Travels Through An Imaginary Landscape

Everingham & Redgrave (Deceased), Part One

EPISODE ONE: EVERINGHAM & REDGRAVE (DECEASED)

PART ONE

          He leaned forward and for just a moment those blue eyes sparkled into life. “The landscape of the imagination,” he said. “Just say it exists. Really, actually exists. A real, physical world which has grown from the whole of human imagination over thousands of years. Every story ever told, every character ever created, every idea ever conceived. What if you could actually travel there and explore such a landscape? What would you say to that?”

          I stared deeply into my whisky and soda, trying to think of an appropriate response. “Err…” I replied…

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          And that was how it started really. This whole ludicrous adventure. Well, perhaps, strictly speaking that wasn’t quite the exact start. For dramatic purposes I may have dropped you in it just a little bit. But beginnings are tricky things to get a handle on. Constantly shifting in and out of focus and very much dependant upon your perspective. But I’m digressing. Allow me to rewind just a short way. Perhaps the true beginning came with the notification that CJ Sturridge was coming to give a talk at our University.

          This, naturally, was something of a coup and made all the more exciting by the fact that we were only given a weeks notice of his impending arrival. Despite, or more likely because, we were given to understand that this august visit was something to be kept under wraps, not for public disclosure as it were, I was immediately itching to tell the first person I could. That honour happened to fall to my boyfriend, Peter, who I had arranged to meet for coffee after lectures that day.

          The reaction was not quite the one I had hoped for. Peter wrinkled his brow in an almost pantomimic display of disbelief. “The CJ Sturridge?” he repeated slowly.

          “No, a CJ Sturridge,” I retorted irritably. “Of course, the CJ Sturridge. How many CJ Sturridges do you know?”

          “The author, poet, screenwriter and literary critic, CJ Sturridge?” Peter continued at the same deliberate pace. “General all round genius, CJ Sturridge?”

          “Yep, that’ll be the one.”

          “What does he want to come and talk to you lot for?”

          With remarkable control I resisted the urge to empty my coffee cup over Peter’s head. “No, I didn’t mean it like that.” Peter hurriedly back-pedalled. “It’s just I heard he’d become something of a recluse lately.”

          “Well clearly something has occurred to bring him back out of his shell.”

          “And you do kind of imagine that he gets asked to talk at places like Oxford and Cambridge. I’m a bit surprised he’d be interested in coming to Bristol, of all places.”

          “I don’t know, maybe he wanted to go somewhere with a zoo,” I said, with just a note of exasperation. “Or perhaps he’s heard of the glories of the CliftonSuspension Bridge and the SS Great Britain. Or maybe, just maybe he thought it would be nice to offer a little bit of encouragement to a group of hard-working students who very rarely get the opportunity to hear from anyone with an ounce of genuine talent.”

          “No, you’re right.” Peter attempted a look of contrition which really didn’t sit at all well on his face. “I’m sorry, I’m sure it’ll be a great talk.”

          I grunted in response. Now that my initial enthusiasm had been thoroughly trampled upon I wasn’t really in the mood for peace offerings. And I rather suspected that the real reason Peter was creating objections was because he hated the idea of my getting some genuine interest out of my course. Peter had never really approved of my decision to return to University last year to study for a postgraduate degree in creative writing. He thought that education was a bourgeois concept that merely regurgitated accepted wisdom and that, at twenty-six, I should be making my own way in the world, defying convention and breaking new ground. But then he was thirty-five and had a mortgage and a Ford Mondeo so who was he to talk? And the truth was I only really stuck at it for the student library card. The idea of free access to thousands of books and DVDs was far more appealing than anything my tutors had to offer.