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28/1/96 The gravy that was the last five years
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23/5/87 When writer and man come together again
The Sunday Times, Page 6
The gravy that was the last five years
"No other word will do. For that's what it was. Gravy."
-Raymond Carver
I PAY the last instalrnent of my five-year mortgage on the car this month. And so five years have passed. It is as good a time as any to take stock, look back on those years.
They could have turned out very differently. But as it happened, they were gravy. I could not have asked for more.
Just more than five years ago, the job of the editor in the section in which I had worked for a decade- the second half as a No. 2- had opened up.
I decided I was the best man for it. But my editors felt there were two other contenders for it, both of them Colombo Plan scholars who were relatively new to the paper, but brimming with promise.
I was fond of both of them. We shared a common passion for books and movies. I had also shared a flat with one of them for several years, and the two of us had had great times together.
I remember the times we talked through the night- and with what earnestness! - on subjects that ranged from sex to books to sex to movies, and in the breaking dawn, drove to the old Lau Pa Sat for kaya toast breakfast. A quick nap back at home, and we were ready for the office.
And so there were three contenders for the job, perhaps more. My editors agonised over the choice.
I was the old hand, with only a Higher School Certificate to my name. My other well-intentioned colleagues advised me, You have no chance, you are not a scholar, do not be too disappointed.
One day, when I was nursing a low-grade flu at home, my editor called up.
I want to interview the candidates he said. Could you come down?
I went to the office with a painfully composed resignation letter, complete with an epigraph by V. S. Naipaul, in my pocket.
I had determined that I would quit if I did not get that job, and drop out of mainstream society, be a poor Zen bum.
I was being theatrical. I played out the scene in my head: The minute my boss says,
Sorry, you're not ready, I will flash him the letter. He might be shocked. Or relieved.
But whatever the case, what a story I would have to tell my drinking kakis at the pub afterwards. If I was going to go out, I was going to go out a hero.
"Tell me why you want the job," my editor said, when I was in his office.
"Because I'm the best man for it, at this time," I said. I was immodest, but then I was going for broke.
As it turned out, my editor gave me the job. My two friends went on to other key positions in the newsroom, but it wasn't long before they left, one to retreat to research work, the other to set up his own company.
I DON'T know if my bosses ever regretted their decision, for I have not been exactly a model middlemanager, but they gave me my last five good years.
They wasted no time to pack me off for a two-month fellowship programme in Cambridge, where I learnt, among other things, to enjoy wine and ceremonious dining.
They pushed me in a new direction, where I was exposed to a whole range of people I would never have met in a cinema, or perhaps even in a bookshop.
The job afforded me the opportunity to travel, to go to all those places I had always wished to see for myself: Lawrence's grave in Taos New Mexico; the City Lights bookstore in San Francisco, where I actually met Lawrence Ferlinghetti, the beat poet and owner of the place; Joyce's Dublin; Havel's Prague; the Ryoan-ji in Kyoto; Buddhist India; and last year, the Henry Miller Memorial Library in Big Sur, California.
It afforded me a comfortable life. I ate at cosy restaurants, had valets to park my Honda; could stock up on Haagen-Daz tubs in my fridge.
At the same time, the work challenged and stretched me, even as my younger colleagues paced me, pushed me and made me run as fast as I could.
It was pure exhilaration. I owe them the joy of going into the office every morning, looking forward to the day.
I told them recently: "I got so high sometimes I suffered from withdrawal symptoms on weekends. And this is after 22 years on the job."
"This ain't a job, this is a life," I declared pompously.
To keep those withdrawal pains at bay, I read, but this time, non-fiction. I read Paul Kennedy, Allan Bloom, Christopher Lasch, Fukuyama, Drucker, Rosebeth Moss Kanter.
For pleasure, I dipped into the books of the new evolutionary biology, like Stephen Wright's The Moral Animal and Matt Ridley's The Red Queen; and out of curiosity, Nicholas Negroponte, the guru of the digital world.
I thought I was old enough not to succumb to the so-called hip books any longer- I grew up with the books of the Beatsñbut nevertheless, I read Cyberia, I read Prozac Nation, I read Sophie's World.
I re-read Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance, and was shocked by how even more urgently relevant its inquiry into values and technology is today, 22 years after it was first published.
I could not read enough. Because I was avid for knowledge, because I was being paced... because I was running for my life.
NOW, as I look back, I am frightened by the intensity with which I had driven myself.
I realise the exhilaration had somewhere along the line turned into ambition. I wanted
more, and I wanted to be in the race with the best.
Yet, had I over-estimated myself?
After all, like my Honda, I may have only a 1,300-cc engine, and no matter how much I top up, I could only go so fast. How dare I presume to compete with those with souped-up 1,800, 2,000-cc engines?
Still, I shan't ever give up. For that is the whole purpose of life: strive, seek, sweat.
I am grateful for the gravy that was the last five years, but it need not now be what drives me. Plain rice, as they say, also can.
