Imaginary Friends, and X-Ray Specs One of the subjects that interests me most is friendship. In the various books I very much enjoy exploring the nature of friendship, and I suppose that’s what many of the books are all about, when all is said and done. There is the friendship between Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi and then there is Mma Ramotswe’s friendship with Mma Potokwani. There is the friendship between Isabel and Jamie (although that becomes something more), and of course there is Bertie, who is desperately longing for friendship and has to make do with the difficult Tofu and the dreadful Olive. He does find Ranald Braveheart Macpherson, though, and Ranald is a better friend to him. One of the finest studies of friendship in fiction is the friendship between Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin in the novels of Patrick O’Brian. Those remarkable novels are not only about naval history, but deal with a long-standing friendship between two very different people, one a man of action, the other a surgeon and naturalist. I enjoy those books immensely, not least because of that profound portrayal of friendship. How many close friends do we need? Psychologists provide varying answers to that question, but there seems to be some agreement that we can get by with five or so. I suppose it depends on what one means by “close”. One criterion of a close friend is whether one can call him or her on the telephone for no reason other than the need to chat. There are relatively few people with whom we can do that. Children have very distinctive ways with friendship. When you are young you can make friends at the drop of a hat. And they also have an odd habit of creating imaginary friends. Somewhere in my library I have a book on the imaginary friendships of children; it is an interesting study. In the Isabel Dalhousie book that I am currently writing, there is a scene that I have just written in which Isabel and Jamie are in the kitchen, talking about that precise topic. Jamie is cooking – he often cooks for Isabel, while she sits at the kitchen table with a glass of New Zealand white wine and talks to him about the day’s events, and about life in general. Here is their conversation about imaginary friends: Jamie nodded. “I had an imaginary friend when I was a boy.” Isabel looked at him inquisitively. “Oh? What was he called?” “He was called Lolly. I don’t know why I chose the name, but that was what it was. Lolly Macgregor.” Isabel reached for the bottle of wine. She allowed herself two glasses, and if she poured another one now it would have to last through the meal. Jamie shook his head. He would wait. “Tell me about Lolly Macgregor.” “Apparently I made him up when I was four or five,” said Jamie. “He stayed for three years and then I gather I said that he went off to Australia and we never heard from him again. I don’t remember that bit, but my mother said I simply announced his departure and that was it.” Isabel had read that children’s imaginary friends could come to a sudden – and sticky – end. “Lolly Macgregor had a wonderful torch,” Jamie went on. “Its batteries never needed charging. He also had X-Ray specs that could see through people’s clothes. Lolly could tell what colour their underpants were. This gave him something over them: if Lolly could see your underpants, then you were at an inherent disadvantage.” “He was a good person to have on your side,” mused Isabel. “Oh yes, Lolly was a great ally.” “Which is why children create them,” said Isabel. “It must be something to do with that. We create friends for ourselves because otherwise the world is just too frightening. Friends and myths.” I rather like the sound of this character, Lolly Macgregor, even if he is entirely imaginary. Perhaps he should crop up in Scotland Street as a friend for Bertie. I suspect that somebody called Lolly Macgregor would be great fun … especially with his X-Ray specs. By the way, I see that if one searches for X-Ray specs on Amazon, there they are! In my day they were advertised in comics, and boys sent off for them by post (girls were above that sort of thing). How nice to know that some things never change. AMcS
Posted on: Sat, 20 Sep 2014 02:35:45 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015