Watching Me Watching Them Watching You 
Andrew O’Hagan
I spent the first of my teenage years living in the grounds of an approved school, a place that faced onto a ruined castle said to have given a night’s shelter to Mary Queen of Scots. The escaping Queen was never there at all, but people preferred to think she had never left: every castle in Scotland seeks to have its part in Mary’s story, and her eyes were felt to burn through the night from a high window. Looking at the ruins, I always hoped that Mary would just speak some of her great last words from the darkness; I believed she was there and that something of us all was there in those eyes of hers that seemed to make a ritual of watching.
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Andrew O’Hagan’s book of essays, The Atlantic Ocean, will be out soon in paperback.
Other articles by this contributor:
Iraq, 2 May 2005 · Two Soldiers
The Nominee · With the Democrats
At the Design Museum · Peter Saville
Good Fibs · Truman Capote
Disgrace under Pressure · Andrew O’Hagan reads some lad mags
How to Survive Your Own Stupidity · Homage to Laurel and Hardy
In His Hot Head · Robert Louis Stevenson
A Car of One’s Own · Chariots of Desire
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