I find a cassette tape, unlabelled.
I’m in the process of divesting myself of accumulated clutter that has started to clog up my life, in preparation for a renovation of my flat, and most of the tapes are being at long last thrown out now. Some—those bought as albums and undamaged—go to the charity shop, practically all others, with the exception only really of some mixtapes which have memories attached to them and therefore some sentimental value, go in the bin: I hold on to less than half a dozen, which is me being ruthless. I reckon.
The unlabelled tape nearly lands in the bin liner unexamined, but it intrigues me as there are almost no tapes that don’t have anything written on them at all, even if on some of them the writing has long faded and become illegible. I take it out of its case and put it in the machine I still own to play tapes, which I haven’t used in more than a decade.
I hear a young voice with a not particularly strong but clearly discernible accent, a little measured, a little studied, a little over-enunciated, declare: “All right, here we go: Europe Tour 1988, The Spoken Diary.” I’m listening to myself, nearly thirty years ago. And I hear myself say: “This is my first experience of this kind as well, so we just have to try it out.” My language has not yet acquired any idiom, and Germanisms linger, sometimes prevail.
“Nothing of what’s going to be said is going to be edited in any way, I promise myself that, so that when I’ll be listening to it in two or three or five years, ten years, I’ll feel genuinely embarrassed.” Not embarrassed, my friend, so much as astounded. I sound to me like any young man from the past. I recognise myself, but in the way that I would recognise a friend from that time, someone I knew, a little. Not someone I knew well, let alone someone I was. I don’t remember the process of recording this, but I do recall having made The Tape. The memory is curious, brittle, alien.
The ‘Europe Tour,’ it transpires, starts in Edinburgh, with a first diary entry on Monday 14th August (which I pronounce Oggust, and that does embarrass me now a little, though it also endears me to me) at 2:15 in the afternoon, a time by which I announce, with a hint of pride lacing my voice, that I haven’t slept in about twenty-four hours. I’ve had a “very pleasant conversation” with two Americans on the train, and upon arrival availed myself of the services of the Tourist Information Office, who have booked me into this “guest house.” Saying “guest house,” I sound bemused, almost baffled at my own predicament.
Having settled into my room, which, apparently, has high ceilings and is also “pleasant,” I’ve headed out and bought myself tickets to three shows at the Fringe Festival, the first one starting at 4:15pm.
“I’ve just eaten this strange, slobbery pizza, which was incredibly cheap though,” I note, and “people here have time, and they let you know they do, which can be charming as well.”
I describe with awe the light of the city in London, pulling out of King’s Cross Station at six thirty in the morning, and call Edinburgh “wonderful” and unlike anything I’d seen before; but I also remark that the drawback of this place is the weather: I’d already spotted someone wearing a fur coat at the height of summer, though I make no reference to ‘nae nickers’ – perhaps I’m not yet familiar with the expression.
“I seem to be sounding a bit blasé, hearing myself over the headphones, but I’ll have to get used to that, I presume.” And I’m not joking. Today, I sound to me like a young arrival’s idea of a latter day Noël Coward, and it hits me: I still own the silver cigarette case I used to use at that time, quite without irony.
Hearing this now, I sense there’s a fair chance that it might get me to know me better, and I resolve to listen to myself speak to me from the past…
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EDEN by FREI 