On the road

Well, I made it to the boat. Walked across about a hundred muddy fields (twice falling into ditches) to the A57, and then hitched a lift. Surprisingly, a young lady in a Series V - BMW stopped in response to my upright thumb. She was beautiful (I am sure I have seen her on tv): blond hair swept up into a coil on top of her head, and these very narrow spectacles - so elegant. And her perfume…
She took me into Swindon. All the way we chatted. Mostly about the relative merits of Hegel and Kant. She was remarkably knowledgeable, but it was strange to hear such erudition expressed in an Essex accent.
She asked if I minded if she smoked! In her own car, too! Now that is what I call manners. I said – no, of course not. But I declined her offer of a cigar. Cigar! She smoked cigars! Now that is what I call style.
She dropped me off at an all-night café on the Wormwold Road. I asked if she would let me treat her to ‘tea and toast’, but she smiled and said – thanks all the same, but I’ve got to check on the girls.
It was well after midnight, and I thought it was a bit late to leave children on their own. But I didn’t say anything.
Actually I don’t think she is on the telly: you don’t get many ‘stars’ living in Swindon. Diana Dors came from Swindon – but she never went back, not so far as I know.

Fortified by a fried egg and bacon bap, washed down with a mug of industrial strength, sweet tea, I set off once more, on foot, in a more optimistic frame of mind – and a light drizzle. I reached the sanctuary of the Marina as dawn was slithering across the wet fields.
I keep a key hidden in the starboard rope locker. As soon as I was aboard, wet clothes still sticking to my skin, I threw myself on a bunk and fell fast asleep.

The following morning I discovered that Big Roy, the entrepreneur gift-shop owner, had set up an ‘internet café’ Well, it is actually one computer in what used to be a storeroom, but he will also make you a cup of tea or coffee on request (£2.50 per hour (including tea/coffee – it still costs you £2.50 if you forego the beverage, so you might as well have it). Actually it was me that gave him the idea, some time ago. I thought that holidaymakers, on the procession of hire boats that pass along this busy waterway in the summer season, could stop and pick up their e mail and keep in touch with their loved ones – or relatives. I remember, at the time, Roy saying that he did not think there would be a call for it, and besides, he couldn’t be bothered. (I think he actually said he couldn’t be ‘arsed’). So you can imagine that I am a bit miffed to find that it is doing so well that he is going to install 4 more terminals, and sell snacks. But, instead of thanking me for putting him onto a winner, he claims it was his own idea! It makes one despair of humanity.

Anyway, the upshot is that I am able to file this report from the Marina. (oh yes, Roy charged me) but I cannot guarantee further reports, my situation being so unstable. I mentioned ‘sanctuary’ earlier, but I am aware this is a temporary sanctuary. No doubt my (soon to be ex) wife will take great pleasure in giving the hospital the address of the marina, so I shall have to move on.

Yes, I am truly on the run: a fugitive from the Mental Health Act. But, as you rightly say, RJ, there are plenty of internet cafes and libraries dotted throughout this fair and pleasant land. And, I may add, public wash-houses and hostels. Though what I shall really miss is my own lavatory. Still, other than that, I am not too downhearted at the prospect of a life ‘on the road’.

Oh, just one last thing. I sent an e mail to Anastasia asking her if she’d get Jake, her boss at the King's Head, to run her down here in his Mercedes, with some clothes and a few personal items, before I move on. She won’t let me down, my Anna.

AWOL

I am making a break for it. Going over the wall. Tonight.

Just in the clothes I stand up in - and will probably lie down in! (Luckily the weather is fine).

Things have got too much.

'til we meet again.

George

I've been stood-up

I have been stood-up! I was at the appointed place, bang on the dot. I waited for half and hour – no Amanda. What can have happened? I have run through the possibilities:

She has ‘evening sickness’ (is there such a thing?)
She has been run over by a bus.
Freddie has strangled her.
It was all a hoax – she is not pregnant and was just trying to scare me.

Of all these possibilities, I prefer number 4.

Anyway, while I was waiting at the back of the (now defunct) morgue, I saw this piece of graffiti, and I realised it expressed my feelings so well. I don’t just mean about Amanda, but about EVERYTHING.
Rage – but unfocussed rage. The targets are out there but they are obscured by the mist; the mist that hung around the childhood streetlamp where I dreamed of great deeds.

- Oh, stop feeling sorry for yourself
- Well if I don’t feel sorry for myself, who will?
- Come on, you big girl’s blouse – get on with it
- Right, I will

Letter to Sam the Christian

Dear Sam

I am in a hole. This evening I am supposed to meet a woman who claims I have impregnated her – and now she is ‘with child’ as the bible might say. Also, I have said I will marry another woman (ex au pair) as soon as I get divorced from a third woman: Georgina – who is still (technically) my wife.

I bet you are not as sorely troubled with the sins of the flesh as I am. Do you remember when I used to say that I felt I was ‘steeped in sin’? Well I don’t feel that now, but I ask myself questions, all the same.

I don’t know what to think Sam, I really don’t. Isn’t life strange? If you had not saved me, I could not done the things I mention in my first paragraph.

I am not blaming you. I am grateful for your timely intervention; despite my troubles, I am glad to be alive (although I don’t know what being dead is like). As you know I am not a member of any church. I don’t really like organised religion. I would not go so far as to say it is responsible for most of the wars throughout the ages, but I do think it provides a convenient vehicle, a ‘cause’ for the fanatics, the power-crazed psychopaths of this world to claim justification for their barbarism. The fact that some of these psychologically damaged individuals group themselves behind ‘non-religious’ banners: - political, national, moral or whatever, does not alter that fact. Different uniform – same face.

Is there hope for me yet, Sam? still feel that I am a spiritual person – even though I am stumbling in the dark

But what am I going to do? I know: I shall go for a ride on the bike. Not my motor bike – they would not allow that – but a push-bike! The old pedal-power. They have a couple here and they encourage the patients to use them – just in the grounds of course.

“Ride around the grounds
Until you feel at home” (Mrs Robinson – re-written)

It is still bloody hot. Dr Singh is still off sick. And what with Amanda off too, they are so short staffed that they cannot supervise my use of the ‘net’. So I shall post this and then get my leg over the cross-bar and RIDE.

HEATWAVE

It is so hot. Yesterday the recorded temperature was the highest in Swindon for 100 years. Dr Singh (you remember – from Bombay) has gone down with heat stroke. And Greta confided to me that she is wearing nothing under her white coat! No bra, knickers… nothing. Now, personally, I just don’t think that’s right – not for a professional person. Especially as they have open metal staircases on G wing. Like in a prison. You remember me telling you that this place was an old Victorian lunatic asylum. ‘Confinement’ was the top priority. Ironic really, that Greta should be up and down those staircases so unconfined.

Oh and that brings me onto something else: when Amanda talked about the ‘mortuary’ she really should have said the old mortuary. We don’t actually have a working mortuary anymore; it’s not considered appropriate in a modern psychiatric unit. Anybody dies, they ship them out under cover of darkness, in a plain van, to Fenfield General. Hence the expression, sometimes heard on the ward:

You won’t see him agen,
He’s gone to Fen.

I don’t know whether or not I should keep the appointment on the Rue Morgue. I note your helpful comments, RJ, but would that be playing the game? Deserting a lady in her hour of need? Of course, as I say, I am not at all sure that I am the father. Perhaps a DNA test would be in order. I could write to the ‘Jeremy Kyle Show’. (For the benefit of non-English readers, Jeremy Kyle is a bit like Jerry Springer – but he takes himself far more seriously.)

I don’t know how to apprise Anastasia of this unpleasant turn of events. She is as broad-minded as the next Swede, but how will she react to the news that her groom to be has (allegedly) fathered a child with his psychiatrist? I think I shall just have to ‘play it by the ear-hole’ as my dear Anna would say.

Oh, and I have just re-read your comment, RJ – How dare you suggest that I would look like a troll if I wore a pointy hat! I think I shall post a photograph of myself so that everyone may see how inaccurate that scurrilous remark was.

A worrying note

Bernie handed me the sealed envolope without saying a word, but he gave me a funny look.

It had 'MR GEORGE TURNER' written in purple felt tip in the centre. With trembling hands (for I knew who used the colour purple) I tore open the Basildon Bond.

I suppose you know the baby is yours. What are you going to do about it? We need to talk.
Meet me at the back of the mortuary tomorrow evening, 9.30 (when it gets dark)
A

SHOCK. I am in deep shock. Surely I cannot be the father? We used 'safe-sex'. Didn't we? Well, at least on one occasion. Besides, I know for a fact that I am not the only one to have received 'sex therapy' from Amanda.

My mind is in a turmoil - which, I am sure, is not good for my mental health.

What am I going to do?

Yes, but WHY?

Things are running away with me. They have lots of legs and are black and shiny.

Delirium tremens must be really unpleasant. William arrived by special delivery from the Magistrates Court: remanded for psychiatric reports.
He was arrested on the steps of the Cenotaph, (‘Breach of the Peace’ and ‘Drunk and Disorderly’) during a protest against British involvement in Iraq.

Actually, William was protesting against the protest.

He had spent all his earnings from selling the Big Issue on several cans of Tenants Extra Strength (oh yes, and their was an additional charge of ‘Depositing Litter’) and what with the hot sun and the lager, William had got a bit excited: Left-wing loonies, long-haired tree-shaggers (I think he meant 'huggers') were a couple of his more printable rants.

Bernie told me that William used to be a sociologist at a prestigious university. But he became disillusioned. One day he told his head of department that sociology was ‘intellectual masturbation’. And he resigned – and went to Zambia, to do something for the Zambians. I don’t know what he did for them, but he must have finished doing it, because he came back.

But let me make it clear that I am not knocking Sociology. Sociology is about asking questions. That is what made me feel so much at home when I 'discovered' it. Yes I was originally trained as a sociologist, before I found my way to psychology via phenomenology and ethno methodology.

And the most important question is WHY? You should ask it of parent, teacher, priest, policeman, politician – in fact anyone who tries to tell you what you should do. Or how you should live.

Unacceptable answers to the question WHY? are: Because I say so; because this ‘holy book’ says so; because tradition says so; because society says so.

Keeping on asking this question is the only way you can safeguard your liberty. And although continually asking this question may lead to the accusation that sociologists end up with their head up their own arse… well that is just an occupational hazard. And one we must accept.

Clearing the air

‘I am sure the houses across the street are creeping closer. It’s only a couple of inches a day. They think I don’t notice it – but I do.’

If his doctor had paid sufficient attention to Derek’s observation, he may have caught an earlier bus to St Botoph’s. But, as I have recounted earlier, it was only when he set himself on fire that they sat up and took notice.

I have told you before how he said he hated suburbia, and how it eventually got too much for him. He told me he used to live in ‘Claustrophobia Close’. Of course that wasn’t its real name, but it was a ‘Close’ of some sort.

I don’t know if you colonials use that word? It is a cul de sac… a dead end. And that is where Derek felt he was: trapped in a dead end – going nowhere. And he said that like a creek, a backwater, cut off from the fast flowing river, it got clogged up with rubbish, detritus (actually he said ‘shit’: emotional shit, psychological shit… but shit – all of it.)

Why am I telling you all of this now? Because my dear (soon to be ex) wife has been in to see me. Oh yes – it was a surprise. Of course, it was to do with some of the finer points of the divorce: who was going to get custody of the fish-tank… stuff like that. But I started to get flashbacks… of when we lived in suburbia, and I mowed the lawns, cut the hedges, cleaned out the gutters. And yes, it was a close. I never got as far as setting fire to myself but I can certainly empathise with Derek.

I think we are going to have a thunderstorm. I hope so. Clear the air. Always good to clear the air every now and then

Morning has broken

My brain awakes, a bit at a time -
Like someone switching on lights
In the rooms of a house
On a dark, winter’s morning.


They have found me a job. A placement. It is sort of continuation of occupational therapy – only out in the world.
It is at the local museum. I start this afternoon. It’s only a couple of hours but they say it will help me to ‘reintegrate into the community’.
They are putting me in the ‘Egyptian Room’ – I always was a mummy’s boy (joke).
I am a bit nervous but I shall give it a go.

A courageous decision

We are allowed unrestricted access to newspapers in here and, although I do not normally concern myself with news from the colonies, I chanced upon this piece in the Daily Telegraph (under World News).

President George W Bush yesterday shunned public opinion and scientific appeals, vetoing legislation substantially increasing government-funded research using human embryo cells to fight serious illness.

Good for him. It just shows that there are still some world leaders around with the moral fibre to swim against the tide of public opinion. And it is a measure of the man’s convictions
that this is the first time he has used his veto during his five years in office.

And let me quickly silence the cynics (many of whom, I am sorry to say, being Britons in exile) who may sneeringly suggest that this is because Mr Bush has only just learned how to use the veto.

No, he has recognised that stem cell research is the first step down the slippery ladder of … well you know what I mean. Next thing we’d be having ‘designer people’ – probably designed to vote Democrat!

If nature produces seriously handicapped children with crippling and painful diseases, then there must be a reason. And who are we to question Mother Nature? Are we going to try and play God? We’d probably lose.

And on a religious note, I see that the Vatican has warned that Roman Catholic scientists who carry out embryonic stem cell research and politicians who enact laws allowing it will be excommunicated. Nice one. There’s nothing like a good excommunicating to bring people to their senses.

I should like to make one final point – so I will. We have become morally flabby. If we have been given the capacity to feel pain, then why should we deaden that experience with anaesthetics? Look at the number of women wanting epidurals and ‘gas and air’ to help them through the perfectly natural experience of childbirth.
I, myself, always refuse a pain-killing injection when having a tooth filled – unless I know it is really going to hurt.

Anyway I have to stop now – here comes Greta with my sleeping pills.

"...Play up, play up, and play the game"

I have made a decision about Anastasia: I am not going to pull out at the last minute.

No, I shall go ahead with the wedding, despite all the advice I have been getting, warning me of the perils of such an adventure.

I owe a lot to the Swedish tart. She comforted me in my hour of need: the dark days at ‘Wynorin’.
And not only me: Sydney too. I remember how she would give up her free time in order to counsel him during that sticky patch when he was so confused about his sexuality. The long walks they would take together, in the woods behind the house. The rainy afternoons they spent up in his room listening to his ‘Sex Pistols’ CDs.

In fact I think it was due to Anastasia that he finally came down on the right side of the fence. No disrespect to ‘gays’, you understand – ‘Live and let Live’ is my motto. But my boy Sydney? No, I am glad he plays with a straight bat.
And that reminds me of what helped me to come to this decision about the Scandinavian lady: my old school cap.

It was amongst my ‘personal possessions’ in the old suitcase that the lesbian dumped on the steps of St Botolph’s this week. The note said that she wanted to rid the house of the last vestiges of my occupation. And to think of all I have done for that woman!
Anyway, she didn’t realise how she helped me to come to the decision I have. Seeing my old cap again, I was reminded of the line in Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’, “… Oh, that one small head should carry all he knew”

Not only that, it was the values encapsulated in that cap: the values of my old school (founded 1658) … play up, play up, and play the game… and all that stuff. The same values that Francis Drake espoused, and which enabled him to trounce the Spanish Armada (in the very year my old school was founded).

Unfortunately, I cannot name my school here; I am still regarded as one of its most famous ‘old boys’ and I would not want my present sorry plight to reflect upon that grand institution.
You will just have to be content with a picture of my cap.

The writing is on the wall

But hang on - if a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a picture PLUS a thousand words worth?

And speaking of Wordsworth, how much is a poem worth?

My deafness is getting worse. I have to strain to catch what the voices in my head are saying.