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.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
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!
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 café 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.
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 café 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
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.
Sunday, July 30, 2006
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.
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.
Friday, July 28, 2006
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
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
Thursday, July 27, 2006
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.
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.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
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.
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.
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