The Truth is Like The Sun

The truth is like the sun. Its value depends entirely on your distance from it. Or ... 'You can shut it out for a time, but it ain't gonna go away'.

Mother loved Elvis Presley. The thin Presley. The romantic Presley. I don't imagine she thought of him fat and vomiting, dying while squatting. We all go that way, unattractively. There are no easy exits.

I saw a picture of Marilyn Monroe once. She was lying face up on a mortuary trolley. There was a small, brown, package tag tied to her big toe. It came back to me in a dream. I was walking through that cold space. The green and white tiles shone in their mute disinterest. Closer and closer. The tag was turned away from me. When I grasped it the string felt rough against my fingers. I looked at the name. It was mine.

Not much was mine as a child. I had my own room, that was thin and transparently devoid of fun. I had my sisters, but they were their own people. They liked me, because I was funny and cute. I did not have a place in their lives though. I was more of an accessory.

Mother and father were my 'mom and dad', but I never called them that. Those words were too short and perfunctory. Our relationship was complicated. Three letters each did not cover it.

I never had a pet. I was allergic to practically everything. At first this was not picked up. I sneezed and sneezed around the cat, eventually becoming breathless and swollen eyed. Mother took me to the doctors. He said it was an attention seeking device, similar to breath holding. The slightest cold or chest infection sent me into paroxysms of wheezes. Every once in a while I end up in hospital. At first they were understanding. They wanted to know what was the matter with me. But that morphed into “What's the matter with you?” said in accusatory tones. I did not know.

It was decided that I reacted to mother's job. Apparently, I did not like her working during the day. I wanted her to be at home, with me, cooking for me, washing for me, talking to me. This was deemed impossible. She was a social worker. She needed to be needed, but not by me. Various foreign students were employed as nannies. By the age of five I could speak French better than I could speak English. But I was resistant. I played my breathing games if i did not get my own way. It was a problem. I was a problem.

An asthma attack is like someone sitting on your chest. Your lungs are balloons, but when they are reacting to an allergy stimulus, they refuse to inflate. Mother did not like balloons, my cousin, or perhaps it was her cousin, had choked on one. He was trying to suck it back and make small, concentrated, air filled twists. It went horribly wrong. The rubber lodged in his throat. They tried to make him cough it up, but it would not come out. The balloon had wrapped itself around that dangly bit. He died, blue faced. Balloons were banished from our house.

In hospital I stared at the greeness around me. The curtains around my bed hung like wet washing, green wet washing. The paint on the walls receded like distant hills, except they seemed mouldering. My gown, over-sized and flapping, dripped from me like the mucus that made breathing so hard.

The doctors gave me tablets, small, pink ones. I shook. My whole body shivered. Inside I itched. The ceiling was white. I looked at it a lot, because I was not allowed out of bed.

When I was seven I asked for a bicycle for Christmas. I got a go-cart, not a handmade one, a factory type, with a purple frame and a white seat. It hurt my legs to peddle. The muscles at the top and front ached. I was still low down. I wanted a bicycle so I could whiz around, master of my wheels. My go-cart stuck me to the ground. It was heavy and it did not go round corners as if it was daring them to have a curve, instead it lumbered, pinned by gravity and size. It made me feel fat. Father took me to the park. He wanted to see me smiling and laughing. I tried. I really did. But there was no joy in being alone, circling a route, soft gravel crunching under the wheels. There were no skids, no chance I could over balance, no sense of slightly out of control. Everything was under control, sub control, control was precise and safe.

The best Christmas present I ever got was from my sister Rosie. I knew what it was as soon as I unwrapped it. I marvelled at its dull, petrol-blue, plastic casing. It had a square handle to carry around its square body. The dials were circular, with ridges for gripping, and black stickers with numbers, 1-9. After a while the speaker ridges filled with dust, but I lovingly cleaned them with a wet cotton bud, carefully squeezing the pointy end into the grooves. It was very satisfying to see the dust collect on the end of the bud. The music crackled, coming through the single mono speaker, but that did not bother me. As long as I had batteries I had something that no-one else could control. It was my radio.

I hunted around the airwaves. Sometimes I just listened to the noise in between the radio stations. I thought there must be something in there. I could not hear it, or make it out, but there had to be a discernible pattern. I liked the way it swooned, in and out of volume. Soft, soft, not so soft, a bit louder, louder, very loud, chrishink, music, covered in rain, clearer, clearer, vibrating against itself inside my radio, twisting the dial more, chrishink, more rain ... And so I went on.

Later, much later, father bought me a CB radio. Scanning the channels I would find people talking, about things I did not understand, but the gentle audio storms in the background were like clouds that covered up their cold anonymity.

I made things for Christmas presents. This one time I spent ages sewing father a cigarette case in bright green felt. It reminded me of the shoemaker and the elves. Felt felt nice. There was just enough scratchiness combined with woolliness. And it was easy to work with. It did not fray, like those materials that would try and get away from you while you were working with them, suicidal threads insisting on non inclusion. Mother got sniffy, sometimes she shouted, when I left scatterings of my labour all over the floor.

“Can't you see this mess?”
No I couldn't see that mess.
“You have to tidy up.”
But it's boring.
“You can't move onto something else until you put away the things you've finished with.”
But I don't want to.
“Don't pull those faces at me my girl.”
I wasn't pulling a face, it just happened to my mouth and eyes.
“Clear this up NOW!”

It only ever took 10 seconds for my mother to move from reasonable to rascible.

“Peel the potatoes.”
I was standing on the stairs. I could fly down them with the faeries, so maybe I could do it by myself.
“Did you hear me? Can you peel the potatoes?”
“No, I'm ...”
“It wasn't a question.”
One step at a time. Perhaps my feet won't touch the ... “Lovely spuds.”
“What did you say?”
“Lovely spuds,” but there was uncertainty in my voice.
“No you didn't.”
“Yes I did.”
“Liar.”
I was not lying. I had said lovely spuds.
“What did you say?”
“Lovely spuds,” I was certain this time.
“No you didn't.”
“Yes I did.”
“Don't you stand there and bare-face lie to me my girl.”
I did not feel like 'her' girl.
“Tell me what you said.”
“Lovely spuds,” it was coming out quieter now.

Mother was quick. Temper made her like lightening. She flew towards me.

“I said lovely spuds, lovely spuds,” I squealed.
She was up the stairs and her fingers were tangled in my hair. I could fly now. My feet were not touching the carpet.
“I said lovely spuds.”
She shook my head about. It hurt where my hair was being pulled from my scalp. She threw me onto the bottom step. She was breathless.
“You're lying. You said bloody spuds.”
“No I didn't.”
“Yes you did, and there's nothing I hate more than a liar.”
“But I'm not lying.”
“Are you calling me a liar?”
“No,” and I was instantly confused. Her breasts were rising and falling in rapid succession. She was shouting. Her false teeth were rattling against her jaws.
“I said lovely spuds.”
“If you don't admit you're lying I'm going to splatter you against that wall.” She pointed at the wall. She meant that very wall. I looked at it. It was magnolia, like everything else in the house, a soft shade of non-committal beige. The budgerigar cage stood in front of it. He was called Denis. He used to sit on father's cap and drink beer from father's tankard. He shat all over the floor. Father did not seem to mind.

“I'm not lying,” I was screaming.
“You're a lying little bitch,” she tugged me some more. My legs were all tangled up. My ankles were like spaghetti.
“I'm sorry,” I was screeching, “I'm sorry”. I went slack. She put her hands under my armpits. I could feel her fingers digging in. My bones hurt. I was crying and trying to make words come out.
“What did you say?”
“I said bloody spuds. I said bloody spuds.”
She relaxed. I was floppy. The wall was still beige. She let me fall to the floor. “Now, sit on the stairs and think about what you've just done.”
The step was hard, wrapped in soft carpet. My legs bent into a lap. I folded my arms and put my head into the gap. It was dark and hot. All the noise disappeared into the space between my knees and the big part of my body.

I peeled the potatoes.

Read more!