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.

Saturday, August 26, 2006

'Reasons' are stories we make up, to explain the unexplainable.

Friday, August 25, 2006

Carole reveals her hand

As she turns to drape her jacket over a chair, I read, on the back of Carole’s black sweatshirt:

Sticks and stones
May break my bones
But whips and spurs excite me

I didn’t know she was into horse riding! But now is not the time for a discussion on matters equestrian.

- Well?
- Yes, thank you
- No, I meant-
- I know what you meant. Look, I know you were expecting Lady Longlegs but it would be nice to be asked how I am
- Oh... how are you?
- I’m not so bad
- Er… and how’s Gary?
- He’s inside again
- Oh, I’m sorry
- I helped put him there
- Oh, well…
- Okay, I’ll put you out of your misery

And so saying, she delves into her handbag and produces a long, brown envelope. She hands it across the beer-stained table. I take it, and just stare at it. I recognise the curly-whirly handwriting forming the words George Turner Esq., but for some reason I can’t seem to move. Am I entering one of my ‘stuck’ periods again? I am soon jolted out of it.

- Well, go on. Aren’t you going to open it?

It is a letter from Anastasia, which I reproduce here, verbatim – except for a bit of editing, where indicated.

My Dearest Georgie

I am sorry for not to be keeping our arrangements as promised, but as you will see, there are reasons for this unhappy state of affairs. Anyway, I thought the next best thing was to have my letter brought to you in the personage of one of your closest friends (Carole of the Council Estate) instead of entrusting to Postal system of your country, which is nowhere near being a patch on that of my own dear land.
Anyway, to cut to the chaste, as they say – I am unable to come on account of us being so busy at the Fox and Gropes: yes Jake has changed the name to try attract the more gentrified client of the horse and hound variety. I have been promoted to manageress and it is I what have designed the smart black sweatshirts for all the bar-staff (boys included) of which I have asked Carole to wear one for your approval at the appropriateness of the logo.
Jake has paid for Carole’s train ticket plus a little extra for her trouble. Knowing how much you mean to me. He sends his best wishes and says how sorry he is that pressure of work prevents me from being at your side in your time of need. But he asks me to remind you of the old saying ‘The darkest hour is always the hour before the storm’ (I think I got that right?)
Now, I don’t want for you to be worrying for me. Jake is looking after me, and taking care of all my needs. He says that whilst I am under his roof he will make sure ‘I don’t want for any nothing’. It is such old world courtesy which – when I occasionally come across – endures me to your country. It more than makes up for the load of stinkers I generally find the English to be.
You are always in my thoughts. I often think of how we (edited)… and how long it was ago (edited) and cannot wait to wrap my long Swedish arms around your (edited) body.
I have to go now as Jake needs some service. We have now this bistro that does the panini and jackets plus the microwaved curries, with the optional extra on the side serving.
If you wish to ring me I would love to hear your voice. Only could you make it on a Wednesday evening (that’s when Jake does the ‘Quiz Night’).

Till we can truly make the earth move

Your loving Anna

There are tears in my eyes, and I look up quickly to see if Carole has noticed. But she is tucking into her scampi and chips.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

'...Among these dark Satanic mills...'

There is no such thing as a free lunch. And there is no such thing as a free Empire.

Somebody had to pay: the little boys pushed up Victorian chimneys; cotton mill workers minus the odd arm, lost in unguarded machinery; miners with ruined lungs and crooked backs; and the ‘navigators’ buried under mud slides as they dug the canals and railway cuttings.

The British Empire was built in grimy, shabby towns in the Midlands and the North. Far away from Westminster and the politicians, the whole process fuelled by coal from Welsh pit villages with unpronounceable names, and upwards through Lancashire, Yorkshire and into Scotland.

But what has all this got to do with me? Apart from my having been brought up in one of these mining villages, as I documented earlier in my dissertation? After all it is 2006 not 1906. And have we not ‘built Jerusalem/In England’s green and pleasant land’?

Haven’t we?

Oh – here comes Carole, back from the lavatory. I hope she’s washed her hands.

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Devastated (a bit)

She wasn’t on the train. I waited by the barrier so I wouldn’t miss her. But she never came.

I had was about to leave when I heard a familiar clippety-clop. Turning around I saw Carole, teetering towards me on her white stilettos (what Germaine Greer likes to call ‘fuck me’ shoes) She was dragging one of those cases with wheels and a handle.

(You remember Carole? Council Estate? Husband Gary – inside? I’ve had many an enjoyable ride on her little Vespa.)

Coincidence? Synchronicity?

It turned out to be nothing of the kind.

‘Well, don’t stand there gawping –‘

‘But how… I mean why… where is Anastasia?

‘Cool it Buster. First things first. Where’s the nearest pub? Do you know, I’ve been two hours on that train – without a bar.’

We adjourned to the Station Hotel.


Note for RJ: I think you are mixing me up with someone else. The only time I met the lady in question she was married, with two children. Remember, you are much older than I am.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006


The last remaining Steam Driven Post Office in the British Isles.

I took this photo on my way to the station. I thought it deserved the black and white treatment, since it belongs to an age when everything happened in black and white.

An age when Britain truly was Great. An empire upon which the sun never set (though it rained quite a lot).
And even now, note, it is GREAT Britain. You don't hear of Great France or Great America.

The steam engine was, of course a British invention (along with nearly everything else). They say the wheel was a Chinese invention. How absurd. Notice that every word connected with the wheel: rim, spoke, hub, axle are English words.

I realise that the photo may be a give away as to my present location. But I don't care. Things have gone beyond the caring stage.
But I am nervous, as I go to meet my true love. It has been so long. How long is it now? I can't remember.

I quicken my walk.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Decisions at breakfast

I had the grapefruit segments. I usually have the cornflakes. But I thought, what with having all the grease of a Full English Breakfast, I should have something a bit fruity. Tangy even. So I had the grapefruit segments.

They only gave me two slices of toast. I wondered whether I should ask for more. There was butter and marmalade on the table, and I’d no toast left because I had eaten it with my bacon, sausage, egg and tomato.

Anyway, whilst I was pondering this question, the lady came into the dining room and enquired if I would like more toast. I said yes - but then she asked if I wanted ‘white’ or ‘brown’. I had to think about this, but in the end I plumped for ‘white’. Perhaps, on reflection, I should have asked for a slice of each, but I felt I might be seen to be too demanding.
In the event she brought TWO ‘white’ slices. So I suppose I could have requested one ‘white’ and one ‘brown’; of course it was too late by then.

There was another awkward moment when I reached my last half-slice of toast (it was brown, but that was not the problem). The problem was that I had run out of marmalade. Well, I had used the last out of one of those little plastic tubs they give you in hotel dining rooms. My dilemma was whether to eat this last piece WITHOUT marmalade (I still hade some butter) or to open another of the small tubs (there was one left in the wicker bowl). A third option, I suppose, would have been to leave the last slice uneaten. But I felt that since I had ASKED for more toast it would seem churlish to leave it

I felt one of those ‘stuck’ moments coming on. So I reached across the table and quickly took the remaining marmalade container. I tore off the foil top. Now I was committed. I buttered and marmaladed my final slice of toast. I ate it.

I left the dining room, conscious of the half-full tub of marmalade (it was orange) looking lonely and unwanted, in the middle of an empty plate.

But I was determined not to let it spoil my day.

Saturday, August 19, 2006

Life is an inexact science

I sit on the edge of the bed, socks in my hand, and can’t move. It’s not true catatonia, - it’s more like inertia – but it’s real. Sometimes I can stay ‘stuck’ for minutes, just staring into space. I don’t know what gets me going again – but eventually I do. Well I have done so far.

Breakfast is at 8.30am, so they told me when I arrived last night. I glance at the bedside digital clock. It’s not eight yet, so I have plenty of time. I will get going in a minute. I know I will.

I am looking forward to a boiled egg. Georgina didn’t like eggcups; wouldn’t have one in the house. Can you imagine that? A house without an eggcup! I think she had a phobia. I advised her to see a doctor but she told me to mind my own business.
I think not being able to have a boiled egg made it my business.


I feel sort of funny. Not depressed, but sort of… well, funny. In my head, I mean. But I am going for a brisk walk after breakfast. Her train is due in at 11.07, and the railway station is about half a mile from my hotel, so perhaps that will get those… what are they called… endorphins? Get them going.

When I was registering at reception last night, I thought of that song from ‘Evita’: Another suitcase in another hall – except it’s the same suitcase.
I like hotels, though – they are so wonderfully anonymous: you can be with people and yet, at the same time, remain apart. Keep yourself to yourself. No one asks you any questions: Where have you come from? Where are you going? They don’t care, so long as you can pay your bill. And don’t make too much noise or set fire to your room.

I once read of a man who owned a hotel. He had two rules only: no opium smoking in the lift and guests must carry out their own dead. The same man wrote a book: How to lose friends and alienate people.

I believe he committed suicide.

But it’s not how long you live: it’s the breadth and depth of you life that matter.

I have started moving again – at eight seventeen.

Thursday, August 17, 2006

I wonder

When we’ve done all the things they tell us: stopped smoking, abusing alcohol, taking drugs; when we’ve adopted a healthier life style: stopped eating junk food, and there are no fat people, no anorexics; when we all have safe sex (or preferably, no sex at all, unless it is for the procreation of children, within the institute of marriage); when we have learned to ‘manage our anger’, and react to situations in the ‘appropriate’ manner – what will Life be like? What will we actually DO?

What sort of pictures will we paint? What books will we write? What kind of poems will we pen? What music will we dance to?

Anyway, I haven’t got time for philosophising – I have a train to catch. And by the way, RJ – the other half of the Eccles Cake? I wrapped it in a serviette for eating later on that same train!

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Duckin' an divin'

Alone. A cup of tea and half of a giant Eccles Cake.
I look out the window at the river; the tide is on the ebb. Gunmetal, the water.
I like this place.

I am the only customer. The two serving wenches are sitting at a far off table, talking in low voices.
Turning back, I observe a pair of fluorescent-jacketed cyclists coming across the wooden bridge. This species is becoming very rare in this part of England, and to see a pair – well, I count myself lucky.
They swing gracefully past the bottle-bank and are soon out of sight.

When I got here a television catering-unit was on the car-park. They told me in the cafĂ© that a production company is filming a sequence, at pub down the road. It is for a sitcom: Two pints of lager and a packet of crisps. I think briefly about going to take a look – I am fascinated by the whole business of film-making – but in the end I can’t be bothered.

There are white blossoms on the trees outside this window. I don’t know what you call these trees; I’m a bit of a Buddhist really: I just experience their tree-ness.

Later

I am standing at the urinal. And I am thinking how random life is. I was born with a penis and am, therefore, male. If I had been born with a vagina instead, I would have been female. My whole life has been predicated on this accident of birth.

I have just come back from a walk around the town. Had a half of Guinness in a pub, and fell into amiable conversation with a rather inebriated fellow, and his wife. We talked about motor-bikes and he told me – with the laboured precision of the drunk – how he used to race against Barry Sheene (the Meccano Man). He never came first (my friend, not Barry) but usually second or third. Well that’s not bad, I told him.
I would have stayed longer – I am sorely in need of company - but I had finished my drink and did not feel like another one. He shook my hand when I left. I think he was Irish but it was hard to tell.
I wonder if I will ever see these people again.

So now I am back in my lonely hotel bedroom: Number 4 at the ‘Bug and Spider’. I couldn’t stay at the boat. I knew that. Well, not more than one night. So I just stuffed a few things in a rucksack, picked up the small amount of money I leave there for emergencies, and left the next morning.

Those lines keep running through my head: ‘You can travel on ten thousand miles, and still stay where you are.’

But, hey, things are not so bad. I still have some money – and a couple of credit cards. So let’s not think about the future. One day at a time – that’s the thing.

I was going to listen to my CD of Hitler’s speeches – but I’m too tired. Goodnight.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

SUNDAY

There's nowhere you can't get to from where you are.

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

Donald



This is Donald. Donald is the boat’s mascot. Barbara, my therapist, gave him to me a long time ago. I’ve brought him outside to have his picture taken. He usually sits on his own corner- shelf at the front of the boat.

Oh, I've just remembered: I asked Anastasia to bring a few things for me but the lesbian has chucked all my stuff out – or she says she has.

It’s lovely sitting here alone on the boat. The weather is much cooler and a strong breeze is causing ‘Oscar’ to rock gently. There is rain in the air, but that’s okay – I like the canals in the rain.
Don’t you find that there are some moments that you wish would last forever? That you could ‘freeze-frame’ like on a video recorder?
What moments would YOU choose?

3 hours and a Mercedes later:

Anna has turned up trumps. She persuaded Jake to loan me two of his shirts and a pair of trousers. Also, included in the bin-bag were a couple of pairs of underpants and some socks.
Unfortunately, Jake is built like a barrel: what he lacks in height he more than makes up for in width. The trousers are ‘half-mast’ but there is a pouch in front that I could put a baby kangaroo in. Still ‘vagrants can’t be choosers’ to paraphrase Anna’s Swedish joke! The shirts aren’t too bad – I like them loose-fitting. The socks are fine.

When my beloved introduced us, I offered my hand. Jake took it in his fist – the size of a York Ham – and gave it back to me, crushed. He assumed I was on the run from the law – which in a sense I am. I tried to explain but he didn’t want to know. Laying a forefinger against the size of his nose, he growled ‘The less I know, the better.' I felt like some big time criminal – but I shut up.
The next thing, he delves into his coat pockets and produces two pork pies, a packet of crisps and a gherkin (this last item being wrapped in tinfoil). He thrusts them at me without saying a word. In an instant I change from ‘big time criminal’ to ‘vagrant’.

I had this very strange feeling. I don’t know what it was. Maybe I was touched by his kindness. Maybe it was self-pity. But I felt tears come. I blinked them away before anyone noticed.

Anna was unusually shy. Instead of wrapping her arms around me and sticking her tongue down my throat – her usual greeting - she just gave me a quick peck on the cheek, and stepped back quickly. I thought it might have been due to the odour of liquid fertilizer, but I had had a good shower in the toilet block?

Later, when they had gone, I began to speculate upon the nature of their relationship.
Paranoia? Maybe. But I did not like the way Jake placed a beefy paw on my finance’s bottom as he steered her to the car. Still, she did give me a quick wink when he was getting into the driver’s seat. I think things are going to be all right. Aren't they?

Tonight though, I have to confess that I am feeling a bit down. Sometimes I think I have made a mess of everything. What have I got to show for my X years on this planet? I am thinking of what Tony Hancock said in one of his sketches: “What happened to you? What went wrong? What happened to those dreams? … No plaque for you in Westminster Abbey. The best you can hope for … is a few daffodils in a jam jar. A rough-hewn stone bearing the legend: he came… and he went. And in between, nothing.”

He once told his scriptwriters, Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, “If you get to the stage where you get fed up with it all, then turn it in mate.”
Hancock ‘turned it in’ in a hotel bedroom in Sydney, on June 25th 1968.

I am beginning to understand how you felt, mate.