Wednesday, December 27, 2006

And the band played on

‘My shit smells of sprouts’ announces Lionel, returning from the lavatory.
I rebuke him. ‘Lionel, I don’t mind sharing a khazi with you, but I do not wish to know the details of your excretory endeavours.’
‘Well, stands to reason dunnit’ continued my friend, as if he hadn’t heard me, ‘all the sprouts we’ve eaten in the last few days! I mean, who eats sprouts the rest of the year? Nobody. But when it comes to Christmas we have to have ‘em by the bloody barrow-load.’
‘If you don’t like them, why do you eat them?’ I say, exasperated.
‘Well, that’s what Christmas is about innit? Doing things you don’t normally like doing.’
I give up, and leave him playing the 1949 recording, The Brothers (an LP which has been in my possession for years, and which I gave him as a birthday present, since he professed to be a fan of Stan Getz and Zoot Sims. I know, I am a fool unto myself – still, it is Christmas), to go down to the communal lounge and peruse my copy of War Cry. Major Dunwoody, the senior officer in charge of the hostel, has given everyone has been given a copy of the magazine. By the way, I was listening to the Sally Army band yesterday, playing outside the Conservative Club. I don’t join in the hymns – well, for one thing, I can’t sing - but they do have some rousing tunes. As that bloke who founded them (Booth, I think was his name) said, ‘why should the devil have all the good tunes?’
Anyway, you’ll never guess whom I saw, playing the trombone - no, not Kid Ory, but Sam, the Christian policeman! Remember? The bobby who rescued me from the Mersey mud, all that time ago. I had a few words with him while the lasses were going round with the collecting boxes (don’t those girls look lovely in their uniforms and bonnets – I once considered joining the Salvation Army but on reflection I felt that the music and the uniform were insufficient reason to commit myself to a life of abstinence from alcohol. That of course is one of my problems – not alcohol - lack of commitment ‘He couldn’t commit himself – so they sectioned him.’)
Anyway, to get back to Sam, apparently he is on secondment – to the Met. And plain clothes no less! He wouldn’t tell me what case he was on, but he spends a lot of his time on surveillance in Soho. As a matter of fact he asked me to join him for a cup of coffee in the Blue Magnolia one afternoon.

My knee has gone again. Keeps giving way when I’m coming downstairs. Still, mustn’t grumble. My knees have given me good service – and, I hope, will continue to do so. I was having a shower the other day and I looked down at my legs, and I thanked them for all the support they had given me over the years.

One other thing: I hope I did not offend anyone by using the word ‘homosexual’ instead of the currently favoured ‘gay’ appellation. When I was in the Air Force (before the term ‘gay’ had been invented) I had a couple of friends who were considered… well, different. John was a special friend. He had a great sense of humour and loved the theatre. He was a mine of information on musicals; we say quite a few performances together. It never occurred to me to consider what any of the other airmen might think. I don’t think they thought anything at all – I found the RAF a very tolerant environment.
We kept in touch for a bit after we were demobbed. The last communication I had from him was a letter telling me that he and a friend had started a drag act. He enclosed a photograph. I replied saying they looked stunning – which they did - and wishing them all the best. But I never heard from him again.

I don’t know how long I can stay here ‘I must keep moving like a rolling stone’ – but I don’t want to, really. ‘All I want is a room somewhere/Far away from the cold night air/With one enormous chair…’ yes, Eliza, it would indeed be luverly.

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

It’s not so bad in here. I don’t have my own lavatory but the sheets are clean. I share a cubicle with Lionel. He isn’t homosexual or anything – so I am all right. He sells the Big Issue on ‘Boots’ corner. Says it’s the best pitch in town. He can’t remember when he decided to become homeless; all he knows is that his was the sort of home that encourages homelessness. His wife used to beat him up every Christmas; the rest of the year he was just mentally abused and psychologically traumatised.
He volunteered this information. I didn’t ask. That’s what’s so good about being in here: you have your privacy. Nobody asks questions. You can keep yourself to yourself. Another thing: although there is an undediably ecclesiastical ambience, they don’t expect you to attend any of the services – or sing carols.

I couldn’t have stayed in that house, not after the events of 23rd December. I shall be all right. I’ll keep you posted.

Saturday, December 23, 2006

Up the Isthmus for Christmas



Myra says we have not ‘fallen from grace’, that there is no grace from which to fall. That there is no boat to miss, no ‘Good Ship Lollipop’
She asserts that we have evolved from the primordial slime and clawed our way to the head of the queue. And that as we have evolved in physical and mental complexity, so have we evolved in SPIRITUAL complexity. That this is not to say that we have invented God, but rather that God has evolved with us.


But suppose we have fallen so far that we cannot even see the possibility of grace. Suppose we are so ‘steeped in sin’ that we have completely lost sight of the ‘way’?
Myra insists that the concept of sin is at best unhelpful, and at worst destructive and life limiting. ‘If you feel you have done something really bad then - just don’t do it again. Don’t spend your days wallowing in guilt. It does nobody any good.’
And when I asked, why then do we feel so alone, so estranged, so alienated, she said ‘Well why shouldn’t we? Feeling like this is a natural outcome of being human. Or, to be more accurate, it is the price we pay for evolving into consciousness.’

Is that true? Is it why I feel so alone this Christmas? In the midst of all the jollity, the festive cheer, the party hats? Or is it that I have so ‘lost my way’ that I am treading some path of my own, that leads to nowhere – and that deep down I recognise this, hence the emptiness inside.

In a book I read, a woman wrote: Could it be that those of us who march to the beat of a different drum may just be tone deaf?
Or might it be – as Myra suggests – that some are more spiritually evolved than others, and can see a bit further? Further? Into the abyss? Or....

Night, mothering night,
Take us on your knee,
And hide our eyes
From the blank face of eternity.

Is it better to be happy rather than spiritually advanced? Do we have a choice?

I do not think I am yet ready to accept Myra’s offer of an Archdeaconship in
The Church of the Latter Day Sinners.

Thursday, December 21, 2006

Storm clouds gather

Sound of snoring in my ear. Afraid to open my eyes – the lids are stuck together, anyway. Where am I? I force my eyes open. Perkins is stretched out across the back of my armchair – fast asleep. I sit up quickly. It’s not that I don’t like cats, but I don’t want one sitting on my head. At my sudden movement, Perkins wakes. He gives me one of those looks cats give you: a mixture of contempt and pity. Then he yawns and closes his eyes again.
I look across; the armchair opposite is empty: no sign of its previous occupant. Have I been dreaming? Did I imagine that weird conversation about religion? I am beginning to seriously doubt myself when I catch sight of the dozen or so empty bottles lying on the hearthrug. No idea of the time. The lights in the room are still on, but I can’t see any clock and there’s no sound at all in the house. I am completely alone – except for the fish, which stare at me in their vacuous fishy way.

I am about to panic, but my armed forces training kicks in. Prioritise. Obviously the first thing is to find out the time. I grope my way into the kitchen – all the other lights in the house have been turned off. After an age of feeling around the walls, I locate the switch. The fluorescent tube buzzes, flickers and blinks – then fails completely. But in that brief burst of strobe I glimpsed the cooker. Now, navigating by the faint green beacon of its clock, I cross the dark kitchen, like a crippled bomber making its final approach, until I am near enough to read the time: 1.47.

I ought to be in bed, but therein lies a problem, three problems. I enumerate them. 1) I am not all that familiar with the geography of this house, and I don’t want to go switching lights on for fear of waking its occupants and having to face the ensuing hostility. So how am I going to find my room? 2) Do I actually have a room? I had become so enthralled in our theological discussion that I had forgotten to ask Myra if she had okayed the room swap with Carole. 3) My head feels swollen and heavy (I am sure Myra put something in that last Guinness) somewhat dulling my usually razor-sharp mind.

I turn and make my way back to the lounge. There is no sign of the deflated ‘blow-up’ bed, so that’s a good omen, or so I think. I am terribly thirsty, and desperately in need of a pee. Just in time I remember the non-functionality of the downstairs water closet. Okay, it will have to be the first floor bathroom. After that comes the big test: finding my bedroom.

Taking off my shoes I start to creep upstairs, like an inexperienced and very timid burglar. As I cautiously climb, keeping to the outside edge of each step so as to minimise the creak of a faulty stair. Then another worry floats up from the murky depths of my tired mind: Anastasia. It’s that fellow Adams’ fault of course: if he had not alarmed her with his irresponsible comment – which was, of course, complete rubbish - she would not have not have seen Myra as being any kind of threat. But anyway, she won’t turn up here; I think her reaction was of the Swedish knee-jerk variety.

I reach the first-floor landing and can breathe normally once again. Suddenly there is a loud knock at the front door – actually it’s more of a rat a tat tat! Bloody hell! It can’t be – I’m going to faint. I wonder if there’s a ‘Men’s Refuge’ in Hendon.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Some pointers on structure

(I hear the clop-clop of Myra’s boot-heels as she crosses the hall, then the kitchen door bangs open. I am trying to think about the questions Myra has posed, but my brain is hurting. Suddenly there comes the sound of a cat skidding across a parquet floor. Seconds later Myra enters the room carrying 2 pint bottles of Guinness – but no glasses)

Myra: (handing me a bottle) Here, get that down you.
Me: Thank you. (I take a sip of my drink – I’ve never drunk Guinness out of a bottle before)
Myra: Don’t sip – GULP… that’s my motto in life.
(Thus encouraged, I take a fair swig – and choke. Eventually I stop coughing and spluttering. And then a thought occurs to me…)
Me: Why did you have to let Perkins in? What about the cat flap?
Myra: Hector has nailed it shut.
Me: Why did he do that?
Myra: Because he’s a twat. Now, where were we?
Me: You asked me to think about a couple of questions, but I –
Myra: Oh never mind. Consider then more as Zen koans. You know, like: what is the sound of one hand clapping? Incidentally, there is a bit of Buddhism in my religion. Of course you know Buddhism is not a religion: it is more a philosophy, along with Confucianism. Actually, I am thinking of writing a book on Zen Buddhism.
Me: Really?
Myra: Yes, a sort of modern commentary, if you like. How about this for a title: Now and Zen? Snappy? What do you think? I mean you being in the authoring game and that?
Me: Snappy, indeed. But to get back to our topic: where does your religion fit in the three mainstream religions?
Myra: Christianity, Islam and Hinduism? Well it’s rather up to the novitiate. You see ours is more of a ‘pick and mix’ affair. You choose the bits you want and reject those you don’t. We are – quite literally – a broad Church.
Me: I see. And what about the name: Church of the Latter Day Sinners?
Myra: Well, we accept sinners into our church.
Me: But so does the Christian Church…
Myra: Ah yes, but their sinners are expected to repent. With us, repenting is optional.
Me: Well that is certainly a new slant on ‘forgiveness’.
Myra: Who said anything about forgiveness?
Me: Well I naturally thought –
Myra: If you go on forgiving folk you deprive them of the opportunity to learn from the consequences of the actions. That’s one of our central tenets. Remember, you were asking me about tenets?
Me: Y..e…e s. And it makes sense, in a strangely perverted way.
Myra: Perverts are welcome too.
Me: But you haven’t really told me anything about your creed. You do have a creed?
Myra: Again, the answer is yes, and no. We are a bit ad hoc as regards creeds. We do have certain tenets – and I have just given you one. Here’s another: spontaWe must strive toward spontaneity. But let me say a bit more about how our religion is structured.
Me: I wish you would.
Myra: Imagine one of those big sweet shops were they have a ‘pick and mix’ counter. You know, with all those plastic bins and the little shovels? The little children come in and help themselves: this kid a shovel-full of liquorice torpedoes, maybe half a shovel-full of dolly mixtures, just a few aniseed balls, a quarter shovel of mint-imperials – no fruity-chews, no chocolate raisins…. The next kid might favour the raisins but forsake the dolly mixtures… and so it goes.
Now, instead of a sweet shop, imagine a religion shop. Get the idea?
Me: So you mean The Church of the Latter Day Sinners is a sort of pot-pourri of all the other religions on offer?
Myra: In a way.
Me: But where does the structure come in if each member of the church is allowed to pick and mix like that?
Myra: I wield the shovel!
Me: What?
Myra: Well you wouldn’t want kids just shovelling away at the pick and mix, would you? You’d have liquorice torpedoes flying all over the bleedin’ place; mint-imperials rolling around the floor like ball-bearings, turning it into a roller-skating rink. Next thing you know: comes along some old lady – goes arse over tit. Crash bang wallop. Broken hip! Shopkeeper gets sued. What a palaver – can’t be having that.
Me: Well, since you put it –
Myra: Besides, you know what some of the greedy little buggers are like: they’d be making themselves ill. Say, choosing all them sickly chocolate mint creams, filling their bags (and their gobs) with all sorts of gooey muck. You need a responsible adult.
Same in the religion shop: they get to choose – but I am in charge of the shovel. And that’s were you get the structure. Fancy another Guinness?

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Is there anyone there?


Model on Myra's mantle.





It was a clay pipe that Myra was putting to such good use: like the ones I have seen in pictures of ‘boat-women’ on the canals of England in the early nineteenth century. I must say it suited her admirably, and I told her so. She offered to loan me one from her collection, but I declined.

I wasn’t sure how to broach the subject of religion, so I said ‘What do you think of death?’
‘I’m not too keen.’ She replied, taking the pipe from her mouth and billowing smoke up at the ceiling. (I noticed there was a big brown patch just over where she was sitting, so I deduced this must be her favourite armchair).
I pressed on. ‘No, I mean, what with your religion and that, I thought you would have some definite ideas about it – death, I mean.’
She regarded me quizzically. ‘What do you know about my religion?’
‘Well, nothing really, except Hector told me that you had started your own… religion.’
She puffed away at her pipe for a couple of minutes, reminding me of Harold Wilson: when he was Prime Minister, if anyone asked him a difficult question, he would spend an age getting his pipe going, while he thought of an answer. Myra’s pipe was going, strongly but she seemed to be employing a similar strategy.
Then suddenly removing the pipe from her mouth, she stabbed the stem in my direction. ‘That brother of yours is a fool. I don’t know why you let him speak to you the way he does; anyone would think he was the elder brother. I’m surprised you have anything to do with him.’
I was taken aback. ‘Well, blood’s thicker than water.’
‘Yes, but not as thick as creosote.’ She replied, mysteriously. Then, before I had time to consider the relevance of this observation, she went on ‘Are you sure he’s your brother?’
‘I’m not sure that we had the same father.’ I confessed.
‘Are you sure you had the same mother?’
The conversation was skidding out of control, so I attempted to wrench it back on course.
‘But to come back to religion - don’t you think we could do with a return to basic Christian values?’
‘You mean set up a new Inquisition? Mount a few Crusades? That sort of thing? She asked, innocently.
I was annoyed. ‘They are not the values of Jesus – they are examples of horrors committed in His name by ‘organised religion’. And the Christian Church doesn’t have a monopoly on barbarism and cruelty, you know. What about the antics of so-called ‘Muslim extremists? And I’m not talking about the ‘dark ages’, I am talking about, now: the twentieth, twenty-first century!’
‘Don’t get your hair off. – I do know that – I was just teasing you. So why are you so interested in my religion?
‘Well,’ I responded, ‘doesn’t religion profess to have the answers to all the important questions of life – like “death”’.
She laughed.
‘Okay, not just death – although we all would like to know what happens to us when we shuffle off these mortal coils – but the meaning of life: What’s it all for? How did it begin? How is it going to end? And, on a personal level – how should I live my life? By what moral code? All that stuff.’
‘I see.’ She said, her face hazy behind the smokescreen. I continued.
‘As a seeker after the truth, I am interested to know just what answers your religion provides to the above questions; what are its central tenets? How does it work in practice? And, importantly, does it make you happy?

The smoke cleared and I saw the look of annoyance on Myra’s face. Oh dear, I thought, I have offended her. But then I realised her pipe had gone out.

I did say that I would report verbatim my conversation with Myra. Perhaps so far I have not verbatimised enough, so I shall continue (for the present) in ‘script’ form.

(Myra knocks out her pipe against the heel of her boot – some brown claggy stuff falls into the hearth. She takes no notice but sets about refilling the pipe. She does the ‘Harold Wilson’ bit until it is once more belching smoke and sparks ceiling wards.)

Myra: Okay - fire away.
Me: Richard Dawkins defines a theist as someone who ‘… believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation.’ You know, he intervenes: answers prayers, forgives, punishes… that sort of thing – what some might call a personal God. Are you a theist?
Myra: YES… and again NO.
Me: But you either are or you are not.
Myra: Ah, well that’s where you are wrong, squire. You see my religion is a four-dimensional religion.
Me: I don’t understand.
Myra: Time: the fourth dimension. People make the mistake of thinking that things should be either ‘this’ or ‘that’; ‘good’ or ‘bad; ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. And this may be so at a given point in time. But at another point in time, the opposite may be the case.
Me: I’m lost.
Myra: My religion caters for the ‘lost’.
Me: All religions purport to do that. Are you perhaps a deist?
Myra: You mean, an intelligence etc. etc. but who leaves the creation to get on with it – once he’s set it up? Non-intervention? No miracles? No water into wine?
Me: Yes.
Myra: Again the answer is YES and NO.
Me: You’re not being very helpful. Or making much sense, I have to say.
Myra: Let me ask you a question: is there a difference between ‘God’ and ‘Religion’?
Me: Well, I –
Myra: And here’s a supplementary question: if there was incontrovertible evidence for life after death, would that prove the existence of God? Have a think about it, while I let the cat in.

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Tension at 'Briarwood'

When I entered my lodgings you could have cut the atmosphere with a chainsaw.
I didn’t have one, so I essayed a false jocularity. 'What’s up?’ I enquired breezily. Silence. Then Hector spoke. ‘Bonar’s been arrested.’
‘Again’ Added Myra.
‘Bonar?’ I was confused.
‘Our son’ retorted Hector – rather impatiently, I thought.
Your son’ Myra corrected him. Hector glared venomously at his small wife. I tried to get more information. ‘Arrested? What for? Drugs is it?’
‘Certainly not’ Hector turned on me. ‘Bonar wouldn’t touch drugs – he abhors that dirty business.’
‘People smuggling.’ Volunteered Myra. ‘Illegal immigrants, that sort of thing.’ She added, helpfully.
‘Oh dear.’ Was all I could think to say.
Carole interject at this point with ‘Anyone fancy a Chinese? My treat?’
‘That isn’t funny. Hector fumed.
‘Funny? What do you mean.’ Asked Carole, innocently. Myra helped her out.
‘He’s got involved with a gang of Triads in Liverpool.’
‘Oh dear.’ I said, again.
‘Will you stop saying “oh dear”, you dozy bugger.’ Hector shouted at me.
‘Now look here-' I began. But Myra jumped in and saved the situation.
‘Yes, I’m up for that, Carole, let’s have a Triad – I mean a Chinese.’
Hector snorted. (An unpleasant habit I have noted with my brother) and stamped out the room.


Later that same evening.

We had eaten our Chinese meal – a banquet, in fact. Myra drove down to the ‘Golden City’ on the bike, with Carole in the sidecar (since she was paying.)
The king prawns, barbequed ribs, spring rolls and sundry items that make up a Chinese banquet had raised Hector’s spirits. So when Carole suggested a trip down to the pub he accepted with alacrity. Myra declined, saying she had to do an oil-change on the bike. So I made the excuse that I was too tired to go out. (I wanted to take the opportunity of being alone with her so that I could quiz her about this new ‘religion.’)

Carole and Hector took a taxi to the Vole and Ferret, (Hector’s car being still ‘in dock’.) and Myra retired to the garage to carry out the oil-change.
I reclined in an armchair and stared at the aquarium – hoping to disturb the fish even more.
I must have fallen asleep because I was awoken by the smell of pipe tobacco. Myra had finished on the bike and was sitting opposite me, her pipe going nicely.
I am going to report our subsequent conversation verbatim – or as near verbatim as I can remember – because it had a profound effect upon me.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Acknowledgements

Thank you Gerda for your information re ‘jogger’s nipple’; I shall pass on your comment to Carole – when she gets back from the pub. She has taken Hector to the ‘Vole and Ferret’ to try and cheer him up, after the news about Bonar (his son) which, as it turned out, was the cause of the ‘sombre mood’ prevailing in the house when I returned from the library.

And of course thank you Anastasia for your comment. You do realise that comments posted to my blog are ‘in the public domain’ (that means available for anyone to read). I would much prefer you to write a personal letter and convey it to me via the excellent postal service obtaining in this country.
Also you cannot have been reading my blog carefully, because I gave my address when I was talking to the library woman!
And, when you do write, make sure you use on of those stout manila envelopes that are particularly resistant to the steam from a kettle. And mark it clearly ‘PERSONAL’. I am sorry to say there are elements within this household to whom privacy is an alien concept.

Monday, December 04, 2006

nostrils

I had an excellent meal at Mrs B’s: leek and potato soup, homemade steak and ale pie and jam-sponge pudding – oh and a cup of coffee. I then took a leisurely stroll around the town. Aren’t there a lot of wheelchairs about nowadays! And also twin-buggies! There must be an awful lot of twins being born. Perhaps it’s due to all those fertilisation programmes.

Anyway I made my necessary purchases and still had time on my hands, so I re- visited the library. Same old faces around the newspaper table. I felt sorry for them. I mean it’s a shame they have nothing better to do than to while away their days in a public library.
I sat down at the one vacant seat. The man next to me was reading the Daily Telegraph and picking his nose! Picking his nose whilst reading the Telegraph!
I gave him a disapproving look. He must have thought I wanted the paper (which ordinarily I would have, but not after he had been reading it). ‘There you go, mate’ he said, and thrust the paper into my hands before I could say ‘no thanks’. He got up and shambled away in the direction of the lavatories. I put the broadsheet carefully down on the table.

I have always thought that it would be a good idea to have little cubicles in public buildings where people could go to pick their nose. They need not be elaborate affairs: a chair, washstand, paper towels. Then you could go and have a jolly good root up the old proboscis without offending other people and, importantly, avoiding the possibility of a pandemic.

Interestingly, have you noticed how many people pick their nose whilst driving? They think that because they are in a car no one can see them. I heard that it may shortly be an offence to pick your nose whilst driving a car – just like it is with mobile phones – because of the danger to other road users - and yourself.

There was a story in the newspaper (not the Telegraph) about a woman, driving one of those 4 x 4 Shogun things - probably coming back from the school run - and she was picking her nose, quite vigorously. Oblivious of the road surface – as is typical of 4 x 4 drivers – she hit a ‘speed bump’ at a fair lick. Her finger was rammed up her nostril causing such pain as to make her lose control of the vehicle. She mounted the pavement and, narrowly missing a traffic-warden, demolished a bus-shelter.
The warden, when he had recovered his composure, acted swiftly: whipping out his cell-phone he called both the police and ambulance services, and then went to the lady’s assistance.
She was still in the drivers seat, screaming , and with her right index finger firmly stuck up her nose. Seizing the problem digit, he attempted to wrench it free of its nostril niche. Unfortunately, being untrained in first-aid he was a over zealous. The lady had those long talons of fingernails which you get from constant manicuring and having an au pair, and this particular nail snapped off as her finger came free.
Luckily the ambulance arrived and she was rushed to the A & E Dept of the local hospital, where surgeons removed half an inch of crimson fingernail, lodged perilously close to the brain.

The police later charged her with ‘driving without due care’, and the local council presented her with a bill for a new bus-shelter.

I said that Christmas brings on my OCD. I should have said it exacerbates it. Really it there all the time these days – in the background. It starts from the moment I awake in the morning: intrusive thoughts, having to get the ‘right’ thought into my head before I can move on. Of course, mostly I can control it, but any special occasion, anything ritualistic makes it worse.
I try to think when it all started: I can’t remember being troubled by it before I started Grammar school, at the age of eleven.

On my way home, glumness descends with the darkness. I say ‘home’ - of course it’s not really my home, but where is my home: Wynorin – the marital home – has been sold by my erstwhile wife, and St Botolph’s was more refuge than home. Perhaps my home is in my head.

The cold and the wind and the rain drag my spirits further down, and when I reach Briarwood, beaten and bedraggled, they are in no way lifted by the sombre mood prevailing in that house.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

At the library

Fish got to fly, and birds got to swim,
Sometimes I think that life can be grim –
Can’t help worrying all the time.

Is it any wonder I am glum (I refuse to say ‘depressed’ - the word is becoming devalued) the way I am treated? But perhaps that isn’t the cause of my glumness; it may be just a question of genes – most things are. It would be nice to think we were born with a ‘clean slate’ but we are not. I’m getting a feeling of déjà vu now – like I’ve said this before. But that’s okay: some things are worth repeating.

Carole came back from her run, all sweaty, and complaining of ‘jogger’s nipple’. She sat down to her bacon and eggs, without showering! Nobody seemed to notice the odour – except myself.

I have always felt I was different. Don’t think I’m blaming anyone – I am not. We all do what we can: nothing more, nothing less. But that isn’t the point. What is the point then?

The point is: trying to understand. Trying to understand ‘us’, the human race. Because it is only by understanding that we may make things better. We are groping in the dark, but that is no reason to give up. We must try, no matter how disappointed we get sometimes; when the world seems just as bad, despite all our efforts. Because we are moving forward in this great evolution experiment - maybe only in inches rather than the feet, yards and miles we would like to move, but I truly believe we are moving forward.
Of course some people could be helped by a swift kick up the arse – and, who knows, it may be your duty to help them!

And it is no answer to sink back on the comfortable bed of fundamentalism’ – religious or otherwise; be wary of ‘easy’ answers; beware of false prophets. We need to think for ourselves; it’s hard work, but it’s the only way.

So if – like Tony Hancock – you “…go down with your gunship, spitting furious blanks at targets out of your reach, and beyond your imagination.” well, at least you will have had a go.
Not a bad epitaph that: He had a go.

By the way, Hector did bring that magazine back. I couldn’t see what it was called but it was shrink-wrapped!

I cleared off before Myra broached the subject of sleeping arrangements with Carole. I walked to the public library. I enjoy a walk. Also I love libraries. All those books: other worlds, waiting for you to enter, and get lost in.
The trouble with public libraries is that you get people loitering about in the warmth, because they have nowhere else to go. I went into the toilet and there was someone in one of the cubicles, smoking! In retrospect I think I should have challenged him. I didn’t – but perhaps I should have. What is the world coming to: smoking in a library!

I asked the attractive young lady at the counter if I could join, since I was temporarily resident in the area. ‘No problem’ said. When I gave her my address: Briarwood, 52 Balthazar Crescent, Colingbroke, HENDON, I thought I saw her face twitch slightly – but perhaps I imagined it.
I wonder why library staff all seem to be women? (I’ve just realised, the way I wrote that sounds like there are one or two here who may be men in drag - I don’t mean that, of course, just that you don’t see many men working in libraries.) Is it because women are better at being librarians? Classifying, cataloguing, stamping books an all that stuff? I’m not complaining: there are some quite lovely ladies working here: classy, refined. Even if you don’t go in the library, you may catch a glimpse of one or two of them, standing outside the back door, having a fag.

Anyway, I selected two books: Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters and An Honourable Deception ? by Clare Short. (I am not a political animal – as you know – but I thought it might be interesting to hear old Clare spilling the beans about what went on in Cabinet leading up to the Iraq war. I think I’ll read Tipping the Velvet first.

Another good thing about this library: they have a snack-bar where you can get a good cup of coffee and a very acceptable toasted teacake. They also have a computer suite with internet-access – I am sitting here now, typing this piece. They’ve got a few Christmas decorations up. Christmas! I am no Scrooge but I just cannot stand all this run-up to Christmas thing. It brings on my OCD. I would like someone just to surprise me and say ‘It’s Christmas morning!’ I’d happily go out on Boxing Day
and buy presents for everybody.

From here, I am going to a supermarket for my prunes and then to Boots the Chemist for my personal requisites. I shall probably take luncheon in a pleasant looking café –Mrs B’s –, which I passed on the way here. I am not going back to Briarwood until it gets dark.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

At the breakfast table

I decided – after my lavatorial fiasco – not to enquire about prunes, and sat at the breakfast table quietly eating my cornflakes – or as quietly as it is possible to eat cornflakes.
My brother, however, was not prepared to let matters rest.
‘Didn’t you notice there was no toilet roll? I mean before you… went?’
‘No.’ I replied, somewhat tersely ‘I suppose I assumed, since this was a lavatory, there would be toilet paper available.’
Hector snorted. ‘You’re in a world of your own – that’s your trouble.’
‘Oh, thank you – I’ve always wanted to know what my trouble was.’
‘No wonder father used to call you ‘dopey’’
‘Hector!’ Myra’s voice was low, but threatening.
‘It’s true. “He’s a dope”, that’s what father used to say.’
But Myra was on her feet now – all five feet two of her – and I saw my brother flinch. But she said, pleasantly enough ‘Hector, why don’t you pop down to Mr Convenience and get some bacon, and I’ll do bacon and eggs. And while you’re there, best get some eggs.’
With a malevolent glance at me, my brother rose from the table. As he was leaving the room, Myra called ‘Oh, and ask if they’ve got my magazine.’
Hector turned ‘Oh no, I’m not going to ask for that magazine.’ Assertive indeed, but his expression told me that he would ask for the magazine – whatever it was.

After he had left, Myra sat down again. ‘Don’t you worry, pet, I’ll bung another couple of buckets down there, and it should be clear by the time the plumber comes on Monday.’
I was at a loss to reply, so instead steered the conversation towards Carole, who had not yet put in an appearance.
‘I suppose my lady travelling companion is still festering in bed.’
‘Actually she’s gone out jogging’ replied Myra, as she spread ‘thick-cut’ marmalade on her toast. (Toast and marmalade – and then she’s going to eat bacon and eggs?)
‘Oh,’ I said, somewhat chastened ‘I’ve never known her do that before.’
‘Known her long, have you?’ Myra got up to let that mangy Perkins in. She was wearing a housecoat – I think that’s what you call it, I am not over familiar with women’s things - quilted, salmon pink, and too long for her. It dragged along the floor and had a hem of dirt and grease, about an inch and a half wide. (Later, I was to discover that she often tuned the bike in that housecoat)
Still, there was something about Myra… But don’t get me wrong: I am well aware of the Commandment “Thou shalt not covet thy brother’s wife.” Wait a minute – should that be neighbour’s wife? Well, whatever – some wives are easier not to covet that others

I must have been daydreaming because Myra repeated her question.
‘Oh, a couple of years I suppose – off and on. More off than on.’
‘I like her,’ said Myra.
Well why don’t you let her sleep with you, and then I can have her room! I did not actually say this but perhaps Myra read my thoughts…
‘Suppose I ask her if she wouldn’t mind sharing my room? Not my bed, you understand. We have twin beds (Hector and I were never very close – even before the Swede.)’
‘Well, if you really think… I mean I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.’ I tried to conceal my elation.
'Anyway,’ she replied ‘I think you’re disturbing the fish – they’re off their food this morning. Fish are very sensitive you know.’

You see, there it is again: It’s not me she cares about but those cold-blooded, goggle-eyed aquariumites. And the sad thing is: I was beginning to fancy her!

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Caught with my trousers down

As I am sitting here, I am thinking: why do dreams never have sensible endings? I think it is because that is how things really are. In our waking life we try to make sense of things that have no sense, by making up ‘explanations’. I know I have probably said this before, but I think chaos is the real reality. No it is not quite that, rather that there is an entirely different reality.

When R D Laing and Huxley and Tim Leary and the rest of them experimented with LSD, they were trying to break down the barriers that keep us constrained in our mental straitjackets, and so reach that other reality.

In his forward to the book “The teachings of Don Juan” Walter Goldschmidt says that Carlos Castaneda “…takes us through that moment of twilight, that crack in the universe between daylight and dark into a world… of an entirely different order of reality.” To reach this world he was aided by “peyote, datura and mushrooms”

Well, I think that dreams perhaps are a also a way of accessing that world which is “not merely other than our own, but of an entirely different order of reality.”

Well, I’m with you there Walter, but I’m damned if I can understand my own dreams.

Last night, during a brief snatch of sleep, I had one of my recurring dreams. If I had to use one word to sum up the theme of these dreams it would be: Failure, writ large. (I know that’s three words but you get the idea.) Last night I failed in some exams, failed in relationships and, really, failed in life. Does this mean I am a failure? Or just that I feel a failure? But more important: what are these dreams telling me? What am I supposed to do?

I think I lost myself a long time ago, and have been trying to find myself ever since.

I wonder if Myra has got any prunes in the house. If not, I shall have to get a tin when I go down the shops. In fact I should make a shopping list. I need some essential medications. (Not the brain pills – Freddie has put a prescription in the post for those, and I should receive it Monday), these are for my personal needs.


I have finished now, and I reach for the toilet-roll. There isn’t any. Not a scrap, not a vestige of paper anywhere. What am I going to do? I panic. I push the flush-button. Nothing happens. I jab it again, and again. Still nothing. I am sweating now.

There is a knock at the door. Oh my God! Now someone wants to use the lavatory! And me: caught with an un-wiped arse and a blocked bog!

Then, Myra’s voice. ‘George. I’m leaving you a toilet roll and a bucket of water. We don’t use that lavatory – it’s out of order.’

Oh the humiliation! My first morning in the house and I have disgraced myself in this fashion.

Saturday, November 25, 2006

A Hendon Morning

I slept badly. It was those fish. I was aware all the time that they were there – watching me. They never sleep, fish. Have you noticed that? Plus, Myra’s cat, Perkins, was in and out the cat-flap all night. I almost got up once to close its catch – but I couldn’t be bothered.
Oh yes, and another thing: the airbed has a leak; a very slight leak, but I had a sinking feeling during the night, and this morning I was flat on the carpet. I can’t bear to think what this will do to my back!
During one of my snatches of sleep I had a dream: I was watching one of those huge mechanical digger things, knocking down a row of terraced houses. It moved in horrible jerky motions; it reminded me of a monstrous yellow Praying Mantis. It needed only a tap from that big steel bucket, and walls that had stood for a hundred years just crumbled. I felt saddened by the spectacle. As the outer wall came down, I could see a fireplace and fading flowered wallpaper. And I thought: these, once cosy, rooms have sheltered families: mothers, fathers, children, and now they are suddenly exposed to the prurient eyes of passing strangers. An act of defilement.

I wonder if a dream is ‘there’, waiting to be dreamt? Like a book waiting to be read? I don’t think so.

I open the curtains on a wet, and gloomy cul-de-sac. I hate cul-de-sacs – even posh ones. Well, especially posh ones. Backwaters, where stagnant emotions collect and putrefy beneath the smooth surface.

It’s nine o clock, and no one is stirring. Oh, I’ve just remembered: it’s Saturday. I hate Saturdays. Too many people cluttering up the streets, the parks, even canal towpaths. No, give me a weekday, any day of the week, when people are at their work, and not getting up to mischief.

Hello, I can hear a noise upstairs. I had better make a move for the lavatory. Actually they are pretty well of for lavatories in this house: there is an en suite in the master bedroom (currently the mistress’s bedroom), a bathroom on the first floor and a cloakroom down here.
This is just as well, because I need some private time in the morning to conduct my ablutions. I am not one of these ‘On, plop, off’ people. I like to take my time: I have great respect for my bowels.

So, I will give the cloakroom bog a go. Just check I’ve got everything: pen, diary… oh no! It got incinerated in the tube station debacle. And a diary is so important to me: I have to think of future biographers. I will go to Woolworth’s, this morning and purchase a notebook. It’s no good trying to write on bog roll: that soft ‘luxury’ paper makes the ink go all fuzzy, and the shiny stuff… well your pen just skids off it.

Footsteps on the stairs! I’m off.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Little George

I forgot to mention that, despite my concentrated worrying, I did ‘get appendicitis’; and not just an ordinary one but an acute appendicitis. I was rushed into hospital at 6 pm on a Shrove Tuesday (had to go without my pancakes!), and operated on that same night. The surgeon (a Mr Bennet-Jones) had to be called out from home. (I don’t know if he was sitting down to a fish-supper).

A fragment of memory: I am lying on a hospital trolley thing – ‘gurney’, I think they call them – in a corridor. I have been ‘pre-opp’d’ so I am feeling calm, serene even. Two nurses are talking:

‘We should take him into the theatre’
‘But it’s so cold in there. And Mr Bennet-Jones hasn’t arrived yet’
‘Yes, but you know he doesn’t like to be kept waiting.’

At that moment, I heard the crunch of car tyres on gravel. (I can hear it now as I type these words,) And suddenly this stern looking man is bending over me. ‘Why didn’t your mother call the doctor earlier?’ he asks me. What did he expect me to say? ‘Because, being working-class, she ‘hates to make a fuss’, has a horror of ‘being a nuisance’ so she delayed calling the doctor out until it started to look really serious.’
What I actually said, rather timidly, was ‘I don’t know.’
He disappeared – presumably to get into his operating outfit. I thought he might have said something like ‘Come on, let’s get this show on the road’. But he didn’t.
And then they wheeled me through those big, flapping doors into the theatre.

And so, at the age of ten years, I lost my appendix: down the drain in Peasley Cross Hospital. I think that nowadays the let you take it home if you want – in a little jar. It looks like a pickled gherkin.
Actually, the appendix is a good example of evolution: apparently we needed in when we ate grass – or something like that. So now it is obsolete, and it occasionally causes trouble – well wouldn’t you if you were obsolete!

There is an odd spin-off to this major event in my little life: I was in hospital for 3 weeks. This was because I got a post-op infection. That was VERY painful; I won’t trouble you with the details. Anyway for some time after that, my right side was very tender, so, although I was right-handed I transferred things like handkerchief, loose change, bits of string, knife and other things a young lad needs, to my left trouser pocket. (Even today, if I were to put a handkerchief into my trousers, it would be the left pocket), and although I did not exactly become ambidextrous, there are some things I still do naturally with my left hand.

I don’t know how all this is going to turn out: at my brother’s I mean. I tell you one thing: I am not going to spend every night on the living room floor. Other arrangement will have to be made.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

'Briarwood' - Sleeping arrangements

I said my brother’s house had four bedrooms – well it has but:

1) Hector and Myra no longer sleep together. (The tall Swede casts a long shadow) – so there goes two bedrooms!
2) Hector has turned the spare-room into a ‘den’. A den! Where does he think he is: Illinois?
3) That leaves one bedroom (referred to as the ‘guest room’ – though they never have any guests), with a double bed; and when we arrived Carole was asleep in it


Well, I had no intention of sleeping with my brother (too many childhood memories – and anyway, he didn’t offer), and I felt that I did not know Myra well enough – at least not yet.

Oh, and another thing about my new landlady: I have described her as a globular person. But when, in the living room, she began to divest herself of her motorcycling kit, a transformation took place. As layer after layer was shed, she got smaller and smaller. It was like the Hendon version of one of those Russian dolls. Finally emerging from her leather shell, she stood on the hearthrug – a diminutive creature, not exactly a doll but pleasing to the eye, nonetheless. My spirits perked up. But when I learned that I must spend tonight on a blow-up mattress thing, adjacent to the fish-tank, they dipped again.

Carole, awakened by the noise we were making, woke up and entered the room in a dressing gown (it looked suspiciously like one of my brother’s). When I acquainted her of my having to sleep on the floor, I thought she might have said ‘Oh, you can’t be doing that – not with your back. Come and share with me.’ But she didn’t.

Now, everyone has retired to their warm, comfortable beds, whilst I lie here in the phosphorescent green glow of Hector’s aquarium, my head resting on that raised up bit of the air-bed that serves as a pillow, alone with my thoughts: We are buffeted by the winds of fate, thrown together like pebbles on a beach tossed about by an indifferent sea.

I draw Myra’s duvet closer around me. It smells of pipe tobacco! – Odd.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Ride of the Valkyries





Cold and the rushing wind take my breath away. Or is it fear?

I ride motorcycles – but not as a pillion passenger, not now. I rode with Alan a week before he was killed. He tried to scare me – and he did, but I didn’t show it. On the night he died he had a passenger; although seriously injured, the lad survived.
But hey, a motorcycle combination has three wheels; it cannot fall over. If you believe this, try going for a fast ride on a child’s tricycle, and see what happens when you take the first bend. True, in the hands of an expert a ‘combination’ is one of the safest vehicles on the road, but driven by a novice it can be lethal. And I forgot to ask Myra whether she was ‘expert’ or ‘novice’.

The Buddhists say that two things should be avoided at all costs: hope and fear.
I can avoid hope easily enough, but fear?

When I was little I was frightened of becoming ill. It may have started when a pal was taken into hospital with ‘appendicitis’. I was terrified of becoming constipated (someone had told me that this was how you ‘got appendicitis’). I developed what I suppose now would be called a ‘phobia’ about food. I was always asking my mother ‘will this do me any harm?’ The ‘this’ was usually something that I particularly liked! Now, after years in the therapy trade, I can see how this gradually progressed to the point where the enjoyment of anything was followed by an attack of anxiety… This translated into the unconscious injunction: You can do anything so long as you don’t enjoy it.

But I think it began before the Wilfred incident (the appendicitis boy). My mother was always telling me to ‘be careful’. She used to say ‘I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to you – you are my life’
I was terrified of making my mum unhappy. She used to say to me, ‘you will make me very unhappy if you do that. ‘That’ could be anything. Sometimes I did not get an advance warning. So I made many mistakes – and felt guilty.
Anxiety and Guilt: the foundation stones for a beautiful neurosis.

Time is elastic – yes, I’ve said that before, but tonight the elastic is being stretched further than ever. Dark looming shapes approach, flash past; intermittent patches of blurred greyness; more black shapes – it goes on and on. I have been sitting on this hard, vibrating loaf of rubber for hours, days, weeks… forever, as this old ‘B’ movie - my past life - jerks its way through the projector in my head.
Occasionally I glance down to my left and glimpse my brother, reclining in the warmth of the sidecar, his eyes closed; I think he’s asleep. But where was he when all this stuff was going on? Ah well, that is another story – but more of that later.

I was led to believe I was somehow ‘better’ than other children: cleverer, more polite, thoughtful, considerate, tidy, trustworthy and – most important of all – sensible. Of course, it went without saying that I was more fortunate than other children. All in all, a terrible responsibility, a heavy burden for young shoulders to carry. But carry it I did.

Without warning, time starts to contract. We top a hill and there are lights ahead. The engine note has undergone a subtle change – it sings; the vibrations have become a stimulating massage; the bike, a living thing – and I am a part of it. I am no longer afraid.

It is not that I have resigned myself to my fate – whatever that might be - neither have I gained a sudden trust in my driver. It is more like acceptance: a positive acceptance. A giving over to the present moment: the speed, the swing and swoop of the machine, the crackle of the exhaust, the smell of engine oil, the surging power beneath me.

I want this to go on forever. But the elastic snaps back. The lights are upon us. Suburbia swallows us up.

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Myra

Imagine a Michelin Man. Now imagine his wife. Dress her in one of those long leather motorcycle coats beloved of army dispatch riders during the 1940s. On her globular head pull a World War II pilot’s leather helmet, and add a pair of goggles. Give her elbow-length gauntlets, and a pair of Wellington boots (rubber) to complete the ensemble.

Myra, for some reason, elected to use the wheelchair ramp, so her descent to street level was reminiscent of an alien alighting from a spaceship, in one of those early science-fiction movies: a slow, stately rolling motion. She saw me and attempted to wave. But, encased in all that heavy leather, she could not raise her arm to shoulder height, so she looked like she was patting a very large but invisible dog.

The strange figure then trundled itself across the – mercifully empty – street, to where we were standing by the bike. Ignoring her husband, Myra, seizing me and clutching me to her leather bosom, kissed me full on the lips. Her tongue tasted of whisky: single-malt if I’m any judge. Such was her ardour that the metal rim of her goggles poked me in the left eye. But I hid my pain – she was so pleased to see me.

There then followed a rather unseemly argument with her husband about Myra’s fitness to drive a motorcycle combination – with passengers. This was cut short by the lady raising two gloved fingers to Hector, and climbing onto the bike. Hector looked at me, shrugged and made to get into the sidecar.
‘Hold on a minute’ I exclaimed. ‘Since I am the elder brother, I think it more fitting for me to ride in the sidecar.’
‘Ah, but it is my wife who is driving’ he riposted. And in less than a minute he was settled into the contraption, his legs extended comfortably into the nose of the car.
Too weary to argue further, I climbed onto the pillion, pressing myself up close against Myra’s bulk, hoping it would shield me from the worst excesses of wind and cold.

Myra raised her bottom off the seat, and for a moment I thought she was going to fart, but she was only lifting herself to get a good swing on the kick-start crank. An expert swing, I should say, for the engine burst into life first time and, without glancing behind her, she swung the machine round in the road and roared off into the night – only switching on the machine’s lights seemingly as an afterthought.

And me? I hugged her tightly around the waist (well, as far around as I could get) and tried to catch my breath. The one thought in my head was, what an irony it would be if, after two botched suicide attempts I were to be killed by a mad woman on a motorbike.

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Free at last

The young, army bomb disposal captain (he reminded me of my own son, Sydney) was a decent enough fellow. When I apologised profusely for all the inconvenience he and his men had been put to, he said: Not to worry laddie – all in a day’s work. And when I asked if there would be some sort of ‘call out charge’ (our plumber used to demand £40 – even if he did nothing) he said no; and, politely declining my offer of a little something towards the detonators, assured me that he would bill the 'appropriate authority' - which probably accounts for the nastiness shown to be by the blond ‘Mormon’ in the fawn raincoat.

I was subjected to intense interrogation by this personage. Well, I suppose it was only natural under the circumstances, but I don’t think he needed to have been so unpleasant. I gave him my brother’s address, upon which he ordered one of his minions to: Bring him here – now! And they did.

Hector was not amused: he was just sitting down to a fish-supper – having decided not to wait for the rest of us (he needs to eat regularly or he gets terrible wind.) He vouched for me, of course, but I don’t think he needed to have gone into such detail about my ‘mental condition’. This inevitably led to a phone call to St Botolph’s, and Freddie confirming that I was – until recently – a patient there. But here’s the strange thing: he said nothing about the sectioning. Upon reflection, I think he was glad to get shot of me, and he told the spook that as long as my brother was prepared to accept responsibility for me, and I undertook to continue with the medication, he was prepared to downgrade my status to that of ‘outpatient’. This would mean my travelling to Swindon, once a fortnight, to attend his clinic. I readily agreed.

But my interrogator was not going to let me go, just like that. Having failed to establish a link between myself and al-Qaeda - or any other terrorist organization - he was going to tell me what he thought of me.
He read me the riot act: Was I not aware of the threat of terrorist attack on this country? And did I not think that leaving my rucksack underneath a bench in the booking hall was, in the current climate, carelessness bordering on criminal behaviour? Furthermore, did I not think he had better fucking things to do than being dragged from a comfortable armchair in front of the telly (“Celebrity Strictly Come Dancing”, his favourite programme), to spend half the fucking night checking up on some fucking nutter? Oh, and by the way, did I know that in Japan, the relatives of anyone killing themselves by jumping in front of trains - evidently an increasing problem in that country - were made to pay heavy fines, for the disruption of services etc. And as far as he was concerned, London Underground should adopt the same policy.

I said I was very sorry for all the trouble I had caused – as indeed I was. My abject apology went some way to calming the man down, but before letting me go, he took great pains to assure me that my profile would now be on database; any future misdemeanour, no matter how slight, and they would throw the book at me.

Well, after that tongue lashing, I considered it might be inappropriate to ask him about the form: I thought there must be some sort of form I could fill in, to claim reimbursement for my rucksack – and its contents: change of underwear; medications (various); digital camera; packet of cheese and tomato sandwiches (one, half eaten); diary (irreplaceable); packet of extra-strong mints; clasp knife; favourite pen; woolly hat; miniature teddy bear (mascot).

It was almost midnight before I was free to go. And it was only then that both Hector and I wondered what might have happened to Myra. If she wasn’t still waiting, we should have to get a taxi – another expense.

However when we walked the 300 yards or so back to the Tube station, we saw a motorbike and sidecar parked at the kerb, but no sign of its driver.
‘What are we going to do now’, I queried.
‘Don’t worry, I can hot-wire the bike – it wouldn’t be the first time’
‘But what about Myra, your wife? I expostulated.
‘Oh she’ll be in the pub, I expect’. He seemed totally unconcerned.
‘You mean she’ll be drinking, when she’s going to be driving a motorbike’ I cried, in alarm.’
‘Well that, and handing out religious tracts’
‘I was now totally confused. ‘You mean she’s in the Salvation Army?’
‘Don’t be silly’ scoffed my brother, ‘She’s founded her own religion. I think she was inspired by that book she read about Ron L Hubbard – you know, the Scientology bloke. Apparently he said: if you want to make money, start your own religion’.
‘And what’ I said, aghast, ‘is the name of this religion?’
The Church of the Latter-day Sinners replied my brother, with more than a touch of pride in his voice.

Whilst I was digesting this latest piece of information, a door across the street burst open – and I saw her - framed in a haze of strobe lighting and beer fumes - my sister-in-law: Myra.

Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Thoughts from a police cell




We spend so much time dwelling on the past, and yet we (I must stop speaking for others and say “I”) make so little effort in projecting what we (I) have learned into the future, in order to predict outcomes.

I was thinking about me and Alan. Could we have projected into the future when we were playing round the lamppost with May James and Dorothy Webster? Could we have predicted that Alan would kill himself on a motorbike at such an early age, and that I would go on? I have already lived 3 Alan lifetimes! (I’m not complaining, mind – I want to go on!)

But can I project now? For the next 10 years? For the next 5 years? I have difficulty in projecting as far as the weekend.

Yet surely it would be in my interests to at least make an effort, and to ‘learn from my mistakes’.

I find it all so depressing. And depression saps my strength, the energy I need to “project”, and so it goes on. The problem is how to break the cycle: an intervention from outside? A lucky accident maybe?

We are driven by the selfish gene to procreate, and therefore assure its continuance. But why? Why does the selfish gene bother? If we are at the mercy of this gene, who is the selfish gene at the mercy of? [Yes, I have ended a sentence with a preposition – bad syntax, but who cares].

I watch ants scurrying about, and I want to say to them: take it easy lads, don’t knock yourself out – it aint worth it. But they wouldn’t listen.

Is it really all an accident? The whole process set in motion by a random collision in space: a Big Bang? But then we ask: where did the colliding bodies come from? The gasses? Space itself? And it is like looking through the wrong end of a telescope, and seeing the back of your head.

In our world – the world of the five senses – we have beginnings and endings. Perhaps the most ‘obvious’ example being birth and death: a baby is born, grows up and eventually dies. That is straightforward enough. But is it? Beginning? When does a person ‘begin’? At physical birth? At conception? Or must we go further back? Did that human life really begin with me having five whiskies and you four Bacardi Breezers? Or further back still - when our eyes met, over the photocopier?

Ah, but you say, we can distinguish between biological and psychological beginnings. But can we? Do we not arbitrarily construct beginnings and endings so as to parcel up our lives into manageable chunks? And make some sense of our world? We like to ‘draw a line’ under things, “effect closure”, “move on”. If only it were that easy. But real life is not like that. Real life is messy, full of ‘loose’ ends. What is that expression “we all come with baggage”? I come with so much baggage I need a team of porters.

But there may be some good news in all of this. If we can find psychological or metaphysical antecedents to our biological beginning (see above), might not there be sequential endings? So that if I say, I am going to end it all, I may be in for a surprise: I might end “it” – my biological life, but not “all” because there could be as many endings as there were beginnings. And it follows, therefore, that there must be as many beginnings as there are endings, the process continuing as far into the future as it reaches back into the past.
(I have always had a sneaking suspicion that if I decided to end “me” I would not be let off the hook - I would have to be someone else. Of course this does not make sense, but it is what I feel – sometimes.)

Of course, past and future are illusions: very necessary illusions, to enable us to live our life on this planet. But it is as well to bear in mind that that is all they are: illusions.

The human mind cannot conceive of an event having no beginning – but that is a limitation of the human mind, rather than an “impossibility”. So we have a mystery. Better to live with the mystery – and keep working at it - than invent a mythology to “explain” it.


Apropos ending a sentence with a preposition: Winston Churchill had a draft of one of his speeches returned to him by a parliamentary aide, respectfully pointing out that he had ended a sentence with a preposition. Winston sent it back with a scribbled note: This is the kind of bureaucratic interference up with which I will not put.

Sunday, November 05, 2006

Advice

They tell me, I cannot have my cake and eat it.
But I say, the only way I can have my cake is to eat it.

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

A long night

Mistakes - there are not enough rubbers on the end of enough pencils in all the world, to rub out all of the mistakes in all of the world.

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Tunnel Vision

The rail gleams dully in the centre of the track. The live rail. The death rail. Menacing, beckoning . And suddenly, into my head pops a verse:

Tell me please, Mr Conductor,
Said a lady, old and frail,
Shall I be electrocuted
If I step upon that rail?

Oh no, replied the young conductor,
You will be all right, he said,
Unless you take your other leg and place it
On that power line overhead.

No power lines overhead: just the rail. No one really knows what electricity is. Oh, we know how to generate it, how to use it. But we don’t really know what it is.

We know what it can do, though. If you fall onto that rail, it’s “Goodnight Vienna”. No need to get that tooth fixed now. All over in a second. Okay maybe two. No wonder it’s such a popular exit from this vale of tears. A bit unfair to the commuters, perhaps. Make them late for their tea – some of them may not even feel like their tea, not after witnessing the pyrotechnics: flash, sizzle; a soft thump as the body is thrown back towards the platform; a faint whiff of burnt flesh in the electric air.

The indicator board flashes: the next train will arrive in two minutes. Just think of all the things you can do in two minutes: boil a kettle; sneeze several times; have a pee; tell someone you love them; say you’re sorry; oh yes, and change your mind! How many times can you change your mind in two minutes?

I stand with my toes just on the yellow line: the safety line. Passengers are commanded to keep behind this line. I’m “toeing the line”, something I have done all my life. There are people to either side of me; I sense, rather than see them. I am taken over by my own thoughts. I once read, in a “self-help” book: your thoughts are not you. Well, they may not be, but just now I can’t separate them from whatever other bit is “Me”.

During the London Blitz, people came and slept down here, out of the way of the bombs. That must have been really weird: sleeping in these tiled tunnels. Safe though: the perfect air-raid shelter. They switched off the power. So if little Alfred accidentally pushed baby’s pram over the edge of the platform, damage would be minimal. (Prams were sturdily built in those days.)

The two minutes must be nearly up. I don’t hear the train yet, but it can’t be far off.
I am trying to imagine what those final two seconds might be like – after you hit the rail. Would there be time to feel any pain? I doubt it, because just think what happens when, say, you bang your knee getting in the car: for the first few moments you feel nothing - then the pain starts. This way, there’d only be those first few moments.

A rumble in the tunnel. I look down at my feet: I take good care of my shoes; see how they shine, note how the highly polished toecaps reflect the pallid lighting. But wait! My shiny toecaps have moved! They are close to the platform edge. I have crossed the line.


*************************************


Arm round my neck. Head jerked upwards and back. Choking. Swung round and thrown, face down, onto the platform. The breath knocked from my body. Cold tiles against my cheekbone, pinned by a boot against my other ear. Arms forced behind me. Steel snapped around wrists. A knee in my back. Smooth metal pressed against the side of my neck. Hands everywhere: Over my body. Between my legs. Down to my ankles. Sheer terror.

When I am finally hauled, shaking, to my feet, I see that the platform is empty. Empty of commuters, that is. It is crawling with black uniforms. Baseball caps and flak jackets. Machine guns. The two men holding me have automatic pistols. It must have been the barrel of one of them that I felt pressed against my neck.
A youngish man, slim, smart suit, fawn raincoat – he looks for all the world like one of those Mormon people who knock on your door on a Sunday morning - walks up. But he has not come to offer me salvation. He stares at me with such hatred that I think for a moment he is going to hit me, and I wince. But he doesn’t hit me. Instead, with a jerk of his blond head, he motions the other two to take me outside. They drag me across the platform, up the tunnel and out into the street.

Pushed with my back up against an armoured personnel carrier, I am forced to watch my rucksack destroyed in a controlled explosion.

Monday, October 16, 2006

'THESE TITANIC DAYS' Kirsty McColl

Cnt mt Eust. Car in dok. Sjst tk tube (nthn line) 2 HENDON CENTRAL –
M wll pik yup on m/c comb

I stare in disbelief at the screen of my Nokia.

Whilst on the train, I sent a text message to my brother giving our ETA and instructing him to meet us at the station. Now, after hanging about the concourse of this Gothic monument to the age of steam for what seems a lifetime, I receive this.

- What’s up? Asks Carole
- Err… just a slight hitch. Hector can’t pick us up at Euston: problems with the car. We need to take the tube to Hendon and… he will arrange transport from there

Carole rolls her eyes upwards, and swears

- I’m developing arms like a friggin’ chimp from carrying these cases
- Well, mine is bigger than yours
- Yours has got soddin’ wheels on it. Swap me!
- Well, I would, but my back still isn’t right. Come on. There’s the escalator

And, before giving Carole time to argue further, I set off, pushing my suitcase (on the aforementioned wheels) ahead of me, bulldozing a way through the crowd.
Carole follows, muttering something I choose not to hear.


I have been experiencing a lot of flatulence lately. Carole has remarked upon it.

- You can take something for that, you know
- Take something for what?
- For all that farting you’re doing


Can you? I wondered if, as you grew older, your plumbing developed a few kinks, bulges, in weak spots. This could cause wind to get trapped, and then suddenly released by a sharp body movement.

My dad had something called ‘diverticulitis’, which is a ‘pouching of the bowel’ – well that is what my mother said, anyway. He also had a stomach ulcer, but he did not let it affect his beer drinking. Every night, before he set out for his ‘local’, he would drink a glass of some gooey white stuff which, he said, lined his stomach. He did not drink whisky - or any spirits – just mild beer which he used to call ‘flat-rib’. I’ve never heard anyone else call it that. I never saw him drunk.

Anyway, for the moment, I am trying to keep it quiet: the wind.

My ruminations on the state of my plumbing, as I hang from a strap in a grossly crowded carriage, are rudely interrupted by Carole, poking me hard in the ribs

- Isn’t this where we are supposed to get off
- Bloody hell. Yes

We make a dive for the doors. I accidentally drag my wheels over the bare toes of a diminutive, sandal-wearing Asian lady. Her gasp of pain has barely time to register before Carole pushes me out of the doors, mumbling apologies on my behalf. Not a moment too soon. The doors whoosh shut and the train moves off, leaving the usual smell of electricity and rubber.
On the platform, I have barely time to reflect upon the damage done to the cause of multiculturalism by my clumsiness, before Carole presses me for details of the transport arrangements. I tell her.

– Well I’m getting in no bloody sidecar.

I assure her she needn’t worry, as I will be riding in the sidecar; she will be on the pillion. Her response is such as to cause two sailors to come over and ask her to moderate her language.
So I say okay, she can take a taxi (and the luggage); and, since it can’t be very far, it won’t cost her much. Carole wants to know why I will not be accompanying her in the said vehicle, since it would cost no more. I point out that Myra will be on her way and it would be extremely bad manners – not to say, getting off on the wrong foot – if my sister-in-law were to arrive and find she had had a wasted journey.
As the car drives off, Carole is signing to me through the back window that the driver had said it was two miles. I thought it would have been a bit further than that.

There is a man in that doorway; he’s lying on a sheet of cardboard. He isn’t begging: he looks like he’s trying to sleep. He is on his side, facing away from the pavement; the homeward returning commuters avert their eyes.
A policeman passes, glances briefly at this apparition in the long greasy overcoat – his only protection from the already chilly evening air – and strolls on.

Suddenly, I feel incredibly sad. And very alone. Yes, I know I am alone but it’s more than that. It’s an aloneness that comes from somewhere deep inside. I feel abandoned. Like in those dreams. Part of me knows it’s unrealistic. But another, more important, stronger part, knows that it is the greater reality. I really am alone, and it is all my fault. Then comes the old familiar feelings: guilt, followed by the self-doubt, followed by panic: what do I really think I am doing? Here in London? With all these strangers hurrying past, ignoring me. And I feel a close affinity with the cardboard man. Such a fine line it is that separates us.

Carole was right: I need help. Why did she let me persuade her to come to London. No question mark there. It’s an accusation.

I have always seen life as a sort of exam: I had to pass it, get good marks. That is why I have spent so much time looking for ‘answers’. But now I want to tear up the paper, and walk out of the examination room. Will I have the courage to do that?
I turn and head back to the trains.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I like travelling on trains: my favourite form of transport. But only ‘first class. It’s much cleaner, the seats are more comfortable and you get free food. Also of course one is removed from the riff-raff encountered on public transport.
As we were approaching Milton Keynes, I told Carole to watch out for the concrete cows. She did not believe that there were concrete cows in a field adjacent to the railway track and, when we failed to see any, she accused me of ‘winding her up’ as she puts it.
I am baffled. I am sure that I have observed these bovine effigies on a previous journey south. What can possibly have happened to them? Where they not yielding enough concrete milk! But seriously, I hope I have not imagined it all. But you can’t imagine you see concrete cows in a field – can you?
No matter. Our Virgin train touched buffers at Euston, bang on time. I must write to Mr Branson, commending him on the splendid way he runs his railroad.
Our ‘first class’ journey was marred only by an unfortunate incident: a bishop had to be ejected from the first-class carriage, because he was travelling on a third class ticket. He told the guard he was on his way to the Lambeth Conference and, in his haste to board the train, had purchased the wrong ticket. That official said he could accept the difference now, in cash. The cleric replied that he did not have sufficient monies upon his person, but would be happy to reimburse the railway company on reaching the house of his friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
“Sorry mate” responded the guard, “it’s money now, or you go into third class”
“But damn-it man, can’t you see I am a bishop?” shouted the peeved prelate.
“I don’t care if you’re the bleedin’ Pope, mate” And so saying the guard took the man firmly by the arm and led him to the door.

It was after he had gone that I noticed an I-Pod and a copy of ‘Crime and Punishment’ on the seat previously occupied by that gentleman. I asked Carole to nip along with them into third class and return them to the unhappy bishop.
‘Why can’t you go’ she said.
‘Because I am allergic to dust’ I retorted.
When she came back I said ‘Can you imagine that: a man of the cloth trying to bilk the railway company’ I was amazed at her answer.
‘I thought you might have lent the poor man the difference. You must have money because I paid for our tickets’
‘Listen’ I told her, ‘I am a Methodist and I do not hold with graven images and the Episcopalian flummery of that man’s church.’
One has to uphold one’s religious convictions.’

She did not speak to me again until well after Rugby. Then she thrust one of her ‘Turkish Delights’ at me, in a conciliatory gesture.

.

Sunday, October 08, 2006

WE ARE ALL ENTITLED TO ANOTHER GO

Everything I know, or think I know, comes to me via my senses – filtered through the screens of my perception. But what if these screens are duff? Warped? Faulty? Then I may be getting a totally wrong picture of how things really are.
My ‘world’ may be a hall of distorting mirrors. And that is what I find so frightening – when it sometimes hits me late at night: that I might have got it all wrong.

I must say, I found Carole’s initial response to my invitation to accompany me to the capital: “London! Who do you think you are? Dick fucking Whittington?” less than encouraging. But I persevered.

- London is the most exciting city on earth
- Is it really. Well I don’t want to go there: it’s full of southerners
- That’s because it is in the south of England
- I’m not stupid
- Dr Johnson said “Any man who is tired of London is tired of life”
- And I’ll bet he was a bloody southerner

I decided upon a more conciliatory approach:

- My brother Hector lives at Hendon, quite near to the RAF museum. Him and old whatsername… his wife, own a 4 bedroom house. And there’s only the two of them now that the kids have left
- I thought you weren’t on speaking terms with your brother? Not since that business with Anastasia?
- Oh, life’s too short to bear grudges. Come on: how about it?
- I don’t think so
- Look Carole, what is there for you to go back to? That sink estate? With the urine soaked stairwells and the broken lift?
- At least there’s a sense of community
- A sense of community! You mean they all thieve off one another, and support the local drug dealer
- You were glad enough to live there, when she kicked you out
- Yes, well… water under the bridge now. Let’s look to the future

Carole absentmindedly folded her napkin, then blew her nose

- You haven’t thought this through, have you? That’s your trouble: you never think things through. For one thing: what would we do for money?
- I’ve told you: we could stay with Hector – rent free – for the time being. And I’ve got contacts in Wapping: I could write articles for the Daily Telegraph
- YOU!
- Yes, me. You forget I was a successful novelist until not so very long ago. And I will be again. The hack work will tide us over until I sell my next book

Carole took out a bottle of red stuff and started to paint her nails. That was a good sign I thought. So I pressed on

- Yes, and we could be in the West End in 20 minutes – a bit longer maybe – and all the shows and the pubs and the eating places

Concentrating on the paint job she said

- Well, at least you would have a choice of bridges to jump off

I could see she was warming to the idea

- Oh and Hector’s wife… thingy… works at the museum; I’m sure she could get you a job there. If you wanted, that is
- I don’t know anything about aeroplanes
- Carole, you don’t have to, you silly… they will train you

Carole considered this

- Okay. I’ll give it a go. Just one thing: don’t you think you should try and remember your brother’s wife’s name before we get there?
- It’s on the tip of my tongue
- And one more thing: No sex
- Of course

And so, an hour and a half later, like two lovers, eloping, we boarded a train for Euston. I had to borrow a bit of cash from Carole for the fare (well, I like to travel first class) but I promised to pay it back as soon as we reached Hendon. My brother owes me money – and now’s the time to collect.

Friday, October 06, 2006

My mother's bunion

I believe that we draw to ourselves those people we need to act out our drama, on this earthly stage: the characters in our play, our supporting cast. Some have big parts (Anastasia, Georgina, Amanda, Carole.) Others, the bit players, may have just a few lines (Mrs Wincey).
Is my play a tragedy? A comedy? A thriller? A farce?
I wonder who will be nominated for best supporting role?

- Well?
- Well what?
- I thought you were going to tell me about your mother’s bunion?
- Oh, yes. Well, my mother was troubled by a bunion. She was in her sixties. It was so bad she could only wear ‘sensible’ shoes, and she had always considered herself a ‘stylish’ person. Also, on a bad day, it caused her considerable pain and forced her to limp. She had put up with this situation for a number of years until eventually she consulted her GP.
He referred her to a podiatric surgeon. This man explained the various surgical procedures on offer, all of them involving some breaking of bones and time in hospital. Although it could never be guaranteed, the likelihood was that eventually she would once again be able to wear ‘nice shoes’ and be relatively limp free.
What should she do? The decision was hers.

- So what did she do?
- In the end she decided it was not worth it. She had ‘managed’ for so long, she could ‘put up with it’ and live a reasonable life. And she did, until her death some years later.

Silence, except for the sound of Carole buttering a slice of toast.

- Do you see what I’m saying? I have put up with this so-called mental illness for many years. On the ‘bad days’ it incapacitates me, and it is on those days that I think I would do anything to be rid of it.
But there are the ‘good days’, when I feel great, full of energy, creative.
So what should I do, Carole? Should I elect for the ‘surgery’ or should I try and live with my disability?

- And suppose on one of your ‘bad’ days you go for another walk on the girders, only this time you make a proper job of it?
- Well, so be it. I will at last learn the great secret. Perhaps I shall be looking down on you all (or up, or sideways) as you run around tidying up after me.
No, I’m not saying that I want to go just yet: not with all those orgasms waiting for me to experience. But none of us can live for ever and, to paraphrase Amy Johnson: I think I would rather go that way than from pneumonia or senile decay.

Carole pours herself another cup of tea

- And what about the fact that you are on a Section Order?
- Oh, yes, my ‘sectioning’. Well I was thinking about what you said yesterday: no I am not Ronnie Biggs – I am not one of the Great Train Robbers. I am not a psychopath. I’ve committed no criminal offence. I’m hardly worth launching a manhunt for, am I?
- What are you talking about?
- Carole… come to London with me.

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

So it's come to this?



I have decided to eschew the grapefruit segments and go for the prunes. Five prunes. Five prunes a day - keeps you regular (so they say.)

- It’ll be the full English, will it, Mr Turner?
- Oh, yes please Mrs Wincey.
- Including the black pudding?
- Absolutely
(pause)
- Are you going to wait for your friend… or would you like me to bring yours through now?
- Err… perhaps I’ll have mine now. Don’t think she’ll be long, but, you know… don’t want the black puddings going cold, eh.

But Mrs Wincey does not leave immediately. She stands there, smiling. Then

- Shall you be leaving today then?
- Oh, yes, that’s right.
- And will that be the both of you?
- Yes… the both of us… thank you. Err… will a cheque be all right?
- Cash would be preferable.
- Oh, I think I can manage that.

She leaves, heading, I imagine, for the kitchen. The kitchen is somewhere at the back of the house. I have never seen it, nor its permanent occupant: Alfred. Mrs Wincey’s husband does all the cooking, and rarely sees the light of day.

My breakfast arrives, but still no Carole. Where are you, my Dymphna? This may be our last meal together – for some time to come. Let us share it, in a civilised manner.
I tuck in.

There was a film called “Morgan: a suitable case for treatment” Am I a suitable case for treatment? It doesn’t seem to have worked so far. But at least I’ve got a label now. I wonder if ‘suffering from a mental illness’ is just a modern way of saying you’re mad. After all, psychiatrists were originally called “mad doctors”. Different label – same job.

I am about to ask for more toast when Carole arrives at the table. She looks stunning. The Medical Rep sitting near the door, pauses, with a forkful of sausage an inch from his mouth. Carole is not wearing her leather mini and white stilettos – no, she has on one of those long dark brown skirts – so favoured by lady counsellors - with loads of material in it so it swishes and sways as she walks. Also she has got rid of her “sticks and stones” T shirt and is wearing a maroon blouse with a sort of short jacket. Her hair, brushed severely back and coiled in a very business like bun, shows no sign of the orange streaks. If she’d have arrived like this last night I could have passed her off as my therapist. My therapist – but not my Carole.

- You’re not packed yet?
- No, I thought there would be plenty of time after breakfast
- You know our train is at 11?
- Look Carole… I’ve been thinking
- If it’s about last night… forget it. It won’t happen again
- No there’s something I want to say to you.

Mrs Wincey re-appears with the toast.

- Oh, I see you’ve arrived. Will you be wanting a cooked breakfast?
Carole, without looking at her
- No. We haven’t time. I’ll just have coffee, and a piece of that toast.
Mrs Wincey sets down the toast, rather harder that I feel is necessary.
- I’ll make your bill out then.
And with glance at Carole which would shrivel a lesser person, she leaves. Carole raises her eyebrows and tilts her head enquiringly. (A habit I find irritating in women.)
- Well?
- I want to tell you about my mother’s bunion.

Sunday, October 01, 2006

It don't bear thinking about

A scoop of porridge in a dish of bone. A database on legs. Sorry but I just cannot help thinking about it, although when I look in the mirror I can deceive myself that it is not like that at all. (I am looking in the side of the shaving mirror that makes your face go all bulgy. A big nose and chin and your eyes somewhere at the back. Convex, is it called? It makes all the spots and blemishes stand out, your skin look like an old wash-leather.)
Wait a minute – I hope this is a convex mirror. I don’t really look like that, do I?

Anyway, just now I cannot believe there is a skull there, hiding behind that old familiar face. Nor can I believe this body is just hanging on a skeleton – like a suit of clothes in a wardrobe. This is ME.

And that, back there in the bedroom, is CAROLE – a real, live, warm and breathing person. I mean I have not just been sleeping with a skeleton! Have I?

I saw a skeleton in a museum. He was over 500 years old. They know it is a ‘he’ because of the shape of the pelvic bones – quite different from those of a woman. But that’s the only way (so they tell me). All the ‘bits’ that distinguish male from female have disappeared long ago: penis, testicles, breasts, womb, ovaries – all that stuff. Gone, ‘the way of all flesh’. Wasn’t there a book by that title?

But I was thinking: from the day we are born we are living on borrowed time.

What time is it? I go back in the bedroom and look at the digital clock radio: 8:15. I think digital clocks tell a different sort of time from those with hands: analogue if you want to be posh. I mean, with a clock with hands you can actually see chunks of time. You see the hand having to move from here to there; the space in between is sort of tangible – if you see what I mean.

8:15! We’re going to be late for breakfast! Mrs Wincey doesn’t like it if you’re late for breakfast. I think she feels it’s insulting to her black-puddings.

Come on Carole. You lazy cow. And I shake her – and I hear the skeleton rattle.

Saturday, September 30, 2006

NOTHING TO DO WITH ME

The Galapagos Islands are moving – in a South Westerly direction. Luckily they are moving at a rate of 1 inch per year, so they won’t reach the end of our street for a while yet.


Carole’s head on the mascara streaked pillow. (Mrs Wincey won’t like that). Have you ever really studied a head? A big knob of bone with skin stretched over it.

Ah, but in the middle of that lump of bone, lying there like a big dollop of cold porridge, is your brain. That’s where it’s all happening, even when you are asleep. When it is offline your brain is sorting, sifting, hypothesising, testing, deleting, reordering –
Oh look. Carole is coming back online. Her eyelids twitch. Of course that could mean she is dreaming – but it is not that sort of twitch, not the REM beloved of dream researchers Also she is sort of wrinkling her nose. She is definitely coming back online.

Suddenly she turns over onto her stomach, and farts. It is more like a sigh than a fart. A gentle sigh. Even so, I see the cotton sheet ripple slightly.

I wonder if, when you are asleep and someone stands watching you, you are somehow aware of their presence. Is Carole aware of me? She wrinkled her nose. Can she smell me! I remove myself to the en suite.

Wednesday, September 27, 2006

8.32am. I open the curtains. Cars crouch by the kerb, waiting. A heavy sky presses down on the rooftops. I go back to bed.

"Sometimes I'm happy.
Sometimes I'm blue -
My dispostion depends on on you..."
- No it doesn't. You have a mental illness. It's called Manic Depression.
- Really? I thought it was just a phase I was going through.
- Oh, very droll.
- Well shut up! And pass me the lithium salts.
(cheers RJ)

Wednesday, September 06, 2006




There wasn’t another room available at The Limes so Carole agreed to share with me, and sleep in the single bed. It would have been possible to have found her another hotel, but she was afraid I might abscond if let out of her sight for any length of time.

As it happened, Mrs Wincey did not appear to give a toss as to whether Carole was my partner, my sister, or my transvestite brother for that matter – as long as the room was now charged as a ‘full double’.

The Limes did not serve evening meals so we had dinner at a little café called Butterfingers. I had dined there, alone, the past two nights and I knew the fare to be modest, but more than adequate, in both taste and presentation. The place was licensed so Carole was able to have two pints of her favourite lager, whilst a glass of red wine was all I would risk, on account of the old Irritable Bowel Syndrome.

It was just after ten pm when we retired to ‘our’ room.

It feels so odd when you share a room with someone who used to be your lover but no longer is – or says she isn’t.
We were both extremely polite: After you…. No after you… That sort of thing. If we accidentally touched whilst passing each other we would both say sorry – a little too quickly. I decided to be the gentleman and let Carole use the bathroom first. She used to sleep naked in our old ‘Council Estate’ days, but I noticed she took a bag into the bathroom, and when she came out she was wearing a nightdress - and a very ‘modest’ one at that: not one inch of cleavage to be seen. She was obviously determined not to put temptation in my way.

Well, I have always been one to take things as they come, and so I accepted the inevitable. But I decided to be a bit coy myself. I don’t have any pyjamas (can’t stand them in bed – they’re so restrictive) so I came out of the bathroom with a towel around my waist, which I removed, in what I hoped was a swift, yet graceful movement as I slid between the sheets. I needn’t have bothered. Carole was reading, and never took her eyes off the page during my whole complicated manoeuvre.

I switched off my bedside lamp and closed my eyes.

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

There must be something the matter with him
because he would not be acting as he does
unless there was
therefore he is acting as he is
because there is something the matter with him

He does not think there is anything the matter with him
because
one of the things that is
the matter with him
is that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
therefore
we have to help him realize that,
the fact that he does not think there is anything
the matter with him
is one of the things that is
the matter with him


R. D. Laing (“Knots”)

Monday, August 28, 2006

Water on my cornflakes

The question of accommodation was nagging at me. Sleeping arrangements. I was paying for a ‘double with single occupancy’. I had not got around to approaching Mrs Wincey – the proprietor of The Limes Guest House (AA recommended) - regarding the imminent appearance on the scene of Anastasia.
Now it was Carole I would somehow have to account for. Tricky. Do I say that she is my ‘partner’ (a catch-all term these days), come to join me for a few days? And could I now have the same room as a full ‘double’? (There are two beds: a double and a single – I have been sleeping in the double anyway).
Or, should I introduce Carole as my younger sister, and ask for a separate room for her? That somehow does seem a waste of money

Carole interrupted my reverie. Pushing her empty plate away, and draining her lager, she said

- So, what’s your hotel like? Do you think they will have a room for me – for one night?

I felt panic. That awful feeling deep in my guts. Like I’m falling into a big dark hole. I had been assuming that Carole would take the place of Anastasia – at least on a temporary basis. You know, like in the song: If you can’t be near the one you love/Then love the one you’re near. Now I felt lost, bewildered. No, worse: I felt abandoned. Like in the dreams. They were coming true!

- I was sort of assuming…
- Yes I know you were. But I’m not. I’m not going to sleep with you.
- But I thought… I mean... you’ve come all this way. It’s not just to deliver a letter – is it?
- No, it isn’t. I’m here, George, because I love you.
- Well then…
- I said I love you; I am not IN love with you. I care about you. I care what happens to you.
- Well, you’re the only that does. That Swedish tart, she ---------
- Anastasia loves you George. In her own way. Yes of course she’s shagging Jake. But the way she sees it, what else can she do? She’s a survivor. She takes the best deal going. And, currently, Jake’s the best deal. But she really does love you - if you had seen how upset she was when she handed me the letter…

This was all going wrong, I thought. But I did not realise how wrong it was going to go until Carole continued
­
- There was another reason I came. I’ve brought you a ticket.
- What… to the theatre? Are we going to see a show?
- It’s a railway ticket. To Swindon. One way.

It took a moment for the light to dawn. But when it did, I panicked.
- Oh no. This is a conspiracy isn’t it! Well you know where you can shove your ticket. I’m not going back inside.

Heads began to turn as Carole raised her voice.
- For fuck’s sake George, will you stop acting like Britain’s most wanted man! You are not Ronnie Biggs… you are not one of the Great Train Robbers. You walked out of a - not so secure - psychiatric hospital, and you've been farting about all over the countryside, playing silly buggers.

I felt I needed to regain my dignity.
- Well, thank you very much. You’ve certainly reduced me to size. But they haven’t caught me. Have they!

She sighed.
- George, they know where you are. You left a clear enough trail. A person might be forgiven for thinking you wanted to be caught.

This was getting worse.
- Dr Foggatty could have you picked up anytime, but he doesn’t want to do that. And do you know why? Because he cares about you too. He wants you to come back voluntarily. It’s Freddie who paid for your ticket.

Things were moving too fast.
- So how did you come to be involved in this pantomime?
- Freddie got in touch with Anastasia. He wanted her to come down here. But she couldn’t. So she rang me. That girl is sticking her neck out for you.
- How come?
- Well, it's true that Jake paid for my ticket, and hotel expenses etc.; he just doesn’t know it yet. She sort of dipped her hand into the till. Of course, she’ll pay it back – she says.

I felt a strange feeling in the back of my throat. But there was one more question.
- What about Amanda? Is she really pregnant?
- I honestly don’t know, George. All Freddie would say is that she is on extended sick leave. But forget about her for the moment. Think about yourself. It really is in your best interests to come back with me tomorrow.

Control was slipping away from me. I leaned against the red plastic backrest. I felt tired. Weary. Carole took a handkerchief from her bag, leaned across and gently wiped my eye. The familiar perfume aroused faint sexual stirrings. Just for a moment. Then they were gone. A tear plopped embarrassingly into my almost empty pint. I drained the glass. The beer tasted salty – but I drank it anyway.