Wednesday, January 31, 2007

NEVER GET BETWEEN A HIPPO AND WATER



Last night I took a Harley Davidson motorcycle on the bus – on the top deck! It was surprisingly easy; the only slight difficulty was getting it round the bend in the stairs. And the motorcycle had a dog attached – yes a dog! A small one, fastened to the handlebars with a strap.

Of course it was a dream: a strange one? Actually not so strange because I had been considering buying another motorbike, and then thought, why bother – why not travel by public transport? The dream solved the dilemma by allowing me to take the bike on the bus. That’s what dreams do. And the dog? Ah well, that is something else.

I probably told you this, but I have a Diploma in ‘Therapeutic Dream Work’. I could paper the wall with the certificates I’ve got (clever bugger!). It might be an improvement on the eight layers of decorator’s delirium presently covering the walls of Hector’s bedchamber.

Yes, that is where I spent last night – alone. So, Anastasia, you need not have worried after all. I might as well be a monk – actually, I’d probably have more fun as a monk. I mean, I guess there’s not a lot of money in monking these days, but look at the perks! (No, I am not going to make jokes about ‘what fun does a monk have? Nun!’ Extremely bad taste)

It has just occurred to me: when I talked about Myra playing songs from The Singing Detective I did not mean that she played them on her concertina – oh yes, she has such an instrument, and very versatile she is too – you should hear her rendition (with original vocals) of Percy French’s smoking-concert ballad, Abdul Abulbul Imir and (one of my favourites) Come back Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff.

But I digress.
I felt a twinge of anti-climax when Myra said I could have Hector’s room for the night, although she did add ‘until we can negotiate alternative arrangements’. This was accompanied by a mysterious smile – so make of that what you will!

On entering my brother’s bedroom, the first thing that struck me was the smell: testosterone. Oh yes, you can smell it – well, anyone with a trained nostril can.
But as I looked around the room I thought, what a prize twonk! In the corner near the window was a pair of oars – that’s right oars. He’s afraid of water – I know that for a fact. And as for the rugby ball – well granted he has played the game, but only at lower-school level, and he hated getting his shorts dirty.
But what really irritated me was the stuffed fish in a glass case, above the bed. Can you imagine! I don’t know what kind of marine specimen it might be, but it’s over three foot long and I am sure my brother didn’t catch it. I think he imagines himself as Ernest Hemingway!

And then his bookcase! When I go into someone’s house I always look at their bookshelves; you can tell a lot about a person by the books they have on their shelves (even if they don’t read them). Two volumes immediately caught my eye: The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sexual Practices (with illustrations) by Brenda Love, and A Defence of Masochism (no pictures) by Anita Phillips. (I opened this last one at random and read

“Masochists are pluralists, and have a largeness of spirit, an expansiveness. They can easily project themselves outwards and empathize with others, although they may sometimes want to protect themselves from their own susceptibility… are always moving out of themselves with a mixture of curiosity and intense pleasure in enveloping a fresh version of the world.”

Sounds a lot like me!

(The next two pages were stuck together – that’s Hector all over: he always was a sloppy eater; he probably spilled porridge whilst having his breakfast in bed).

Oh yes, and another book I noticed was The Delta of Venus by Anais Nin. Now, I am quite partial to a bit of Anais, even though she, allegedly, wrote this collection in an attempt to impress Arthur Miller – or was it Jean Paul Sartre?

So this is a sample of my brother’s bedtime reading. Nothing wrong in that. One man’s meat is another man’s poison – and all that. But the book that I selected, to calm my mind before sleep came, was GESTAPO by Rupert Butler. A thumping good read.
Anyway, if those women let me have his bedroom for a second night I intend to explore further this most interesting collection.

On a shelf, there sits a large duck, made out of some furry material. It looked so alone up there, I thought of taking it to bed with me, but Hector’s teddy-bear, Woggle (I remember him from childhood) was sitting on the pillow and he and the duck might not have got on very well.
There is also a large old-fashioned wardrobe in the room. Well, not so much a wardrobe as a brooding presence. I was afraid to open the door, for fear of what might lurk in its dark depths. There are two other pieces of furniture: a ‘tallboy’ of the same vintage as the wardrobe, and an armchair. This latter is very comfortable: old, dark brown leather, all polished by the pants of its many occupants over the years. It stands in the bay window, which overlooks the garden (more of that later).
Oh, and there is a wicker bedside cabinet with a glass top, on which stands a lamp and an old alarm clock; one of those with a huge brass bell on top. Wonderful. On opening the door (the knob came off in my hand) I discovered a bottle of whisky (two thirds full) and a whisky tumbler – which was nice.

Actually, come to think of it, that smell in H’s bedroom might have been Fiery Jack embrocation; the two smells are easily confused.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Pragmatism: does it really work?

I said to Myra ‘You know, thinking back to my time with Georgina, I realise now I was in an abusive relationship.’
She replied ‘All relationships are abusive – if they go on long enough.’

Myra and me – we’re more like brother and sister. Which is good, because I never had a sister. My brother used to dress up in women’s clothes – but that just isn't the same.
Anyway, Hector’s not even my brother! As I told you, he joined the family unit later – as a six-year-old boy. His origins were never explained to me.

I remember, when I was quite little, a teacher asked me if I had any siblings. I said no. I thought a sibling was some kind of pet: like a hamster or a guinea pig. I said to my mother: can I have a sibling for my birthday? I promise to feed it, clean it out, and stuff. She just told me to go out and play – by myself!

Last night I dreamt I was going to go to Vietnam for a holiday. I could do, you know; I have a bit of money stashed away that no one knows about. I’ve been saving it for a ‘rainy day’ but, let’s face it, it’s fairly pissing down at the moment. So perhaps I should, in the common parlance, just ‘go for it’.

In my dream there was an assortment of oriental types (mostly ladies), and I hadn’t even got as far as the airport! I got irritated because two of them were talking in Vietnamese, although I knew they could speak perfectly good English. I think it was to do with the pros and cons of the trip.

Anyway, my ‘sister’ and I had a most acceptable breakfast at a little café called The Green Door. Afterwards we had a stroll around the charity shops; I bought a pair of ‘tom-toms’ for £1 – I think I am going to take up drumming. Who knows, I might eventually have my own group! I wonder what I could call us?

Myra persuaded me to return to Briarwood. I thought well, until I book my passage for Vietnam, it is as good a place as any. Carole will be there of course, and I don’t fancy a ménage a trois. Still, any port in a storm, as my uncle Neville used to say. Unfortunately, he took the maxim literally - which led to a Court Marshal and his subsequent dishonourable-discharge from the Royal Navy. Still, it was a long time ago – 1943,
in fact.

Uncle Neville was my only ‘military’ relative; the others were miners – except my aunt Edna: she was a spot-welder.

Myra swung the sidecar expertly around a left-hand bend and there was Briarwood. Tears filled my eyes; the freezing wind had been whipping around the edge of the screen for the last four miles of open road.
‘I’ll lend you a pair of goggles next time.’ Said my driver.


When I climbed out of the ‘chair’ I saw Carole waving to us from the dining room bay window. She looked quite fetching in her white robe, her hair wrapped in a sort of turban made from a towel. How do women do that?
When she opened the door she smelled of bath essence and ‘essential oils’. And I thought that maybe a ménage a trois might not be so bad after all.

You have to take life as it comes. And if life gives you lemons… get a bottle of gin and make yourself a stiff drink. (Actually, that’s one of Myra’s aphorisms. Another one is ‘Better the devil you don’t know than a horse of a different colour’ – I don’t understand that one.)

We had a pleasant evening. But I felt rather sad. Myra played some songs from ‘The Singing Detective’ and they resurrected memories. One of them -‘It’s A Lovely Day Tomorrow’ - I always connect with Anita - the friend who hanged herself, so many years ago now. I loved Anita. I wasn’t in love with her, but I loved her.

Anyway, we had a few drinks, Myra, Carole and me, and then – I don’t know what time it would be – Myra suddenly announced – in a playful tone - ‘Well, I think it’s time for beddi-byes.’
‘Bloody Hell’ I thought. Because up to this time no mention had been made of sleeping arrangements. I was determined I wasn’t going to lie down with the fish again, but was in some trepidation as to the possible permutations of the bedchamber. So I said ‘I’ve left my pyjamas at the hostel’. At which they both burst out laughing. For some reason I found this quite unsettling.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Gridlocked

A wet and gloomy 8.20 morning. A million lavatories jettison their cargo, and the sewage farm braces itself, in trembling anticipation of the impending onslaught.

Of course, I slept with her, in the end. In the end cubicle at the hostel. Lionel was out selling the ‘Big Issue’, and Major Dunwoody – a man of divided loyalties - was conducting High Mass at the Praed Street Synagogue. So I was able to smuggle her in.

We didn’t have sex though. I have always considered ‘sleeping with…’ a misnomer. It used to be said that 70% of human life begins on the back seat of a Ford Cortina. And that is my point: you don’t have to sleep with someone to indulg in sexual intercourse. Conversely, you may sleep with a person without having sex. Myra and I slept together.

It took us 4 hours to drive the 10 miles to my temporary place of abode. I can see a time, not long off, when you will have to fill in a request form if you want to make a journey by car, and obtain a permit. This will be the only way to prevent total gridlock.
Anyway, Myra was so tired that I did not want her driving home in that state, so I suggested she stay here for the night. She accepted my offer.
I said to her, 'The trouble with motor-cycle combinations is that they have all the disadvantages of the motorbike without any of the advantages.'
'You've said that before.' She retorted, in a tired voice.
'No, but I mean, if we had been on a solo machine we could have gone down the outside of all that traffic - and been home in an hour'.
Myra looked at me in a way that made me think it best not to pursue that line of argument.

Uncle Mort, in Peter Tinniswood’s I didn’t know you Cared, said that when a woman falls asleep she doubles her bodyweight – and then you are struggling under a mountain of icicles… something like that, anyway. Be that as it may, I found Myra a quite congenial sleeping partner. ‘Pleasantly pneumatic’ is a phrase that springs – or perhaps limps – to mind.

We lay, side by side, in the narrow hostel bed, covers drawn up to our chins, like two dolls, carefully tucked in by some giant child.
Myra fell asleep as soon as her little round head hit the grey, standard issue pillow. I lay awake, counting the cracks in the ceiling and wondering what it must be like to be a woman.

I eventually succumbed to sleep: that phenomenon we take for granted, and yet the true purpose of which eludes our scientists; at least for the moment. When I awoke, a dismal dawn light was struggling through the net curtain.
‘Are you awake?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ replied Myra, ‘are you?’
And so we talked. We talked about marriage.

I asked Myra about her relationship with my brother; when first she had noticed things starting to go wrong ‘I think’ she said, ‘that it was our 2nd wedding anniversary: I asked Hector what he thought we should do to celebrate. He said, “How about going down to the Cenotaph and observing two minutes silence?” I knew then that things were not going to be “Happy ever after”. But there was Bonar to consider – Hector’s child from his first marriage. Well not marriage (as I am sure you know) relationship, to use current terminology. His mother suddenly dumped him on us, when he was six, while she went off to South America with that Polish circus performer. Of course she never came back, Bonar grew up into the prize twat he is today, and left. But we had sort of got into a habit and it was easier to continue than to make a clean break – which is what we should have done.
Instead, I bought a motorbike. That gave me an interest – and space, quite literally. Without that bike I think I would have gone mad.’
‘And what about my brother?’ I asked.
‘Well, he’d always had a hobby: other women. I didn’t really mind: we had not been sleeping together for some time. But lately, it has begun to get to me – I’m not quite sure why this should be, but it’s the reason why I blew my top that evening before Christmas – unjustifiably, as it turns out. Still he’s done it so often that he couldn’t really complain.’
'So you never had a child of your own?' I asked.
'No, it would not have seemed right - even in the height of passion we were never close.'

Myra asked me about Georgina, saying we seemed totally unsuited. I said ‘Aren’t most married couples?’
She said ‘But there must have been something – at the start, I mean?’
‘Sex.’ I said. ‘And that – as I am sure you know – soon begins to pall.
We were both twenty years old when we got married; we didn’t know ourselves, let alone each other. We really had nothing in common, only we concealed it – from ourselves and from each other. Later, we had to admit that we were two very different people – with not a lot to say to each other.’
‘So why did you stay together?’
‘Well, I suppose it was for the sake of the rabbits. But just when myxomatosis saw them all off, Sydney came along. He gave us a common interest. But of course, he grew up. And we were alone again – together but alone. Sad, really.’
Myra said nothing. So I continued. ‘I find many things sad. So much so that I sometimes wonder if ‘sadness’ is the norm, the reality. And the depressive, the person with the binoculars, who sees more clearly – and we come and muddy the lenses with our drugs, so his view will be cloudy – but he will be happy. He will “fit in”.’
‘Nah’ says my bed-mate, ‘the depressive just needs his thermostat adjusting – thank God for good old Fluoxetine. But anyway, you’re out of all that now, aren’t you? I mean the divorce?’
‘I’m not sure where that’s up to – it hasn’t been finalised; what do you call it, decree absolute? That has not happened yet.’
‘But you do want a divorce?’ asks Myra.
‘I’m no longer sure what I want. My head is all muddled. Sometimes I feel like just giving up.’
‘Not another bridge job! Another railway line farce!’
‘No,’ I find myself saying. ‘I think I would be more likely to sink deeper and deeper into depression – suicide by degrees.’

‘You have to fight, George. It’s unpleasant, I know; it would be much nicer if people would be reasonable, tolerant, be prepared to listen, negotiate – but they’re not. Well, at least some people are not – usually those closest to you. So you have to stand up for your rights (actually, I don’t believe we have any “rights”, other than those we either negotiate or fight for.)
‘So, yours is the religion of the sword?’ I said, with what I hoped was a cynical smile.
‘No, the religion of “whatever comes to hand” bottle, brick, tyre-lever… ' She said, matching my sarcasm. 'You know what I mean, George. Ours is the religion of Pragmatism.'

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

Questions and answers

Bullshit, George.
What do you mean?
Your metaphor: ringing down the curtain. The play ends? The play never ends, George; we don’t get let off that easy. To extend your metaphor: when you walk off-stage – into the wings, as you think - you actually walk onto another stage, into another play. So before you jump off a bridge, just remember that you may have a more demanding part in your next play.
So you do believe in reincarnation? Learning lessons?
Whoa! ‘Learning lessons’? Take, let’s say, a little Ethiopian – a baby – who dies of starvation aged 6 months. What has she learned? Not to get born in Ethiopia?
Okay, so there are mistakes. Because we choose to get born into a physical body, we are subject to the laws of this material plane – the frailties of the flesh.
So what happens to the ‘soul’ of this small deceased person? Does it go back from whence it came, to await another turn on the merry-go-round?
Something like that – possibly.
But WHY, George? I mean what is the point of it all?
I don’t know. But I am surprised that you are so dismissive of the notion of reincarnation.
I’m dismissive of the notion of ‘learning lessons’.
But surely you cannot have one without the other?
As I said, squire, our religion is of the ‘pick and mix’ variety.
This is ridiculous.
Your problem, George, is that you ask the wrong questions.
People are always telling me what my problem is. But go on.
It’s not about finding the right answers, but framing the right questions.
You’ll have to explain that one.
Okay, to put it simply: if you can’t find the right answer you are not asking the right question.
My brain hurts.
And so it should.

Now, let’s get this form filled in. NAME?
You know my name.
Have you got a middle name?
Yes, but I’m not telling you what it is.
ADDRESS? We’ll put Briarwood down for that – it sounds better than ‘Salvation Army Hostel’ or ‘Psychiatric Hospital’.
Put ‘temporary’ in brackets.
AGE? - Shall I put down 'awaiting result of carbon-dating'?
Fuck Off.
MARITAL STATUS? Bit of a grey area, that, for you, eh?
I don’t see why you need it anyway
Quite right – I’ll scrub it.
OCCUPATION?
Writer. Well, part-time.
ANY CRIMINAL CONVICTIONS? How about ‘terrorism’? Okay, only kidding… NONE.
Is that it?
One more: DO YOU SWEAR TO KEEP SECRET UNTO DEATH, THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH OF THE LATTER-DAY SINNERS, AND THE WISDOM IMPARTED TO YOU THEREBY?
Are you serious?
Shut up, and sign it… okay now there’s just the question of membership fee.
Membership Fee!! For a church?
Oh, yes. Another of our tenets is: There is no such thing as a free service.
How much is it?
What can you afford?
Well I-
Okay. We’ll call it fifty – while you’re in dire straits.
Fifty pounds! I haven’t got that much cash.
American Express will do nicely.

Myra, - do you realise we have not been using speech marks?
George – you mean… we’ve been having unprotected text!

Friday, January 12, 2007

THE SHOW MUST GO ON?

We are all responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves. If we chose to be born into a particular family at a particular time in order to learn something, then we are responsible for our present state of being.
But if we chose to be born, then perhaps we have a right to decide when it’s time to ‘ring down the curtain’. When the play has been running long enough; the bouquets and the standing ovations a thing of the past; the audience becoming restive, the applause thinning out until it is hardly audible.

Tuesday, January 09, 2007

The Sermon on the Downs

We walked up the hill. It was steeper than it looked, and I confess that, despite my peak physical condition, I was beginning to labour a little. Myra, on the other hand, seemed to experience no difficulty at all, which I thought surprising for someone of her rotundity and encasement in all that leather.
Anyway, after fifteen minutes or so, we reached a sort of copse. Myra, thankfully, called a halt and suggested we sit in the lee of a tree – which we did. Then without any preamble she asked me a question:

‘What do most people want? More than anything else?’
‘Money? Fame? Power? Love?’ I am guessing.
‘Certainty!’ Most people cannot abide unpredictability, they seek to find pattern in chaos. And it’s all happened since we evolved into consciousness. Ever since we achieved a sense of self, an awareness of our own mortality, people have been looking for guidance: They feel there must be meaning to life, “there’s got to be more than this”, and yearn to find it; and if they cannot actually find it, then they want to believe in it. I almost said that they want to know how things “really are”, but of course, really they want to know that things are as they would like them to be.
Enter the Prophets, Priests, Pastors, Messiahs, Mystics, Gurus, Imams, Witch Doctors and “Holy Men” (notice, no “Holy Women”) with “certainty” as their stock-in-trade. And they spawn the sub-culture of fairground “fortune tellers”, tarot readers, palmists, readers of tea-leaves and assorted “psychics”, consulted by those feeling the need to “know” what the future holds.

‘And you are saying this is all nonsense?’ George is bemused. ‘I mean are you suggesting that we humans have invented God?’

No, I am suggesting that God evolved, along with an evolving spirituality (I don’t particularly like the word but it is so much in vogue these days). And religion developed as a sort of set of “rules”: the Ten Commandments, Bible, Koran, Upanishads and various lesser known texts, all instruction manuals on How to “do” God. Then you get the back-up: the robes, the candles; the incense, the gongs, the bells; the choirs, the alleluias; the chanting of creed, the singing of psalm. As Richard Geer’s cynical lawyer sings, in the musical Chicago, “Give ‘em that old Hocus Pocus…”.
And that’s what all the internecine bickering, fighting, crusades, sectarian conflict, holy wars are all about: arguments over How to “do” God.
And people are getting sick of it. Apart from anything else, religion is failing to deliver on the certainty thing. And why? Because life is uncertain, it is chancy, unpredictable, random, fickle – that’s what makes it so interesting… and, at times, so shite.’

‘And what about your lot? Are you not “peddlers of certainty”?’

‘No! The Church of the Latter Day Sinners worship at the altar of doubt.’.

And so saying, Myra got up, announcing ‘I need pee.’ and disappeared behind a bush. When I say “disappeared”, I don’t mean that she de-materialised before my eyes. No she just got up and walked over to the bushes, with a creaking of leather and a sound of zip-fasteners.

And she didn’t completely disappear. I could still see bits of her, like pieces of a jigsaw through the winter branches, as she squatted unconcernedly. Presently, I heard a soft splashing sound and a tiny rivulet emerged and meandered slowly down the hillside. And then my spiritual guide (for it is as such that I am beginning to see Myra) spoke to me from the centre of the bush – in mid pee:

‘Well, how about it then?’
‘What?’
‘The calendar – are you going to do it?
‘But you are still one short.’
‘You, George, could be November.’
‘ME! But I’m a man!’
‘Yes George, I know – when you’ve been in the religion game as long as I have you pick up on these things.’
‘But your calendar is all women.’
‘I didn’t say that. We do have males in our congregation. What do you think we are: some sort of feminist coven?’
‘Well, it’s just that you never said anything about men.’
‘Oh yes, in fact the split is about 50/50 – or to be specific, 4 men and 5 women. You’ll make the numbers even.’
‘But look here, Myra, I’m not sure that I want to join your church.’
‘You haven’t been to one of our services yet.’
‘But you said that all the participants in this calendar business had to be church members.’
‘Don’t worry about that, George, I’ll make you an honorary member for the duration of the photo-shoot – same as Wanda.’
‘Who’s Wanda?’
‘One of the barmaids I was telling you about.’
‘And what about the other?’
‘Chloe? Turns out she’s staunch R.C. and the priest has threatened her with eternal damnation is she touches our lot. You’re not a Roman Candle are you, George?’
‘No, C of E.’
‘Oh you’re all right then. Very relaxed, your lot. I don’t know why they call themselves “Protestants” – they never protest, at ‘owt.’
‘All the same-‘
‘Right that’s settled, then.’ Zips zip. Leather creaks - and here comes Myra.
‘But Myra, if I am to be November who’s going to take my photo?’
‘George, George, there you go again: getting bogged down with detail. It’s simple: you set up the photo with one of the other men as model, then you take his place – and I take the photo.’
‘Well I suppose it would work but-‘
‘Come on, I just happen to know that there is a very acceptable hostelry in the vicinity. I’ve got a membership form in my pocket – we can fill it in over a pint.’

Saturday, January 06, 2007

Abducted

How thin: the veneer of civilization. As thin as the veneer on my front tooth, which once came off, suddenly, as I was biting into a pork pie. I trundled off to the dentist with it wrapped in a piece of cling-film (the veneer, not the pie). My regular dentist had gone to Australia, and I was ‘seen to’ by a lovely lady dentist. She was dressed all in black, and I gazed into her soft brown eyes above the mask, as I gladly allowed her to invade my personal space.
Oh, having just read over that, I wondered if I made it sound like she was a Muslim? She wasn’t. Her ‘black’ was a dental uniform: unusual, but very effective – not to say sexy - and when she came to fetch me from the waiting room she was minus mask: very pretty. I felt immediately reassured, and had no qualms about her exploring my cavities, which she did with latex-gloved fingers, imbued with skill and sensitivity. (Did not Jane Austin write a novel called ‘Sense and Sensibility’? Well, if she had had my dentist she might have thought of a better title!)
She made an excellent job of gluing the veneer back in place – I am sure an extraction by this lady would be pure pleasure.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
‘Get in, you silly sod – you’re not safe to be let out on your own!’
I climbed into the sidecar (or ‘chair’ as Myra calls it) to the accompaniment of honking horns: we were holding up traffic on a busy thoroughfare. I had barely settled myself before she accelerated away. I gripped the chrome of the curved windscreen support and resigned myself to my fate.

The ‘Downs’. Only the English could call a hill the ‘Downs’. Cold sunlight. Beautiful winter landscape. No snow, but beautiful.
‘How did you know where I was?’
‘Call it the long hairy arm of coincidence, squire.’ Responds my abductress. I wish she wouldn’t keep calling me ‘squire’ – that expression dates back to the sixties. Still, there is so much of Myra that dates back to the sixties – me as well, come to think of it.
‘You’ve pinched that “long hairy arm of coincidence” from “Lolita”, haven’ you!'
‘How do you know old Nabokov didn’t nick it from me?’ she retorts with a grin. She is sitting, sidesaddle, on the bike, filling her pipe.
‘I’m sorry I did a runner.’ I apologise, ‘but that night was just too much for me.’
‘Oh you’d get used to that sort of thing if you stayed in our house. Actually he was in the gazebo with your Carole. I saw the light on, from my bedroom window. Perhaps I jumped to conclusions, but he takes all his floozies there; calls it his ‘studio’, he does. Fancies himself as a bit of a photographer “I paint with light” he says.’
‘Is he any good… my brother… with the camera?’
‘Nah – rubbish. He got this idea of doing a calendar, for our Church. You know, on the lines of that famous one, where those old biddies posed in the nude (essential parts tastefully obscured) for a Women’s’ Institute calendar – one for each month. They made the story into a film called “Calendar Girls’. Well, he wanted to do the same for us. He had a title: The 12 Deadly Sinners – I was to be January. It wasn’t that I was opposed to the idea, in principle, but apart from his spectacular lack of artistic talent we’ve only got nine members so far – and that includes me. He wanted to rope in two of his barmaid friends from the Vole and Ferret but I said that wouldn’t be right – unless they joined the church.
‘But you would still only have eleven,’ I quickly calculate.’
‘Ah, that was where your Carole was going to come in: he reckoned he was trying to persuade her to be the twelfth – Deadly Sinner, that is.’
‘She’s got a stunning figure.’
‘Well, you would know, I suppose.’ she retorts from behind a cloud of smoke.
I wait until the smoke disperses a bit. ‘Why do you persist in smoking? Do you want to die an unpleasant death?’
‘Are there any pleasant deaths?’ She grins. ‘Anyway, I believe you are a bit of a dab-hand with the old camera – how about photographing this calendar for us?’
‘Oh I don’t know about that. Besides, I haven’t go my equipment with me.’
‘You can use Hector’s stuff.’
‘But won’t he mind?’ I object.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Not here?’ I echo, confused. ‘But where is he?’
‘No idea, squire. I haven’t seen my dear husband since the police carted him off that night.’
‘But he could come back at any time… couldn’t he? I enquire rather nervously.
She reassures me. ‘I’ve had the locks changed.’
‘But what about Carole?’
‘Oh she’s still at the house. She’s a good kid – she’s agreed to be December. Now if that doesn’t tempt you, I don’t know what will.’ She winks.
This is all becoming a bit too much for me, and I say so. ‘This is all becoming a bit too much for me.’
Myra swings her leg over the tank and dismounts from the bike. ‘Come on. Let’s go for a walk – and a talk. Walking frees the thought processes.’
And so we start to walk, up the hill.

Monday, January 01, 2007

At the Blue Magnolia

I keep a diary; have done ever since I was a lad. It used to be about the doings of my day. Highly condensed because I only had one of those tidgy little things small boys can put in their trouser pocket. My mum used to buy me one every year.
It was much later that I began to write about my thoughts and feelings – then I called it a ‘journal’. Now I keep TWO records: One is a brief account of things that have happened (and are going to happen), my ‘diary’, the other is my thoughts and feelings: my ‘journal’.
Do you see how I am always at pains to be exact about everything, precise – that is one of my problems: a perfectionist. I feel the need to explain myself exactly. So I have to choose the right words. But before I get the words right I have to get my thoughts right, and I think this is one of the causes of my OCD – there may be others. Sometimes I get ‘stuck’ and can’t move on until I get the ‘right’ thought.
Incidentally, I have come to the conlusion that Obsessional Compulisve Disorder is based upon superstition - even though it is burried so deeply in the unconscious that you don't even think about it. I mean, the idea that you can influence outcomes by some sort of magical thinking, or ritual. So perhaps we should avoid superstition in all its forms - wherever we find it!

SAM: I am not going to drawn on that one... for the moment.
ME: Aw! You're no fun anymore.
SAM: Do you ever share your diary with anyone?
ME: Sometimes. I have read bits out, to certain people – very close friends – heavily edited.
SAM: Why heavily edited?
ME: Well, you don’t share everything with everybody, do you?
SAM: No, but I get the impression you are more…secretive is the wrong word… reluctant – reluctant to let people really see you. Than most people, I mean.
ME: Oh, no, not the ‘real me’ thing. I’ve spent most of my life looking for the real me. But lately I have had a funny feeling that it might be like the onion: you know, you peel off layer after layer, trying to find the ‘onion inside’. But when you get to the centre: nothing. You have been throwing away the ‘real’ onion.
SAM: I never thought of it like that.
ME: Anyway, I often write silly little poems – rhymes that just… come into my head. Bits of nonsense.
SAM: Can you remember any?
ME: Now you really are behaving like a psychotherapist. Okay Mr Freud, what about this:

The Great Pyramid of Cheops
Used to have a row of shops,
When they built it, back in Egypt, long ago:
A chemist, so they say,
And a Chinese takeaway –
A Dry-cleaners, where the Pharaohs used to go.

SAM: I like it.
ME: Well, before you get too ‘analytic’, it was inspired by a couple of friends, talking about their holiday in Egypt.
SAM: Hmm. By the way, Happy New Year!
ME: Oh, yes. Same to you. Although I don’t go much on this ‘New Year’ business. All this paraphernalia about ringing the old year out and the New Year in. Load of bollocks. I mean it’s just another day isn’t it. I hate all this ritualistic stuff. In fact that is what I find so objectionable about religion.
SAM: Ah, I thought we’d get onto that, sooner or later.
ME: Don’t be so patronising. But let me ask you… something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately:
Do you think you can know by feeling? I don’t mean by feeling with your fingers, I mean a feeling. Some people talk about a gut feeling; some people say they feel it in their heart – my mother-in-law used to say she had a feeling in her water. We praise reason, and rightly so, but, as Erique Remarque said, “…let us not be too proud of it, nor too sure.” Could it be that reason, logic and scientific method are not the only ways of ‘knowing’. It is something I intend to debate with Richard Dawkins: this possibility of ‘other ways of knowing’.
SAM: I think you should.
ME: You’re being cagey, as usual. But you should read Dawkins.
SAM: I will. But – if you don’t think I am changing the subject – I’d like to know how you came to end up here… in this hostel.
ME: Well, first of all, I have not ‘ended up’ here. I do not intend this to be my permanent abode.
SAM: Ok. What happened at your brother's place?
ME: I do not think I can re-live the events of that night – not even in the telling.
SAM: It might help. Get it out into the open so to speak. What was it you used to say: if there is a monster in your cellar, invite him up into the lounge for a cup of tea.
ME: Yes, well…
SAM: So it’s a case of, don’t do as I do – do as I tell you to do?
ME: All I have are nightmarish flashes: Burst of hellish of noise. A confusion of terrible images: A thundering at the door - a man’s bellowing voice: unbolt this bloody door or I’ll kick it in. My sister-in-law, stark naked at the top of the stairs, screaming don’t you dare let that fucking fornicator into my house. Another voice: Carole – trying to pour oil on distinctly troubled waters. The oil igniting in the fiery stream of Myra’s invective. Splintering wood and breaking glass. Sirens and flashing lights. Police uniforms. And me, trapped on the landing, being sick.
SAM: Sounds like quite a night.
ME: So that’s the extent of Christian compassion!
SAM: Sorry. But what was it all about? This huha?
ME: Well, as far as I could gather-
SAM: Hold on! See that man, just come in?
ME: What man-
SAM: Standing by the jukebox.
ME: Him with the shaven head and ‘Satan’ tattooed across the back of his neck?
SAM: Don’t stare.
ME: Is he the guy you’re after?
SAM: No, it’s my boss: Chief Inspector Snape. We weren’t supposed to rendezvous for another hour. You’d better leave.

And a minute later I am out on the pavement thinking: Why do these things always happen to me! I have come to the conclusion that it must be me. Am I simply the sort of person to whom things ‘just happen’? Instead of me making things happen, they just happen. Now why is that?
A girl I once went out with said that I just ‘reacted to events’. Is that true? Should I be more proactive: a mover and a shaker as they say in the business world? I don’t think I have ever moved and shaken. But I will, if that is what it takes. In future I shall be the cause events, rather than the mug at the receiving end.


Crossing the road. A sudden clatter of engine. A whoosh of air. Squealing brakes. I have almost been run over. By a motorcycle combination! Oh no!