Billy Liar----
A contemporary escapist hero is Billy Liar, an ambitious but lazy young
man caught in dull job routine and a dreary home life, who spends most
of his time daydreaming about a land where he is a hero. A number of
minor indiscretions causes Billy to lie in order to avoid the
penalties. As these events start catching up with him, he finds himself
telling bigger lies to cover his tracks. Finally, when his life is a
total mess, and nobody believes a word he says, an opportunity to just
run away and leave it all behind presents itself, such that Billy has a
difficult decision to make.
The prosaic middle class drabness of Billy’s surroundings is a now
familiar backdrop “Hillcrest was the kind of dwelling where all the
windows are leaded in a fussy criss cross, except one which is a
porthole”. Breakfast was equally ritualised “Ay Yorkshire breakfast
scene. Ay polished table, one leaf out, covahed diagonally by ay white
tablecloth, damask, with grrreen strip bordah. Sauce stain to the
right, blackberry stain to the centre. Kellogg’s corn flakes, Pyrex
dishes, plate of fried bread. Around the table, the following
personnel: fathah, mothah, grandmothah, one vacant place”. The
‘personnel’ have the familiar tone of materialistic nagging:
“Gran chipped in: ‘He wants to burn that raincoat, then he’ll have to
get dressed of a morning’. One of Gran’s peculiarities, and she had
many, was that she would never address anyone directly but always went
through an intermediary, if necessary some static object such as a
cupboard. Doing the usual decoding I gathered that she was addressing
my mother and that he who should burn the raincoat was the old man, and
he who would have to get dressed of a morning was me. The old man
interrupted:
‘And what bloody time did you get in last night? If you call it last
night. This bloody morning more like’.
I sliced the top off my boiled egg, which in a centre favouring
tapping the top with a spoon and peeling the bits off was always
calculated to annoy.”
Billy tries to escape from his environment at the very end, and in a
fit of exhilarating bravado nearly makes it – only to be dragged back
by a curious version of the acte gratuite in Les Caves du Vatican:
“I took out the ticket and looked at it... I could not think except in
confused snatches. I began to count ten; at the end of the count I
would oblige myself to answer one way or the other. One. Two. Three.
Four. The train now leaving platform three is the one thirty-five for
London, calling at.... five. Six. Seven. There was no need to count to
the end. I picked up the suitcase, feeling deflated and defeated. I
walked out of the waiting room and across the booking hall to the
ticket barrier. I did not wait for the train to leave. I transferred
the suitcase to my left hand and walked out of the station......... and
then I began the slow walk home.”
(Evans A, "This Virtual Life" 2003)