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Executive Times |
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2006 Book Reviews |
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Rules for
Old Men Waiting by Peter Pouncey |
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Rating: |
*** |
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(Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Memories Rules for
Old Men Waiting is a debut novel by the president emeritus of Like an enemy that has
bombed its weaker opponent close to final submission, MacIver’s
illness could now dispense with any distinction between daytime and nighttime
activities: there would be insignificant resistance at whatever hour it
struck. He had felt awful when he woke up, the fever not ebbing one jot at
dawn; he had become light-headed in the shower stall,
and after apparently bouncing off the walls on his way down, he had found
himself on all fours on the floor, with the water obliviously pounding him
from above. It seemed unsafe to try and stand up in this confined space, but
he had managed to butt the door of the shower open with his head, and then
crawl out onto the bath mat. He had pulled towels off the racks to dry
himself and keep warm, and, feeling a little better, he had crawled to the
toilet and managed to climb up and sit on it. Finally, his head seeming
steadier now, he had stood up, returned to the shower stall, turned off the
water, and closed the door. He judged his performance during this episode
undignified, and probably comical to any observer, but in the circumstances
resourceful. He felt he had, over about the same time period, recapitulated
the essential progression of evolution: the aquatic animal coming onto dry
land, then achieving four-legged locomotion, and finally standing as Homo erectus on two legs. Impressive.
For breakfast he had bread and Tawny marmalade, pausing with each mouthful,
allowing himself to relish the taste of the Tawny, and then sipping the warm
water and preparing to pay the cost of the swallow. By the end, he felt he
had defeated heavy odds and was ready for work. Today he intended to bring
Simon Dodds and Tim Callum
together. Lieutenant Dodds had asked Private Callum
to come and see him in what passed for his office in the company headquarters.
It was his habit to spend more time in the trench with his platoon than most
officers found necessary, and on one occasion he had noticed Callum sketching, after he had been relieved from his
watch on the fire-step. Dodds had asked politely if
he could see the book, and Callum had passed it
over, he thought, resignedly, as though this would mean more trouble. The
drawings struck Dodds as very powerful—some of men
sleeping, men cleaning their kit, men horsing around on their weekly visit to
the bathhouse, and one ferocious cartoon of Sergeant Braddis
apparently playing with his bayonet. The quality of the work seemed so
obvious to him—but what did he know?—that he wanted to encourage Callum. He had heard that the Artists’ Rifles, a pretty
wild bunch by all accounts, whose sector of the trench system was less than
four hundred yards from theirs, held what they called soirees at a local
estaminet behind the lines, at which there was a lot of bad wine, some poetry
reading, some holding forth, but also some sharing of thoughts on work they
were doing or planning. An arty officer of the group had told Dodds of these occasions, giving time and place, when he
had mentioned Callum, and conveyed that he would be
entirely welcome (“God in heaven,” he had actually said, “half of them are
so far gone, they couldn’t recognize their own platoon mates”). “You should
go,” Dodds said, “and take that book with you. I
hear they occasionally have famous artists, or at least Official War Artists,
soaking up the atmosphere, and spreading their wide culture for the rest of
us poor fellows, for our morale.” “I don’t know if that’s my
sort of thing, sir,” said Callum. “I do best as a
sort of loner.” “That’s probably so,” said Dodds easily. He had one leg up on his desk, and was idly
letting an antique gold watch swing from its chain around his finger. “But a
change of scene does us all good from time to time, even if it makes us say,
‘This is definitely not my scene.’” “That may be true.” He was
noticing the swaying watch dart its Tinker Bell dance off the walls. “That
looks a lovely old watch, sir.” “Yes. It’s more than a
hundred years old—made by Robert Pennington of “Does that mean I get the
watch now, for coming on time?” said Callum. “Afraid not, my lad,” said Dodds, laughing and surprised. “Do you think your
grandfather knew about the cutting?” “I wondered about that at
the time, or whether I pulled a fast one on him. But now I’m sure he knew,
and wanted me to have the satisfaction of outsmarting him. After all, he was
sitting there before I got there, and I got there by the only way there was.
I think he just wanted to give me the watch.” “A generous man.” “Yes. I think about him
often, checking the time for this or that, on this lovely old watch. The
landscapes, here and there, were meant to be similar, flat, well-watered, under big skies, but look what we’ve done
with this. And the watch was meant to be there to time the drift of sky and
water, and here it is still ticking away in a filthy time and place. But
thanks for listening to my story.” “I liked it,” said Callum. “You were a kind of Odysseus, weren’t you, making
all your voyages and knowing all the ins and outs on the “How do you get on with
Sergeant Braddis?” Dodds
asked casually, as he was taking him to the door. “He’s a weird cuss, but I
don’t let him get to me.” “Right attitude. Well,
good-bye, and think about giving the Artists a chance.” “I will, sir,” said Callum. Dodds was impressed with Callum—watchful,
wary, but entirely his own man, he thought. He wondered if he would make it
to the Artists’ party. Perhaps he was too independent to need other people’s
good opinion of his work; if you’d come this far alone, why bother to attend
to what was going on in other sketchbooks. Still, wouldn’t you, even if
entirely secure in your own sense of direction, be at least curious where others were heading,
even as you struck out on your own? But never mind Callum.
Dodds was more concerned with Braddis.
He had heard of the destruction of Callum’s sketch,
and had been told that the sergeant had also confiscated another one,
supposedly a nude. This was unacceptable behavior, making life miserable for
a particular member of the platoon—so blatant that everyone had noticed it. Dodds had also heard of Braddis’s
solo expeditions into no-man’s-land in the small hours. He thought there
could only be one reason behind those, but to check his hunch, he would have
to go to town himself. Pouncey has waited a long time to complete
this novel, which he started writing in 1981. Readers will be pleased that Pouncey finished the work, and many will anticipate his
next book. In the meantime, Rules for
Old Men Waiting can be savored. Steve Hopkins,
February 23, 2006 |
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The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the March 2006
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/Rules
for Old Men Waiting.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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