Page 8 of One Summer Weekend
I made a mental note to delete the term from my coaching script. ‘I meant the two days I’ve arranged to spend in Grimshaw.’
‘Except it’s nowfour days – did Celia tell you?’
‘She did, but I need to understand what it involves before I commit.’
‘Observing me with a key customer in a working environment. Exactly what you asked for.’
‘Do you normally transact business over a weekend in the wilds of the Lake District?’
‘With this particular customer, yes.’
‘It just seems … highly irregular.’
‘Do younever do work at the weekend, or meet customers away from the office?’
I was silent.
He went on, silkily, ‘Back to what you said earlier. What are we diving into, and how deep?’
Screen the visionout, and the voice. Focus on the words – except even the words radiate danger… I cleared my throat. ‘It’s a metaphor for rapid and total … immersion in a subject or situation.’
There, I’ve said it: total immersion.A phrase that awoke an older memory, an older danger, in the Californian sun …
Jack was saying, ‘So just think how deep our dive’ll be if we’ve got four days instead of two. And we’ll be in the ideal place for it. Did you know that Wastwater is the deepest lake in England, and Windermere the largest? Although we’re actually staying near Derwentwater andBassenthwaite, if you want to look it up on a map.’
Intriguing names, or was it just the lilt of his accent? In spite of myself, I reached for the mouse. In a few clicks my screen was an intricate pattern of blue, brown and green – the usual colour-coded deception. Because ‘The map is not the territory.’
I wasn’t aware that I’d said it out loud, until he asked, ‘What do you mean?’
‘Nothing.’
‘No, tell me. It sounded like something important.’
A pause, weighing up the risks. ‘It’s a statement about the relationship between objects and their representation. First time I heard it was when I saw Magritte’s painting “The Treachery of Images” in Los Angeles. Do you know it?’
‘No. You’re interested in art?’
The question struck me as unnecessarily personal;I ignored it and went on, ‘Magritte painted a picture of a pipe with the caption “This is not a pipe” – except in French, of course – to convey that the painting is merely the image of a pipe, not the pipe itself.’
‘What’s Los Angeles like?’
Hot and bright and full of treachery.Nothing to do with the painting; I held no grudge against Magritte. Just a pity I hadn’t applied his messageto the man standing beside me in the gallery …
‘Hot and bright, that’s all I remember.’Deep breath, move on.‘To answer your original question – people confuse maps with the underlying territories, just as they confuse models of reality with reality itself. As Joni Mitchell put it, “It’s clouds’ illusions I recall, I really don’t know clouds at all”.’
‘Or love.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘She said the same about love.’
A non-committal ‘Right’; as if I didn’t know the song off by heart. Odd that he, too … well, I wouldn’t have thought he was a Joni Mitchell fan. I continued, ‘Now, who will I be meeting at the weekend?’
‘I can give you their names and tell you something about them – but, as you’ve just said, how will that help you deal with the reality?’
Oh, for God’s sake!‘Look, I need to prepare.’
‘Just make sure you bring the right gear—’
