When we embarked on this trip my sister gave me a St
Christopher. I have blogged about this before and about her half joking half
serious faith in its ability to keep us safe and to bring her sister back to
her in one piece. One live and kicking piece, bright and bushy and eager to
tell the tale.
I have also blogged before about how it does indeed, seem
not only to have done its job, but to have gone over and above its initial
mission, bringing us champagne, prime seats, jumping queues for us and securing
us a few rather perfect accidents (a cancellation of an Air BnB booking allows
us to change our booking to something else, which turns out, arguably, to be better).
I have a new theory about our St Christopher. I think it is
taking the hits for us.
You may or may not know the story of The Portrait of Dorian
Grey, by Oscar Wilde. If you don’t know it, you may know the concept from films
like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which utilise it, if a little
misleadingly.
The basic idea is this: Dorian Grey is a beautiful young man
who is gifted and charming, and who, not to point too fine a point on it,
everyone fancies. Men and women alike are drawn to his charms. But he has a
terrible secret. Tempted by the devil, in the form of a rather loosely
categorised ‘friend’, he has made a pact with something dark and dreadful, to
allow him to remain, forever, beautiful. Dorian does not age, he does not mark,
and, though this is rather overly emphasised in cartoon references after the
original novella, he does not die. His
secret is a hidden portrait, covered by dust sheets and kept locked away. The
portrait, of him as a young man, full of life and beauty, is, essentially, his
soul. Where he does not age, it does. Moreover, it bears all the marks of his
inner darkness, his sins, and later, his murders, are all evident in the ever
more horrific portrait he keeps so carefully hidden, both from others and,
because of its horrifying truthfulness, himself. In the end the only way for
Dorian Grey to die, is to kill, not the nubile young man he is known as, but
the portrait itself.
That contained rather a lot of spoilers for the novella, for
which I am sorry. But I think it’s famous enough now that most people know it.
And if you didn’t, just buy the book and put it to one side for a year. You’ll
have forgotten by the time you rediscover it. And it is worth reading.
Anyway, much as I am sure that Oscar Wilde would appreciate
my one women advertising campaign for his work, the point, as I suspect you
know I am about to come to, is that our St Christopher is the portrait of
Dorian Grey for us.
Not that we have killed anyone, and I don’t think as yet
that it is taking on the darkness of our souls, though who knows what may
happen by the end of the trip, (“you change,” says everybody, “when you are
travelling. You won’t know yourself.”), perhaps we will return as serial
killers, disguised as slightly sweaty angels. But I have a theory that our St
Christopher is taking all the bashings we are managing to avoid.
It has been with me everywhere I go, in my purse, but I keep
it wrapped in the paper it was given to us in, to preserve it. The other day, I
took it out to show someone, and was surprised to find it looks, well, a little
different to the way it did when we first started out.
The writing seems to have tarnished and is not altogether
readable. It is not the clear silver script on black background it once was,
nor is it perfectly round, but seems to have acquired the odd groove around the
edges. As I have done nothing more than carry it about in my purse, this seems
to me mysterious and wonderful.
M does venture that possibly the St Christopher is made of
silver, which does tarnish if not polished, and it occurs, even to me, that it
could be related to salt water having managed to get on practically everything
in Thailand, and that if washed in fresh water and polished up, it would be
fine. Plus my purse has been everywhere with me. So it will have got a bit
bashed and juggled around in my bag.
But I refuse to believe in such unlikely stories. I think
that for every time we have ridden in an open backed jeep driven crazily fast
on mountain paths in Thailand, for every time we have traffic dodged on
Cambodia’s crazy roads, or ridden a motorcycle taxi in Vietnam, for every boat
trip in rough weather, every snake, spider or scorpion we have passed in our
sandals without noticing, every new combination of unusual or unidentifiable foods
we have tried, or for every mountain, hill or incline we have scrambled our way
up, over or under, our St Christopher has gained another, minor defect. Just a
smudge on his lettering, or a tiny groove in his side. We have not taken any
overt or obvious risks, and have done nothing which could later have been
described as ‘reckless’. We have not wandered into jungle wasteland without
proper shoe wear, or a supply of water, have not knowingly taken any transport
which did not have a good safety reputation (at least under the conditions of
the country we are travelling in), and have never knowingly driven with an
unsafe driver. I say that – sometimes we have known once we were in the vehicle
only, and there was nothing we could do about it (I am thinking about Thailand
– speed, substances and sight (of the road) are all things which are taken
quite lightly on Koh Lanta). And I suppose there was that one time when we
drove our own motorbike. But still.
For every mosquito that has managed, despite clothing,
repellent, and fierce admonishment, to bite one of us, our St Christopher has
sweated his way through a bout of dengue fever. For every monkey that has tried
to bite our hands in order to steal sunglasses (yes, really), he has dealt with
the rabies. (though actually we are fully injected and immunised, so I am sure
that in fact, it would have been fine
anyway – but that rather breaks my flow, so for now, we’ll pretend a little
more danger than we have ever actually
allowed ourselves to be in.) We are travelling nowhere in which there have been
reports of Ebola, for which I expect our St Christopher is heartily pleased.
Travelling does mean that all the time you face tiny
dangers, based normally on having less information or less certainty than you
might in your own culture and on your own geography. It’s not that you are
always risking your life, as I set out above, you have a choice in that kind of
activity), but you are always wandering past ‘Sliding Doors’ style alternate
situations. And I think our St Christopher is taking the hits.
I re-wrap our poor beleaguered saint back up in his paper,
and place him back in my purse. When we get back, and he is back off duty, he
can relax. I’ll even treat him to a bath and a bit of a polish.
And in the meantime, I can’t help but sneak little peeks at
the state of him. How, I wonder, will he look after we go Fly Boarding in New
Zealand?
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