My sister and her partner have come to the UK for a visit, and they want me to take them to the London book fair. They are co-authors of a recently published book called Horace & Agnes, a charming photographic essay about the love between a horse and a squirrel. My sister’s partner is the photographer. In addition to writing the accompanying text, my sister is also the horse.
I’ve never been to the London book fair, but I have a pretty good idea of what to expect: a huge and very crowded hall containing, among other things, a few people I am currently trying to avoid. But I’m willing to go as long as I don’t have to dress as an animal. I tried on my sister’s horse head once and within 30 seconds I experienced the first stirrings of a panic attack.
Fortunately my sister and her partner do not want to go to the book fair dressed as animals, at least not on the first day. I follow as they wander about, taking pictures and striking up conversations with total strangers, as if it were an actual fair.
Afterwards we walk the streets looking for photographic locations. My sister and her partner continue to be outgoing, chatting to people in shops and while waiting to cross the road. I lose them halfway round the Design Museum, and later find them talking to a man about the pram he is pushing. I feel as if I’ve spent 25 years not so much living in London as haunting it; a troubled, charmless presence, as insubstantial as vapour.
The next morning my sister comes into my office dressed as a horse.
“We’re going back to the book fair,” she says. “Wanna come?” I look into the still, dead eye of her horse head.
“I have to work,” I say.
Two days later I agree to take them to a vintage clothing shop where they have arranged to photograph a new character – a kangaroo – to be played by my youngest son. But it’s already midday, and the youngest one is asleep.
“If he doesn’t get up, you might have to step in,” my sister says.
“He’ll get up,” I say.
“I don’t want to make him do something he doesn’t want to do,” she says.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I like making him do things he doesn’t want to do.”
An hour later, the youngest one still hasn’t risen.
“Looks like you’re our new kangaroo,” my sister says.
“I can’t act,” I say. “I lack empathy.”
“There’s no acting,” she says. “You just put on the head.” I walk upstairs, push open the youngest one’s door and pull the duvet off him.
“Get up,” I say.
An hour later I find myself outside the shop while the youngest one, dressed in my suit, some borrowed shoes and a kangaroo head, is being photographed in conversation with my sister the horse. My sister’s partner has charmed the proprietor, who has basically become her assistant, changing the window dressing to suit her vision. I am sitting sullenly on a low wall opposite, watching everybody’s stuff.
The shop owner, I realise, will never forget my sister or her partner, or my kangaroo son, or this day. And he will never remember me, even though I bought a dinner jacket off him three years ago. For a brief moment, I wish it was me inside the kangaroo head.
The proprietor comes outside and sits next to me. We watch the camera flash light up the shop window in silence for several minutes.
“So,” he says. “What’s your role in the project?”
I look up the road, then back at the window.
“I drove,” I say.
