the flights, communicated with the Academy on other operational details. He sent all the information to Eric to which Eric replied each time with a quick ‘understood’ or ‘got it’, and the final email reply of ‘I’ll see you at Heathrow then.’ The airport was the first time they’d met in person for several months, a month after they had received the news of the award. Hugo reassured him everything was arranged and asked Eric if his speech was ready. The speech was the only other thing Hugo had asked Eric about in the emails, each missive containing some organizational update about bookings, schedules, procedures, and a request for a quick update on how Eric’s drafting of his speech was going. None of Eric’s replies to Hugo had responded to these particular questions, including Hugo’s repeated offers to help with it if needed.
He’d never written a speech before, never given one, had never spoken to more than half a dozen people at any one time, and then only with a team of fellow decorators at breaks and lunchtime, and then not a speech, perhaps a comment on the work they were doing that day, or some mundane news from whatever tabloid one of them was reading, or a question about the contents of each other’s packed lunches, but never had he stood up and addressed any group of people. In the decades of decorating work, there was no place for speeches, and other than those on television by politicians and royalty, Eric wasn’t sure he’d even listened to any before. Yet, he didn’t want any advice from Hugo, he knew he wouldn’t feel comfortable using Hugo’s way of speaking, that he’d be a poor actor, would sound like a reluctant school child reading in front of the class if he delivered a speech written by Hugo, or anyone else. He also knew, when they met in person at the airport, that Hugo would push him on the progress of his speech. The fact was he hadn’t written one, he couldn’t come up with suitable words that matched what the book was about, essentially the act of nothing, except the act of his years of work, his decades of graft.
Whole chapters of the book described in minute detail, the painting process, whilst up a ladder. In strict minutiae the sounds, movements, smells, and time taken to do each step of painting a window for example. The movement of the brush licking its paint onto a lath, the cutting in up to the putty and glass, the maintaining of straight, smooth lines that glide first and second coats across the cleaned, sanded, filled, primed, and undercoated wood. The gallons upon gallons of emulsions, undercoats, eggshells, glosses, primers, emptied onto endless walls, windows, doors, door frames, lintels, plinths, skirting boards, coving, ceilings, sills, architraves, beams. Between each long chapter depicting the intricacies of his work, shorter chapters marked the meagre milestones in his life, few and far between, the time spent in his life up a ladder far exceeded the hours of anything personal and private. The lack of marriage, or any meaningful relationships, the few friends who were more occasional acquaintances in his local pub, the never changing job, and always for the same firm, the keeping of the same house, just a ten-minute walk from the childhood home his parents raised him in, the house where he received the call from the Academy just one month before, being only the second house he’d ever lived in. There had been rare moments of travel, primarily for work, to paint portacabins on remote sites, or larger jobs on offices or schools far enough from his hometown for the firm to invest in budget hotels for the decorators on the job. He’d never left England until the day at Heathrow with Hugo, his first time in an airport, his first time on a plane, and his first trip to a foreign country.
As instructed, they met at the agreed entrance, Eric standing next to the busy sliding doors for ten minutes until Hugo arrived. When he did, Eric simply followed Hugo’s motions. This was something Hugo had done hundreds of times no doubt, and the way he had his documents ready, knew when to put his suitcase and bag on the series of conveyers, the confidence with which he knew which direction to take after each stage, removing his watch, belt and wallet into the grey bucket at security control, and the calm, controlled air he had about him at all stages, all quietly impressed and slightly annoyed Eric, but he followed suit at every step. They conducted the whole thirty minutes of getting through these stages without saying much other than Hugo giving some direction. Once through, Hugo checked his watch as he fastened it back on his wrist and commented it had been a quick one, and suggested they have a drink in the bar before boarding.
‘You can tell me about your speech over a drink or two, Eric.’
Eric was surprised to see what seemed like an entire pub was ensconced in the airport. Hugo asked him what he wanted to drink and told Eric to take a seat at one of the few empty tables. The only spare table he could see had four seats, and he felt self-conscious sitting at a table that they only required half the seats of, but he couldn’t see a two-seater anywhere. As soon as he sat down, Hugo came along with the pint of lager for Eric, a glass of white wine for himself, and sat down opposite.
‘So, could we talk about your speech, Eric?’
‘There’s not a lot to say about it. I’ve not done a lot.’
‘Would you care to share it with me?’
‘Well, it’s not written down as such. I’ve got my ideas on what to say.’
‘And?’
‘And, what?’
‘What ideas? What points are you planning to cover?’
‘It’s not really points, Hugo, but just the obvious things to be honest. Say I appreciate it, it’s very nice to be recognized, and thank you.’‘Eric, I’m not sure that’s sufficient. You have to talk about the book as well.’
‘They’ve obviously read the book, Hugo. They’ve made their minds up about it, so what should I be saying?’
‘Talk about the title, the significance of its meaning. Talk about the loneliness of being up a ladder, how you wanted to illustrate that, how your routines, the detailed processes of your work, render a deep sense of aloneness, oneness, quietude. Talk about the spirit of the book.’
‘I don’t know, Hugo. You know how I feel about all that. To me it’s just a book about painting houses.’
‘Okay, fine, okay, Eric. Let’s not push it then, but how about I draft something out for you on the plane. I can knock together something more substantial, more fitting for the occasion for you to look at before the ceremony tonight. I’ll give you my draft when we get there, and you’ll have time to look at it. The Academy won’t mind if you read some of your speech from notes.’
‘Okay, Hugo. If that’s what you think.’
Eric didn’t feel comfortable on the plane, the space felt tight, and he didn’t like the rumble and roar of taking off, mostly he kept his eyes shut for the duration. He was grateful the flight was only just over two hours, and already figured after coming back in a couple of days’ time, it would be something he’d continue to avoid doing in his life. It was not for him. Once cruising, Hugo took out his laptop and started working on what Eric figured must be the speech for him. He didn’t want to read a speech Hugo wrote, and so didn’t look at his laptop screen to see any of it, and felt he had a good idea of the kind of thing Hugo was writing anyway. Instead, Eric was content to sit with his eyes closed, his palms resting on his thighs for most of the flight, only opening them to take the plastic sealed sandwich and plastic pot of water from the flight attendant, both of which didn’t eat or even open. He wanted to try to sleep away the time on the plane, but the confined space and Hugo’s tapping on his keyboard didn’t allow for this.
What really prevented his ability to sleep was thinking about having to read a speech written by Hugo, what words he would have to stand in front of an audience and say, vocabulary like ‘loneliness’, ‘solitude’, ‘oneness’, ‘peace’, and even the one he really couldn’t stand, ‘zen’. These were words he’d heard Hugo use before when talking about the book. The book which Hugo had always said he loved, right from the offset, to which he’d come back to Eric’s submission within less than a month, but to which he’d said the only problem was the title. Eric’s original name for the book had been ‘Painting Houses and Other Buildings’, but Hugo had persuaded Eric that this ‘let down’ the real heart of the novel, that this was a story of a solitary, lonely man, one who found a calm, and introspective, meditative approach to life, within the monotony, repetition, and singular nature of his job of several decades. A great novel about a real working life, it’s impact on the human soul, and the dignity to be found in those years of hard, lonesome toil. This was not the book Eric thought he had written, he’d written about painting houses every day, but other than proofreading edits, this was the only request for change Hugo had requested and so Eric had agreed.
After landing, and during their departure from the airport, Eric and Hugo didn’t speak much other than for Hugo to say he’d print off his draft speech for him when they got to the hotel. A driver sent by the Academy was there to meet them with both their names written on a card, ‘Hugo Blythe & Eric Wilson’. The driver took their bags for them, and once in the car informed them the hotel was approximately thirty minutes away. For this half an hour Eric and Hugo continued not to speak.
Arriving at the hotel they both couldn’t help but notice scaffolding on one side of its five floors. Hugo commented on the irony that it seemed to be getting newly decorated. Eric smiled at this, but it reminded him of his first paid short story about the invented painter and decorator falling off the invented scaffolding to his invented death. That he should be collecting his literary award in a hotel that was being repainted seemed as uncannily constructed as the contrivance in that story. As the car pulled up to the entrance a member of the delegation was there to meet Eric and Hugo.
‘Welcome, Mr. Wilson, Mr. Blythe, welcome. My name is Rupert Stein.’
‘Please it’s just Hugo and Eric. That’s okay with you, Eric?’
‘Yes, just Eric please. Thank you.’
‘Of course, Eric, Hugo, welcome. Then, just Rupert for me please. Everything is organised and ready. We’ve checked you both in and you’re able to go straight to your rooms. We have adjacent rooms for you on the fourth floor. As you’ve likely observed, the exterior, as it turns out, is undergoing renovation. My apologies for the obvious, but I can assure you, completely unintentional irony Mr. Wilson, Eric. We apologise. Please forgive us and continued apologies for the smell of paint.’
‘No problem at all. As it happens Eric no longer smells the scent of paint after decades of using it. That right, isn’t it, Eric?’
‘More or less, yes, that’s right. Thank you.’
‘Wonderful then. Thank you, and again, we are sorry for the inadvertent irony.’
‘It’s not a problem. Thank you.’
In the lift up to their rooms Rupert explained the time for the pre-ceremony drinks was six o’clock, and would end at six-thirty, so that this gave thirty minutes before the ceremony began on time at seven. There’d be a few short speeches from some of the delegation and judges and then time for Eric’s speech at seven-thirty for which half an hour was scheduled. Hugo explained that Eric’s speech may be somewhat shorter, but if questions were appropriate from the audience to take it up to eight, then the timing would be achievable. He didn’t look at Eric as he said this, yet Rupert agreed that was absolutely fine. Once Rupert left them at their doors, Hugo told Eric he would email his draft speech down to reception for them to run up with a printed copy for Eric. They had almost an hour before going down, so plenty of time to get into their formal attire, and for Eric to have quick skim through Hugo’s draft.
Once in his room, Eric accepted he didn’t have thirty minutes of speech of his own, he wasn’t even sure he had much more than thirty seconds, so understood he would need to rely on Hugo’s words, words that didn’t describe the purpose of his book, but his book was published, now winning an award, was likely to receive many more readers, and much like a painted door, once the final coat of gloss has gone on, that door was no longer Eric’s responsibility. The book, The Loneliness of the Ladder, not even his title, was likewise no longer his responsibility. He simply wished, like a painted door, after someone said, ‘nice job’, he could simply say ‘thank you’ and walk away. But he shrugged this off and changed into his formal wear, clothes of a type he’d not worn before, his first ever bow tie, which, even though a clasp fastening one, he’d practiced putting on several times back at home. He was lacing up his second shoe at the moment someone from the hotel staff knocked and delivered the three A4 pages of speech Hugo had come up with.
Sitting on the end of the bed, the lace on his left shoe still untied, he unfolded the papers to read through. Yet, when he saw the block of text, and some of Hugo’s ‘key words’ sprinkled through it, the kind of words he’d predicted Hugo would use about feelings, meaning, depth, emotion, fate, and no words about his work as a painter and decorator, he couldn’t face reading it through. The words Eric felt closer to, words like ‘bristle’, ‘handle’, ‘rung’, ‘wages’, ‘priming’, ‘overtime’, ‘scraper’, ‘sanding’, ‘payslip’, not one of these on the page, not even the word ‘paint’, but in place of these, dotted through each of Hugo’s sentences, were ‘destiny’, ‘soul’, ‘aloneness’, ‘heart’, and even the dreaded, ‘zen’. It was enough for Eric, he’d read it as and when necessary, when accepting the award, but not until that required moment. He folded it into four, put it in his inside pocket, and leant down to finish tying his left shoe.
The hall was already bustling with a large number of people, a number Eric didn’t wish to know the total of. He milled around the open double door entrance for a minute, and then when he saw Hugo in animated conversation with a couple of people, he went to join them.
‘Eric, there you are. You’ve met Rupert, and this is Cynthia, another member of the delegation.’
Eric shook their hands, said it was a pleasure to meet them, to which they said the same, followed by their short opinions on how much they enjoyed his book. Eric said ‘thank you’ several times in response, but nothing more. All the same, this prompted more assessments of his book to follow, and Eric couldn’t help noticing how their descriptions were littered with the type of words Hugo used, all the abstract terms for varying degrees or ways of being on your own, all of these words Eric was confident he hadn’t used once in his writing, except that one word shoved into the title, and only in the title, the title that Hugo had insisted was more appropriate, the title that Hugo had assured him ‘spoke to’ the experience of Eric’s life. As their conversation continued, Hugo echoed these words back at Rupert and Cynthia, enthused and buoyed by their critiques. Eric interjected nothing, except continued ‘thanks’, and then began to tune out of what they were saying until he heard Hugo’s voice rise in more excitement.
‘Well, of course ‘loneliness’ was the perfect word for the title, and why not alliterate it with ‘ladder’. The ladder, in itself, being the loneliest place a painter can be. You can’t have two people up one ladder after all.’
‘Yes, you are quite right, Hugo.’
‘Thank you, Cynthia. I’ve said to Eric many times, and I know it’s perhaps not a word he loves, but the experience of reading his novel is really quite a zen experience, don’t you agree?’
Eric didn’t have anything to say to Hugo at this, and no reply to Cynthia or Rupert. He looked around the room and wondered if a single person in there had ever been up a ladder, painted anything practical, had done a day of work the kind of which he’d done for decades. He stepped out of the conversation, and the three of them continued to talk. The whole room seemed deep in chatter, and Eric slipped out of the room unnoticed. He went to the lifts, and up to the top floor. Exiting the lift, he walked to the side where his sense of direction told him the side with scaffolding was. Along that corridor none of the rooms appeared occupied, and some of them had open doors with building materials inside. Eric looked into a couple of these rooms to see the equipment there.
In the third room he entered he found a bunch of decorating gear. He inspected the paint kettles with their gloss brushes sitting in their overnight water, a couple of rollers on poles, an array of scrapers, a couple of packs of sandpaper, tins of undercoat and gloss paint, packets of filler, dust sheets, and a few discarded rags next to the white spirit. He picked out and examined a few of the gloss brushes, and chose a stubby, well-worn two-inch. He then took one of the empty kettle pots, prised open a tin of white gloss, poured some into the kettle, wiped the rim with the brush, patted it out on the inside of the kettle, replaced the lid on the tin, and went over to the sash window. It opened easily, and he stepped out onto the scaffolding boards in one stride, and walked along, in his tuxedo, the pot of paint and his brush in hand. Two rooms down he found a freshly undercoated frame, checked its smoothness and dryness with his palm, and then dipped his brush into the shining white gloss paint, slapped the excess on the inside of the brim and started combing the brush across the top casing, then the jamb under that. Before cutting in across the lath he returned the brush to the paint kettle to refill the bristles, and a small blob fell onto the back of his hand. He wiped this down his right trouser leg, laid the brush across the diameter of the pot and put it down, removed his jacket, tossed it onto the scaffolding boards, unfixed his bow tie, and stuffed it in his pocket. He browsed across the row of undercoated windows, counting five, calculated an approximate fours of work, and checked his watch. A quarter to seven, the light would hold out long enough at this time of year to finish the job. He rolled up his sleeves, bent down to retrieve his paint kettle and brush, and got to work.//
About the Author
Paul Kimm is from a North East coastal town in England. He writes short stories about his working-class upbringing and early adulthood, and other things. He has had publications in Literally Stories, Northern Gravy, Fictive Dream, Mono, Bristol Noir, and several others.
About the Author
