Like Mother Like Daughter

Go Lightly

2007-03-21T13:53:00.000-07:00

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” - Soren Kierkegaard.

I did not return. I could not return. Birmingham, the place of my birth, where I grew up, threw up, escaped from ... and then the opportunity presented itself. I might be able to get in and out, like a thief, without getting shot by the memory cops.

I was on my way from and to somewhere else. It would only be a short diversion. I had not seen my sister since my mother's funeral. Three years.

It was arranged hurriedly over the telephone. We surprised each other. Of course she could take the time off work. It would be lovely to see the children. I confirmed they were looking forward to it.

Driving into my dirty old town I felt something I had not expected. Birmingham, so father told me, was known as 'the workshop of the world'. Factories were everywhere, and the biggest of these was Longbridge, a car plant. I guess at its zenith it had employed somewhere in the region of 50,000 men. Northfield, which is curiously in south Birmingham and looks absolutely nothing like a field, depended on Longbridge – appropriately enough pronounced lungbridge. As a child I had marvelled at the huge factory that snaked all the way down the side of the Bristol Road. It was like a river of metal and glass that went on forever. I excitedly told the children that this was their heritage, the blood, sweat and tears of 100s of 1,000s of men over generations. I was all ready to point it out to them, as their tour guide to my city's working class history.

Both lanes of the road make a left at the roundabout. To the right the Lickey Hills sit slumped on the landscape like a fat arsed old lady. Straight ahead is a dead end. I swung the car at the junction, thinking I would see the familiar stretch of industry, instead the horizon was blank. Nothing. Fences along both sides of the road. Big metal fences. Blue. I was so shocked that I pulled up on the pavement. I knew where I was. I had not somehow got it wrong or become lost.

“They used to be here, the factories,” the children seemed disinterested. “All the time, when I was a kid, I came past on the bus,” each kid clutched their Gameboy and stared into dimly lit screens, moving their fingers and thumbs and occasionally clicking. “They've gone,” I said. No-one responded.

I turned the engine off and yanked the keys from the ignition. “Stay here, I'll be back in a minute.” Those fence things, they have little gaps between each corrugated section and I walked up to one. Peering through I could see flattened rubble and red brown earth. They must have knocked the whole lot down, blown it up, bulldozed it.

Intellectually I knew that it was not a party working on the lines at Longbridge, enough of my friends had done it. Pete had been down there years. Wozzi used to do shot blasting. He's dead now. Pete is a psychiatric nurse. But Christ, when something vanishes, apparently into thin air, it's like a war got fought and lost without me ever knowing or noticing it was going on.

Back in the car. Stereo tuned to the local radio station. Desperate for a pee. I fidgeted uncomfortably.

After mother died the house was sold. Paulette and Tommy bought another, not too far away. I have always had this impression that there is some umbilicus connected them to Bournville. Sure, they have moved a few times, but always only about 500 yards. As a kid I had delivered papers in the street they were now living. I would not have a problem finding it. I might struggle to hold onto my pee though.

I rang the bell, hoping from foot to foot. As she opened the door Paulette opened her mouth as if to speak.
“Have you got a toilet?” I burst out.
“No,” Tommy answered, coming up behind her.
I pushed past both of them and ran up the stairs. Despite the fact I had never even been in this house before I made the reasonable assumption that the pisser was probably upstairs and it was just a question of poking my head around a couple of doors. I was right. The children ambled in on their own, without their mother to negotiate any introduction.

Lunch passed off peacefully enough. Paulette, as father accurately once said, has the ability to speak like a gatling gun. We raced through various topics of conversation at break neck speed, including the state of British military hospitals, animal cruelty, how much health insurance costs for expatriots living in the US and the nutritional benefits of a vegan diet – both of us are meat eaters.

Tommy, who is a fairly shy and reticent man, most probably because he can never get a word in edge ways, told me of his pub quiz exploits. I laughed. “God, you're a mine of useless information,” I said.
“Yeah, and you know what, I'm 60 years old and I've never read a book in my life.”
This stunned me into silence. “Never?”
“Nope never,” he said, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms.
“You must have read biographies and stuff, like of The Beetles?” I asked hopefully.
“Well, I look stuff up in the index and then turn to the page I want, but I've never started at the front and gone all the way through to the back.” He laughed. I could not understand why.
I sat back in my chair and folded my arms. “Do you read anything at all?”
“No need, I watch the telly.”

My eyes flicked over the room. A short bookcase, containing three dictionaries, all of which were out of date. A computer on the desk, another one in a box on the floor waiting to be set up. Two small lapdogs, panting for scraps. Our family houses have always looked like this, minus the dogs though. No art on the walls. More shoes than books. Nothing of any substance. I had grown up feeling like I was drowning in wide open space. It is an odd sensation to be suffocated by too much and not enough air all at the same time.

“I've got news,” Paulette said, as she cleared the plates away, to make space for endless pudding. I hate pudding.
“You're emigrating?”
“Yes, how did you know?”
“Well, you were hardly likely to announce you were pregnant.”
“What's that on your wrist,” she said, grabbing my hand.
“A tattoo.”
“What of?”
“A snake.” Is she blind?
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why have you got a tattoo of a snake?”
There was no way I could explain. Because I'm a Pagan. I have a thing about snakes. I don't know, it seemed like a good idea at the time. I did what I usually do and dodged the question. “Do you like it?”
“At least they'll be able to identify you if you get murdered and someone cuts your head off.”
“Still reading those real crime mags then?”
“Yes, the mind of a psychopath is fascinating.”
“If you say so,” which obviously she was.
“Ah, I get it, you're being sniffy because Tommy doesn't read books and you're married to an egghead.”
“No, it's not that,” I said hastily, “More that I'm not into that reality stuff”.
“You don't watch Big Brother?” she said incredulously.
“Not if I can help it.”

I trod on the dog. It let out a loud squeal. Unfortunately, some of its tail hair remained under my foot. I tried to cover it up. I realised I was always trying to cover things up. I was like that Munch picture, 'the scream', except not from the front, I was the character, looking out at the world from almost behind the painting. Trapped. Stuck in some framed void. I was lucky that Matt stole me away and kept me hidden. He never asked for a ransom, but they would not have paid it anyway.

The afternoon was over. Time to leave, to go back to where I had come from, to be on my way. I hugged my sister and wondered, vaguely, how long it would be until I saw her again, if ever. My other sister lives in Israel. I am not sure when we will meet up.

I came home, to where my heart is, with my own family. My house is full of books, 2,000, 3,000, I don't know. They are everywhere. My walls drip with images, large oil painted canvases, family photographs, masks from all over the world. It is cluttered here, with who we are, who we think we are, who we want to be. A service engineer came round to fix my telephone. He walked in and said “This place has a wonderful energy,” and it does.

For Mother's Day I got breakfast in bed, well nearly, I got coffee, but for the croissants I went to the table. Hate crumbs. The children had bought me gifts. My youngest daughter gave me body spray, curiously titled “Goddess”. She said she thought I'd like it for that reason. My son gave me a hyacinth in full bloom, white and pungent. I kissed him and ruffled his hair. He smiled shyly. And my eldest daughter, she made me cry. A beautiful pencil skirt, black and pinstriped, how the hell did she know my size and taste? But what really got, right deep down, was the DVD of 'Breakfast at Tiffanys'. It is my favourite film. For the longest time Holly Golightly has represented what I would like to believe about myself and what I know about myself:-

“You know what's wrong with you, Miss Whoever-you-are? You're chicken, you've got no guts. You're afraid to stick out your chin and say, "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness." You call yourself a free spirit, a "wild thing," and you're terrified somebody's gonna stick you in a cage. Well baby, you're already in that cage. You built it yourself. And it's not bounded in the west by Tulip, Texas, or in the east by Somali-land. It's wherever you go. Because no matter where you run, you just end up running into yourself.”

Blue

2007-01-22T14:09:00.000-08:00

I do not remember when she died, some time in February I think. I do not remember being told. Perhaps I was wearing blue, although doubtful, as I hate the colour blue. Hate is maybe too strong a word. Dislike.

Mother, dead, deaddeaddeaddeaddead, a morse signal rat-tat-tatting inside my skull. 2.4 rats running around nibbling on my meninges. Average.

My sisters made the arrangements. As the youngest I had always been considered inept. They had the vol au vents in hand, creamed mushroom, grey jizz in a puff pastry case. Let it never be said, as a family, that we had style.

The funeral took place relatively soon after the death. We, my husband, three children and I, drove to Birmingham. There is a road, from just outside Horsham to Guildford, the 281, narrow, countryfied, winding its way past gated private schools, small pottery workshops and rural car showrooms. Part of it is called 'Rooks Way', and there I saw the big, black birds, with their shaggy collars. They called to me. I made him stop the car so I could hear more clearly. One fixed me with its granite eye. I remembered something then, about murders of crows, unkindnesses of ravens and parliaments of rooks. Maybe they were passing a law. I thought they were telling me it was going to be all right. The law of all right.

And onwards, until we arrived, me in my black dress. My sisters were relieved at my hair. They had expected something entirely inappropriate. A short kiss on both cheeks from Rosie. Paulette's hands felt bonier and colder than usual. My stomach would not stay still.

All the children out of the car and into the toilet. Hot drinks. Matt shook hands with some people. In my mother's sitting room I looked at my school photograph. Of course, it would come to me, no-one would have any need for it now. I was to become the keeper of my own history. My hair used to be mousy brown. That forced smile. I looked ugly, fat-faced, freckled. What ever happened to my freckles? Picking up the perspex cube, a picture on each side. I wonder, did mother ever roll this dice and decide which one of us to rail against that day. I'm standing on the verrandah in Nigeria, swinging out on a pole, my hair much longer, curling over my shoulders, genuine smile, navy blue vest top and white running shorts, flip flops, my face shiny with sweat. On another side, my father in profile, rifle raised. On another side my nephew 20 years ago, my sister by the Red Sea, my daughter in her high chair, my other sister sitting on her husband's knee. I put the cube down.

Into the bathroom, back out of the bathroom, into the bathroom, I felt sick. Dusky pink suite. Paraphernalia on the shelf, washcloth hanging over the sink. “Is it the same washcloth she used?” I sniffed it, and then the towels. Mother's things smelt of mother. Looking at her comb, between the teeth, I pulled them apart, with my fingernails I dug out her scalp flakes. Mother. In her cosmetics cabinet, Chanel Number 5. I dabbed a little on my wrist and hid it up my sleeve, so no-one would think I was stealing. Her compact, with mirror and powder. She always smelled of powder. She would not go out unless she “had her face on”. I have her face on me. I put her powder on me.

A soft knock at the door sent little bottles reeling away from my panicked hands. “You in there love?”
“Yes, I'm in here.”
“Are you OK?”
“No.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No.”
“You know you're going to have to come out in a minute.”
“Yes.”

Outside the bathroom the rest of the house seemed very big. I went to her bedside table and looked at the books there. One my father gave her when they got married, Royal Navy issue, recipes for a ship's crew. In a neat hand on every page mother had divided down the quantities, so she could cook for two instead of 200. I began to think I wanted that book, and then I began to think I must be a bad person, already grazing in my dead mother's house before she was even in the ground.

Checked myself in the hall mirror, to make sure all my mascara was still in the right place. Framed in magnolia with twists of gilt, I stared at my self portrait, trying to fix my features so they said the right thing. I did not know how to make my eyes and mouth say “My mother's just died, I'm fine, really, in a respectful way, I'm perfectly fine”. More lipstick. No, not more lipstick. I wiped it off with toilet paper. I wanted to rub my lips harder. No. Respectful.

I proceeded downstairs, holding the banister. At the bottom a curve, before more steps. The vase that stands there/stood there, broken, glued back together again. We had been playing, one of us fell, smashed a £300 vase. She thought it was funny, probably because I was so scared. It is/was always full of peacock feathers. Their eyes stared at me.

In the sitting room people shuffling uncomfortably. Stilted conversation. A mumbling still life of damp grief. The doorbell. Mother used to polish it every week with brasso, and the step. Aunty Maisie and Michael. Old Aunty Maisie, walking on her swollen feet. Her Scottish lilt came through the door before she did. One look. One tiny, little, knowing look. She held out her arms and I tried to bury myself in her, so no-one would see how hard I was biting my teeth together, jaws working furiously. Michael tall, gentle creaks from his suit. He had buried his father and his brother. Small politenesses. But it was in me, like rising vomit, and I was not going to be able to keep it down.

To the car, Matt driving, me directing, the kids in the back. I could not stop it anymore, I had had my finger in the dam for too many years. Down roads, grey tarmac lined white and yellow, trees on either side, left, right, tic-toc indicator, a swirling childhood environment, you never know it is the last time until it is the last time, sometimes not even then.

Slowly into the crematorium. Speed bumps made the suspension squeak. In full flow. I thought about stopping, but it would not have been possible. You cannot stop a river, not unless you build something, and I did not have time. Why bother to construct another wall in any event.

Matt had to help me out of the car. I leaned heavily. Howling. Shocked faces. I did not care. My sisters, huddled in mutual denial. Refusing their walls. Intercepted by Terry, red-nosed, my outburst was upsetting him. The tears would not come quietly, they were quite insistent that they should be audible. I tried to shut my mouth and iron out my face. Matt hid me in his jacket. I looked at the children. Two had hold of my hands, the other one was stroking my back. They seemed less distressed than the adults by my torrential grief. “I'm,” gulp, “Not,” gulp “Crying for now,” gulp, gulp, “I'm crying for everything”.
“I know baby, I know baby.” He rocked me back and forth inside his jacket, arms tight around me, my head pressed into his chest. It was dark there. It was warm there. He did not care if I smeared snot all over his shirt.

Inside the church thing, the preacher man, he said how she did not know how to love people. Dull thump. But that she would make us things. Dull thump. Like jumpers and cakes. Dull thump. Because the words were difficult for her. Dull thump. And ... Dull thump. I turned to see my nephew, in the pew behind me, repeatedly banging his head against the wood. I put my hand between his skull and the chair back. He continued, but now he would not hurt himself, that is how it has always been between him and me.

We sang Amazing Grace. They sang Amazing Grace. I did not have air moving in and out me the right way to be able to sing.

Outside, smoking with Christopher, he said “I've got a headache.”
I said, “I'm not surprised. We kicked at the grass. Someone gave me a flower, a blood-brown lily. Back to the house. I swore off the drink. I needed my inhibitions. Rosie had been cooking all morning. I do not like tabbouleh. A small dry sherry, from a crystal glass. “Mother promised me the crystal,” she said.
“I ain't gonna fight you for it,” I replied.
“And the mahogany table in the hall.”
“Fine.” I felt Matt taking hold of my hand, he was communicating through his fingers.
“And the two oils, but you can have the frames.”
“No, it's OK.”
“Is there anything you particularly want?”
“Her sewing machine, all her sewing stuff.”
“What do you want that for?”
“And the Chinese rug.”
“But that's worth about £3,000.”
“You have it then. I don't really care how much the stuff is worth. Can we talk about this another time?”
“Not really, I'm going back to Israel in two days and it's not fair to leave Paulette to sort all this out.”
“I should've brought a list.”
“Are you being facetious?”
“Not deliberately, but I can't cope with this right now.”
“Oh yes, I'd forgotten how fragile you are,” she sneered.
And I'd forgotten what a bitch you are. “I'd just rather concentrate on the children and ...”
“... Smoke in the garden,” she cut in. “I can't understand why you do that. Your mother's just died from cancer ...”
“Our mother.”
“Pardon?”
“Our mother, she was our mother.”
“You're completely evasive.”
“Rosie please.”
“Well, at least eat the tabbouleh.”
I ate the tabbouleh.

We left at 5.00pm. Matt had booked us into a nice hotel, with a pool and a sauna. He probably knew I would need to get out of the house, before the fur started flying. We drove through where we used to live, past the high rises and shut down factories. At the time I never realised it was so bleak. When the reports started coming back from Afghanistan, about the foreign nationals fighting for the Taliban, I wondered why anyone would do that. A short trip through Tividale and Tipton soon confirmed the reasons.

Once I was in the water I felt better. Swimming under the surface, letting everything wash over me, cool blue comfort, supporting, healing. The next day we would drive back home, unraveling the 200 miles. I knew I would not come back to this place, these feelings, that something was finished and over. The place I called home would now always be with my family, the ones I had chosen, not the ones I had grown up with. I was too old to be an orphan, but still that is how I felt. My life, wrapped up in their lives, mother, father, sisters, was done. Or so I thought.

Mute Exasperation

2007-01-01T18:04:00.000-08:00

And then there was the time when my nephew brought her down, to visit. He is only six years younger than me, so more like a brother.

She looked like a pigeon, with her chest extended and her skinny legs hanging from her in mute exasperation. I had never noticed the hump on her back before.

She seemed confused, more than her usual denial, simply unable to comprehend. Christopher and i sat up half the night, drinking red wine and swearing into a dying fire. Isn't that how it is?

At midnight she came downstairs, flailing and flagellating. Her unsteady step meant she had to hold the wall, along with its ornamented pictures. 'Hey, watch the oil, trapped in a hexagon, it's of something I don't understand and don't even particularly like'. She staggered on, unawares. Isn't that what life is all about.

I heard her in the bathroom, puking the alcohol. The sound of your own mother being sick edifies your ears. I imagined her flabby belly, contracting, restricting, doing its pigeon thing, regurgitating. I saw her on her knees. Maybe she was praying to the Lord on the big white telephone. 'Oh God, oh God'. My stomach churned in sympathetic convulsions. A drastic seizure had taken hold of me.

“Yes, yes, your grandmother was a prostitute,” Christopher stared at me, “That's why they went so nuts when she came to your school,” he stared at me some more.
“Why didn't they tell me?”
“How can you tell a child something like that?”
He accepted the point.
“I remember, this one time, sitting in an airport departure lounge, and I was crying. Your dad told me this story, of how his mother had tried to knock his teeth down the back of his throat, but instead, they'd just wedged against his kneecap. He showed me the scar and everything.”
“My grandmother was a prostitute?”
“Yes, she was a whore.”
There was a period of silence, punctuated only by the slight swhoosh of uncorking. Christopher sat at my feet. I stroked his hair, as I had always done. Despite his tall and lanky frame, I was still his Aunty Chrissie. He could rest his head on my knee without fear of retribution.

Mother emerged from the bathroom. The first five steps on the staircase did not present a problem, but then she pitched forwards and remained dribbling against the angles. I was the first to her aid. She was heavy. Christopher arrived to help. He hauled her to her feet, hands under her armpits. I felt a deep churning. My own mother, incapacitated on the stairs.

We talked kindly. She was plainly out of her skull. I wondered where she was. I hoped that she had found a place, far from the reality of her grovelling knees.

I could not put her to bed. She revolted me. 'Go mother, and find your peace, do not expect me to provide it for you'. She was crying. Her tears felt caustic. I could not touch them or be with them.

She disappeared behind a creak and I was grateful. Doors cover up so much. Father had taught me that trick. Sometimes you just have to shut the door. Blank piece of paper. Blank expression. Wipe your smile. She fell at the last, as did he, presenting flabby indifference is often insufficient, especially when combined with the stains on the sheets.

They left, people always do, no matter which directions they ask for. I gave them parks and trees and little irrelevancies, but of course they would find their way, or at least he would. I had protected him all his life, or so I had hoped, and he should be able to direct without distractions. When I said 'large space' to him he did not panic. She listened to nervous cough. I could have strangled her.

Am I talking in code? I really should not. Those that understand my amorphous letters will be able to make sense enough. For the rest of you there is merely mild confusion. Consider yourselves lucky.

I thought about it, after she had gone home. Watching her crawl up the stairs, apologies on her knees, murmured regrets, and I figured maybe this is how it was meant to be. I had lost him, my father, to a blur of alcohol, why would my mother be any different?

Too much, not my job, not my responsibility, not my destiny. Fuck your own life up, not mine. I will not own this debauchery. Are drunkards not meant to be good company? Hell, find me with enough alcohol inside and I will make you laugh like a moron that has never known intelligence.

So, I wrote to my sister, because trying to talk sense to my mother is like trying to explain calculus to the innumerable. I did not know my mother would open it. I was unaware that she recognised my handwriting. I could have stopped, for one moment, and considered, potential outcomes, but I did not. Does a rose consider potential outcomes? Does a dog regard consequence? Sometimes things just need to be said, but in their saying, other things become implicit.

Mother opened the letter, the one which said I would not take care of her. I wrote in no uncertain terms. This is my way. She would not know my way. I called her some names. I went to great length to describe her abuse. There was no doubt. At a certain point there that is what happens. Surety takes over. Terms have to be explained in black and white.

I like black and white. Black, supposedly not a colour, but it's dense, as if it could swallow you up and hold you. White, I do not know about, seems transparent. Best pictures are shot in black and white, more impact, greyscale does not touch it.

I got the call while I was walking up a hill, a really big hill. I had to stop, because if I did not then my breath could come in snatches and I would not be able to talk. Paulette said mother had cancer. A few questions revealed that she had received the letter, steamed it open, disregarded that it was addressed to another, then had gone for a walk, from which she never came back. I felt for her, I really did, to go out, knowing your own daughter hated you, and step your feet on the earth, one after another, treading towards a place you dare not go ...

“OK,” I said automatically.
My sister seemed unimpressed.
“I meant everything I said in the letter.”
Yes, she understood, but I wondered for how long.
“I can't come and see her.”
Again she professed some kind of comprehension.

I got calls, once a week or so, telling me of mother's progress. She was in hospital. She had been released. The cancer was all over. It had started in her lungs and then spread to her brain. She had a tumour in her head the size of my daughter's fist. I looked at my child's hand. “Bend it in,” she did as she was asked, “Can you feel your fingernails against your palm?” she nodded. I compared the size of my hand to hers. I felt sickeningly satisfied.

Friends noticed I was limp. I explained. They sympathised. I tried to find polite ways of saying “My mother is dying”. Every day I felt her inside me, heavy and longing. I wrote her letters and sent her chocolates and flowers. 'I'm sorry your life is over', no, that is impossible to say, 'I'm sorry that the Lord's revenge has been so unequivocal,' again, not something that trips lightly off the lips. 'You're my mother, I love you, please don't go,' never occurred to me.

I arranged to visit her. Terror is vagueness. She sat in her bed, at home, on plumped, cream pillows, with frilled edgings. I climbed up next to her. I never had before. Something happened involving spaghetti bolgnaise. I chopped her pasta for her. The black and white television poured forth some form of bloodless bilge. Everyone was grey. When the news reports came on, detailing the capture of Saddam Hussein, she became excited. “It's your dad!”
“No, it's Saddam Hussein.”
Ten seconds later, “It's your dad.”
“No, it's Saddam Hussein.”
We went through this 100 times. My dad as a vilified dictator, yep, I could go for that.

Lying next to her, holding her hand, I felt a bony warmth, albeit transitory. Her legs were even thinner than before. I could see them under the bedspread, moving like an interlocutory. Toiletting, an even and totally human function, required her attention. The bathroom was only next door, clothed in its dusky pink morality. She rose, on rickets. I thought of a fence in the wind, or dilapidation. I walked around to the other side of the bed, ignoring the cream frills. Standing above her I tried to seize her moment, but her body felt disconnected and somehow elastically fragile. She looked me straight. “Does my face look fat?”
Yes her face looked fat, massively distorted by hormones and anti cancer treatment. I stared down at her, and her hamster cheeks and her swollen eyes. “No, your face doesn't look fat,”I lied.
“My face looks fat.”
“No, you look fine.”
“I'm dying, I can't look fine.”

There was a slight pause. Of course, she did not say that she was dying, instead it was left to me to reassure her. I put my hand around her back. I did not pull her from her wrist. I clasped her under her bent elbow. I pulled back the sheets. I saw her skinny legs and tried not to heave. I moved her around, until she had a centre of gravity that would work for her. I did not think about her wasted backside. I had come from between those two hips. I did not want to connect my mortality with her's.

Taking her feet in my hands I felt her hooves. I put them in her slippers. Her skin was dry. Later I rubbed moisturiser into them. I hauled her to her feet. Against me she was flaccid. “Can you hold me?” I asked. She had never held me. Her arm shins dug into my neck. I thought of when I was little and my father had got me to place my feet on his so we could dance. This was not about to happen here.

“Sorry, sorry,” she said.
I knew why. Her urine flowed between us. “It doesn't matter. At least I don't have to change the bed, those bloody envelope corners.”
She laughed. She had always been particular. Came from being a nurse for 25 years, or however long.
“Don't worry about it, I pissed myself the other day.”
“Did you?” she said, wide eyed.
Of course I did not. The horror of my own urine puddling at my feet would be enough to ensure a suicide consideration..

I bundled her back into bed, and then dabbed up the urine, with a yellow sponge, yellow rubber gloves and yellow disinfectant. All the time I talked to her, blabbering on about something insignificant. I think she appreciated the relief, as did my sister, if only for a weekend. I made it normal. So, you've got up from bed and pissed on the floor? I was not taking notes, regards volume and capacity. Maybe we all end this way, incontinent and senile, please Lord tell me it's not so.

“It's your dad.”
“No, no, it's Saddam Hussein.”
“He's in disguise.”
“Yes Mom.”
She turned to me. “You've never called me Mom before.”
“It's just the word seemed too small.”
“Do you think I'm small? Does my face look fat?”
“No, no, and I love you Mom.”

Letters

2006-12-29T11:00:00.000-08:00

“i wanted to write a letter
not one letter
but a string of letters
organised into phrases
and sentences
just so there's no confusion
there's always so much
confusion
so lots of letters
to create words
that hang from each other
in description and explanation

BUT

i didn't know where to send it
i don't have his address
i don't know where he is
i know where he was
but if he's going to get the letter
i have to know where he is
not where he was

i asked my mother and she said
'he's dead'
i asked my sister and she said
'he's dead'
i asked at the post office and
they didn't know what i was talking about

BUT

still i wanted to write the letter
i had to write the letter
the letter was inside me
my body a big envelope
unaddressed
empty because there is no letter
not yet
cos i can't write the letter
until i know where to send it
so it's the concept of the letter
that fills me up
and occupies my body envelope

i don't know what it is that i want to write
in the letter
to the dead man
with no address
i don't know how
to address him
so instead i write to you
some letters that
barely add up
but that's ok
cos they're not numbers
but i have your address
and you're not dead
cos you still get hungry
and cold
and letters.”

My father always stuttered, well, not stuttered as such but had a speech hesitation. He was also embarrassed by his accent. Whilst not broad Geordie, the remains of his working class roots still echoed around his mouth. He wanted to be a professional man, not regarded as a brickie. He was also quite nervous and shy. Before big events, or when things were bothering him, he would cough, right from down in his chest, big hacking coughs, that always ended in his throat with a retch. Mother took the piss out of these. She thought them to be attention seeking in some way.

When Matt and I got married Father had to make a speech. I remember him doing it, slowly, deliberately, each word formed as if he were rolling putty to glaze in a new window. I was embarrassed at the time. I fiddled with the edging of the table cloth. He sounded ridiculous. Why would anyone talk in those clipped tones? It was like a comedy sketch from a Carry On film. I hated them and the fact he seemed like that. Stupid man. Why could he not just sound affable and easy? Everything about our family was such a performance.

Mother began to clear out the loft. She was disposing of 'stuff'. Father had kept a general clutter, very tidily, but he hoarded things. To be frank, he was a bully. Mother had never been allowed to administrate anything. He decided what was what, but after his death, she really came into her own, determining to live whatever life she had left the way she wanted.

The first thing to go was the picture of 'The Fighting Temeraire', which had dominated our sitting room for a number of years. Then she started on his record collection. He had tortured her with The Band of the Blues and Royals' every Sunday for decades. 'Hands Across the Ocean' was a particular favourite. She hated it. I liked it no better, but the vinyl belonged to Father and it had a certain weight to it. I did not feel a rubbish tip was the most appropriate place for this memory, no matter how awful. And then the wholesale slaughter started; books were boxed up, including his navy bible, medals were whipped from safe drawers and slung into plastic bags, photographs were removed from frames and thrown away. I begged her to stop, but she refused.

“You have it then,” she spat out. She was like a cat, all raised fur and extended claws. “You loved him so much, you bloody well have it”.
“What are you on about? Why do you have to turn this into a fight?”
“Shall I tell you something about your father?”
Oh God, here we go, I thought. It was like she had been nursing this huge boil for years and now she was ready to lance it. “I don't want to know mother, I just don't want to know.”
“I don't care. I don't see why I should be the only one ...” she eyed me sideways. “Do you know what he did on your sister's wedding day?”
“I don't want to know. Why are you insisting on telling me things I don't want to know?”
“While I was in the house ...”
“I was three fucking year's old. I can't remember.”
“I know you can't remember, but you should know.”
“Why should I know? What purpose does this serve?”
“Making the salad ...”
“Answer my fucking question.”
“And he was in the garden ...”
“What FUCKING purpose does this serve?”
“When Paulette came in ...”
“I'm not listening. I'm walking away now.”
“Oh you'll listen my girl,” she said, grabbing my wrist as I tried to get past her, “Crying her eyes out”.

I looked at the floor. I looked at the wall. I stared through the french windows and into the back garden. It was grey out there. Winter had set in, with its damp dullness. The few plants that remained withered above ground. Strange how the begonias had survived the autumn, their leaves virtually intact, rich, red, shiny brown. They seemed succulent, not like the Busy Lizzies, whose foliage was thin and delicate.

I noticed the noise had stopped and mother was tugging on my arm. Her face was upturned. She had shrunk in old age and I stood above her. Her lips were surrounded by thin lines that carved pinches. Maybe, as a younger woman, she had pouted. I could not imagine that somehow. Before I was born she elected to have all her teeth removed. A gummy mouth is not sexy. Mothers are not sexy. When she stumbled over words she used to say “I haven't got my teeth in”.

She was still looking at me.
“I don't know what to say.”
That seemed to satisfy her.

And then there was the trunk. She brought it every time she visited. We emptied it, she returned home with it, and arrived with it on the next occasion. Today we were ploughing through old letters, tablecloths, things that were not quite ornaments but had been wrapped in up paper napkins. Why would anyone keep complementary cologne provided by an airline? I could not understand my father, or his odd obsessions.

She hauled out a beige, marled box. My wedding album. “Here, you might as well have this.”
“Don't you want to keep it? I've got already one. This was your's and dad's.”
“What do I want with it?”
“I dunno, it's just usual for the mother of the bride to keep it, otherwise I've got two.”
“Well I have no need for it.”
“OK, alright,” there was no use arguing with her. I put the box on the end of my bed.

Her visit continued in the normal way. She insisted on washing the dishes, cooking the dinners and nagging the children. No matter how nicely I asked her she smoked in the kitchen, preached Daily Mail politics and drank like a fish. The only respite was the jigsaw puzzle. Golden silence. We set it up on the big, wooden bread board. She did the corners and edges, but I made up the little sections of pictures. We never did it together. That was the thing about us. We could not be in the same room, worrying at the same task. Either she would start talking, or I would start talking, and within minutes we would be at each other's throats.

“You're just like your father.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

It was chief amongst his stories. How they had not known I was expected until right at the last minute. He said that, in his hurry to get to the hospital, he had torn the exhaust off his car. She said I came at nine minutes past one, in the middle of lunch. She even managed dessert.

The lacy part of the tablecloth was difficult, all that detail. She was better at the flowers, working out their subtle shades. She pulled her glasses down to the end of her nose and peered over the top of them. I watched her hunched shoulders from a shadowy corner. The children buzzed around her. She always had words for them. I hid behind the doorway to hear “When your mommy was little ...”. She never told me. But with the jigsaw, we did not need any words, we just had to do, be co-operative, and more importantly, delicate and precise with each other.

Building the picture took days. All those little pieces that had to be arranged in order. Mistakes were made, but they did not last, you cannot go very far up a blind alley with a jigsaw puzzle. We admired the achievements of the other, not having to directly address them, only to be rejected, instead, we quietly beavered away, knowing that somehow, in some way, it all fitted, and would look like the fairy tale painting on the front of the box.

When the last piece was slotted into place she left.

I do not have cupboards in my house, so everything has to be sorted and stored in an appropriate place. All the stuff that does not have an apparent use, or is not beautiful enough to be displayed on our crammed shelves, is put up in the loft. I never go in the loft. Strange, creepy place.

I flicked idly through the wedding album. There was Uncle Frank, long dead, and Aunty Margaret, recently dead. I looked young and stupid, but I do not think I was, except for my smile perhaps, that evidenced a certain nervous enthusiasm. Underneath the album, tucked away at the bottom of the box, were a couple of things father had kept; the ribbon from my bouquet, a dried rose, and his speech, written on lined paper in ink.

“Ladies and gentlemen (pause), we are gathered here today to celebrate the marriage of Christina Lesley to Matthew James (pause). It is always difficult for a father to give his daughter away, especially when she is his youngest (pause, turn to face Christina, smile at her), but I am confident that she will be happy (smile at Matthew). So, ladies and gentlemen, please be upstanding, and join me in wishing the bride and groom every happiness in their future (pause, wait until everyone is standing up, raise champagne glass, speak firstly and clearly). To Christina and Matthew (sit down).”

I heard him, as I had heard him then, with his speech hesitation. Looking at the curl and stretch of his writing I could see his hand in mine. Father had not taught me to write, so I could not understand how he had influenced my shapes. Maybe my hand moves in the same way as his, and our letters must always lean forwards because we are constantly struggling to speak, because we constantly struggled to speak. I folded the paper gently and put it back where I had found it.

Looking at the other things, mother had thought of to dispose into my care, my eye caught on to the book of calculus. I had used it as a child. Brown covered, faded and marked by use, from being in my satchel or his hands. Turning the soft, cream pages I saw his notations, in small pencil, blessing the margins with a moment of thought. I wanted more.

“Yes hello,” she said irritably on answering the telephone.
“Is mother there?”
“MOTHER, MOTHER, M-O-T-H-E-R!”
Why did my sister not cover the mouthpiece when she shouted.
“What?”
“It's Christina on the phone.”
There was a click as mother lifted the handset.
“Hello.”
“Hi, I wanted to ask you something.”
“Are you well?”
“Yes, I'm fine.”
“And the children?”
“They're fine.”
“And Matt?”
“He's fine.”
“So everything is fine with you? Eighteen years of education and you only have one word?”
“Mother, I'm in a hurry.”
“Who phones someone up when they're in a hurry?”
“Me, obviously, because I always get everything wrong.”
“Oh don't be so ridiculous.”
“Please, can I ask you the question?”
“Well, as long as you've the time.”
“For Godsake.”
“And there's no need to be taking the Lord's name in vain.”

I slammed the telephone down.
“You alright love?” Matt shouted up.
“Yes, I'm fine, really fucking fine, totally and utterly fine. Shit me, I'm so fucking fine that I've just won first prize in the fucking fine awards.”
“I was only asking.”

In the bathroom, under the sink, there was a gap just big enough for my body, if I folded my legs up and bent my head to one side. I sat there, on my hands, letting the cold porcelain ease the red, hot scratches on my forehead. 'It's not fucking fine, it's not fucking fine,' as I said it I banged my head against the wall. Felt good. Could feel the small injury. I was not looking to crack my skull.

I never managed to ask mother for father's letters, that he had written, weekly, to me, for ten years. I knew they were in a box, somewhere in my parents' loft, along with mine, that I had written to him, weekly, for ten years. I wanted them so much I ached. I needed to know what he had said and what I had said and how we were like each other. I thought perhaps I could find that in our communication, and then maybe I would understand why he loved me and why she hated me.

The Cretan Says 'All Cretans Are Liars'

2006-12-20T16:45:00.000-08:00

The Cretan says 'All Cretans are liars'.

People talking, not talking, white noise walking. It's more than blah. Glass crackle. Urban myth, log it in your head, glass isn't a liquid. Did you hear me? GLASS IS NOT A LIQUID! I know shouting is ineffectual. IT DOESN'T DRIP, even if you sat and watched it for a thousand million years, it wouldn't drip. IT'S BULLSHIT! Can you hear me people? What they say, the crap you swallow, while nodding sagely, all that information you've got stored in your heads, IT'S MOSTLY BULLSHIT. They're lying to you all the time. But you knew that already, didn't you? You know when they're lying because their lips are moving. Good. Right. Just needed to get that straight.

We went on holiday, to Cornwall, St Ives to be precise. I liked the idea of it. I wanted to see Henry Moore sculptures. Sometimes I pretend I am interested in art. You can waste your life if you say you are interested in art. It gives you a reason.

Rosa was sick in the car. We got lost on Dartmoor. I remembered the story about the woman, whose vehicle broke down. Her boyfriend got out to find some help. An hour later there was a persistent thumping on the roof. A lunatic, because it is always a lunatic, had killed her boyfriend, decapitated him and was using his head to attract her attention. I wondered whether it was a clean cut.

The cottage was lovely, with a verandah and wisteria. It crouched on the side of a steep cliff. A winding path led us down the beach. Sand. We do not have sand in Brighton, just those big pebbles. Sand seems so accommodating to a child's idea of fun.

In the town, apart from a fair smattering of hippies, there was more beach. One day we saw a man carve a Grecian looking horse out of it. We watched him for a long time. I did not feel apologetic that I had no money to give him. He could see my three young children. I sat baby Raven on the sand. She squeezed it through her fingers and tried to put it into her mouth. I stopped her. She tried again. I stopped her again. In the end I let her taste it, thinking she would probably learn that it was horrible and then spit it out. Sometimes experience is the best teacher.

Trisha says she used to know a kid called Hope, but then they changed her name, because her Mom was always saying 'No Hope, no Hope'. You would not want that on your conscience.

Jordan bibbled about, with his long ringlets and quiet eyes. So blue. Just like mother, and mother's mother. He liked his bucket and spade. I showed him how to add just the right amount of water so all the sand would stick together. We made a big castle, all of us, with ramparts and a moat and shells decorating those square, pointy bits on the towers. I told him we had to leave it there. That the sea would come and take it away. He said “Like a dream?”
And I said “Neptune will mix it in the cake of promises, because that's what the water does. It has to become nothing so that it can become everything”.
He laughed his fat faced chuckle. I scratched 'Jung' into the sand with my toe. Matt said “You're only Jung once”. It was my turn to laugh.

I hate scampi. It is like chewing deep fried rubber.

We wandered around the Tate at St Ives. Bridget Riley made me curious. Patterns that jiggled my eyes. Repetition. I struggled with 'what is art?' I thought maybe I had missed something. Inside my head pop songs wiggled through verses. Turning to the walls I could see all this effort, framed, indemnified against vilification. The gallery windows were huge. Glass staring out to sea. The palette blue-grey, steel and sky, then transparencies. Outside perhaps a natural art, inside something forced, unreal, requiring the mediation of mind over matter. I thought the intellectual event would suffocate me. We left. The children scuffed their shoes along the floor to make squeaking, farty sounds.

And then at Gwithian. A beach that went on forever. Miles of sand dunes, 20 foot high, grass sprouting out of them like an unkempt haircut. Reminded me of Mr Potato Head. As a child pressing drawing pins, wrapped in string, into the skull. Mother shouted at me. It ruined the vegetables. Father smiled, especially when I stabbed the raisins in for eyes and the bacon rind for a mouth. Mr Potato head could be happy or sad. The drawing pins were his dimples.

No-one told us about the tide, not until we were on the beach. Two old men, walking, carrying fishing rods, said “Be careful, or you might get cut off. Don't let yourselves get trapped at the foot off the cliffs”. The rock faces, like Mr Potato Head, had mutable features. I felt my way along their craggy creases. Grey, flinty. I expected that their expression could change, but only over centuries.

We found a safe perch. Matt sat like a suited and booted bird, kicking at the sand, picking out small, irrelevancies. No-one goes to the seaside in a suit. I took a picture of him. The sky behind him was a brilliant blue. It stretched on forever.

Despite the incoming tide I wanted to swim. Water has always been delicious to me. I changed into my bathing suit, a black glove stretching from my neck down to my knees. It was not false modesty, rather a hatred for my body.

The tinkling waves bubbled around my feet. Soft sand under my soles. Warm on the beach. Cold in the water. Astringency bit as I went in deeper. My body tried to twist away from the freezing fizz. Acclimatise, acclimatise. I tried to remember not to hold my breath and let my chest go hard. Gasp, gasp. Only makes you more uncomfortable. Necessary to relax. Let go. Shock will pass presently. If you tense you hold onto the shock. Let it go. Horizontal. Flattening myself into the water. It holds me. It seeps through my swimming costume and washes cold onto my belly. Arms out. I commit to the water. I feel it around my shoulders, pulling at my hairline. Legs lift and kick, arms scoop their way. Little body. Big, wide ocean.

When I come back to the beach Matt is smiling and the children are waving. There is sand in their hair and sand in his shoes. The salt of the sea dries quickly on my sunburnt face, making my skin feel tight. I lick my lips. A bitter sting.

The place is deserted. I strip down to my nakedness so that I can be dry. The blonde grass growing out of the dunes is harsh, coarse. Its blades dig into my skin. I pluck one and place it between my thumbs, bending my fingers up, the way mother used to. I blow hard and a sharp noise blasts into the air. The children's heads snap round, suddenly alerted to a newness. I do it again. Rosa is instantly on her feet, wanting to know how it works. I show her and wonder if she will pass this on, sometime in the distant future, and remember the time, on the beach, in Cornwall, when her mother was naked, and one, crystal clear, noise cut through to the blue sky.

When Is An Idea

2006-12-19T15:41:00.000-08:00

When is an idea? What is the difference between a blockage and a bottleneck?

She cried and cried. I thought she would never stop. Every day. Every night. She screamed. Her face went all red and she pulled her legs up to her chest. I started watching foreign language movies, while walking her around, patting her bottom and jiggling her against my breast. Sometimes I slept, for moments, but then she would wake and then I would break into a hot sweat. Sleep, perfect sleep, it seemed like the most unattainable dream, like living in Paris, or holidaying in the Maldives, or having enough money to last me until the end of the month.

He carried on working. I did not understand his philosophy. The language he used, when talking to me, could have been German. I do not speak German. He expressed himself in numbers. I am no good at maths. Always and forever it was a problem that was bigger than I was. I could not make my brain stretch. Blowing bubbles. They exploding onto my face and stuck to my lips. There was never enough skin to accommodate the concept.

The children, the older two, Rosa and Jordan, did well at school. On Fridays they made bread. In the spring we visited the bluebell woods. Those flowers are real blue. Nothing else touches their colour. It is impossible to say 'like a bluebell'. Nothing is like a bluebell.

In the spring mud still sticks to the bottom of your boots and the earth smells fresh. Things burst out. It is not hide and seek, more an issue of instant recognition. I saw it. When Jordan staggered through the undergrowth. In the shadows. A low sun.

And then there was the time when we went to meet the shepherdess. She lived in the barn with her sheep. Her bed was there. She helped the lambs out. She knew her ewes. She saw them birth.

I had given birth and I did not know what to do next. My issue could not walk, or talk, or be independent. She hung from me, demanding. She ran me ragged. The doctor said it was colic. I did not understand. I had a name for it but that did not mean I knew it.

One day I painted the lounge yellow. I thought I could make the sunshine bounce off the walls. Yellow is not sunshine, it is a colour, with a name. I can say 'this is yellow', but I cannot say 'this is sunshine'. Holding a lemon I can say 'this is sunshine'. Raven was not my sunshine. She was dark and difficult. She was my lusting, crusting, dried blood, flaking and slaking me in equal measure.

And then, then, I nearly bled to death. I did not mean to. They said I had to 'rest'. How can you rest with one child in hospital and one child screaming? It is not possible. I'm and possible had married to create impossible. Their children are called frustration, difficulty and failure. So it was.

Christmases came and went. There were carol services. I attended advent spirals. Rosa smiled. Presents were bought for the family. Sex was had. Television programmes were watched. Faces were slackened and tightened. Fuck, eat, shit, sleep. Nothing else. Functioning. I was functional.

There were moments; when Matt gave me a kite for my birthday, with a gift tag that said 'never forget how to play', when I found a women's co-operative who made films, when the house fell down. Moments. Orgasms.

I started taking Prozac. After a week I could not make it to the end of the road. 'Dr I'm dying'.
'Take this, you'll soon feel better,' but I did not. I felt dead, inside and outside. I looked at people in the street. I could see death in their faces. I did not mean to. I tried to look away. Their time for passing belonged to them. I should not steal it.

I tried to write, but all that came out of me were tents and wandering dogs sniffing at grass. I saw rivers and laden clouds, lost sheep, grey pebbles, slate threads. I could not explain this. Words defeated me. I was beaten by language. All the time I heard crying, and not just her's. The mouth, at my breast, sucking from my nipple, drawing everything out of me. Weight fell off. Nothing fell in to replace it. I became empty. A big schism opened up inside of me. Something was tearing, tearing, rips and crying, ragged edges. Mother had pinking shears, maybe I could stop the fraying.

We staggered, Matt and me, like drunks on the street. One time we sat in a pub. He said “People are just a virus”. I flicked my head from side to side. There was a blonde woman. She was laughing, overly loudly. She was projecting. A man with torn jeans leant on the bar and fingered his pint. Two guys were playing pool. Nothing. An intuitive consumption. A part of them outside consuming, each other, mindless diversions. Take, take, take. Nothing made. Nothing produced. I felt like the only freak in the whole fucking place.

He went on. Empty. Silence. Non engagement. In the space but ... it's just strange, a non-connection connection. Forced to be private. Alone. No longer with yourself. Getting bent out of shape. Inside me. Crawling around like an ant. Bigger than me. Could not understand it. Like Lego, putting it together and pulling it apart, but nothing constructed, not for an eternity. Intricacies, lace work. The Prozac had not helped with the depression.

And then the children started to grow up. We moved out of our house. We lived somewhere shitty. I was scared and fucked up. I did not want the grey tiles, the three flights of stairs, the mad neighbours. Filth. Deep down and dirty. I cleaned the toilet every day. Bleach never smelled so good. I wanted to bathe in it. I tried 'Handy Andy' with a natural bristle brush. My skin went red. I was fascinated by the welts. Clean. Mother said “Cleanliness is next to Godliness'. I knew he was very white. Pure. He did not have a stove, so nothing to burn off and smoke drench his kitchen. God does not eat. God does not shit. Sex is not like flowers.

In bed I listened to Burroughs' 'Naked Lunch'. Smoking mammoth quantities of dope meant that I was largely anaesthetised to the outcome. Sleep. Unconscious. No dreaming. Why bother to dream? Nothing comes of nothing. I had nothing. I could not make something out of it. “Cut your coat according to your cloth,” mother said, “you made your bed, so now you have to lie in it,” mother said. I never made my bed. I did not have any needlework scissors. Why did she not help me? Why did it all have to be my fault?

We moved back into our house. Yes, they had fixed it, they way they do, but our heads were still broken. I took Matt a cup of coffee in the bath. We argued. He threw it at me and broke the toilet. We fixed it. Everything patched up, patched together. I used to call my boy 'patch', because of the birthmark over his eye. People tutted. It made him sound like a dog. I did not think he was a dog. I did not know how to acknowledge his difference. I wanted to make it sound friendly. People stared at him. I scowled at them. They made my body seem thin, translucent. Why do they do that? How are they making their judgements? I suppose they were neither stupid nor intelligent.

Friends were good. KT was good. She did not know Ezra would die. He was born with his heart connected to his liver instead of his lung. They fix that. They always try to fix everything. They did not know he had no lymphatic system. She took him home and put him on the kitchen counter. You do not put a baby on a worktop, they might fall off. He was dead already.

His ashes were scattered at Cuckmere Haven, right into the wind. We made him a pine box. KT put her china faced doll in it. The features were green. It looked oxygen deprived. Cards covered it. She kept this coffin in her bedroom. Occasionally I took lilies, big white ones, that spilled out everywhere. Once I took an empty cardboard box. I told her to put her nightmares in it. I threw it away. The pictures are never going to leave her, not even with the vodka.

I wandered around the streets, looking at the light and the dark and the in between. Sometimes there were shadows. Sometimes there were huge images that painted themselves onto my retinas. I had a dream. I was in a white room. There was a door. I went through it, and then there was colour, big colour, like the Wizard of Oz. I walked up to a tree and stroked it. Brown came off on my hand, smeared right over my palm. Then there was red, cherries. Leaf green running down my arms. Sky blue dripping into my eyes. Technicolor rainbows.

It rumbled like persistent diarrhoea, like belly ache, like a bleeding heart, like period pain and a missed pregnancy. It rattled like death. I felt it under my feet, threatening tectonic plate shifts. Earthquakes shook the ground and shattered the silence. I hid under door frames. That is where the structure is strongest. Buildings collapsed. I was safe, apart from the rubble and dust.

Matt worked on his PhD. I worked in the voluntary sector. The youngest was in nursery. The middle one was in kindergarten. The oldest one was seven. The Jesuits say 'give me a boy until he's seven and I'll show you the man'. This is what we figured. We wanted to get enough into her. For many years we had tried to recover from our own emasculation. Confidence is not something that should be stolen from children. Rosa was safe, with her bottom swishing blonde hair and her desire to question and never be satisfied unless he had an answer that made sense, to her, it does not matter if it is inconsequential to anyone else.

We moved the children's schools. They joined the mainframe. Friends and security disappeared. They had to make their own way. Rosa stumbled about, looking for a best friend. Jordan enjoyed his classroom assistant. Raven was in reception. They tumbled in and out.

We went ice skating. We went to the cinema. We walked in the woods. They stuttered to each other. Their gloves were on strings of elastic, threaded through their coat sleeves. Rosa complained that her hat made her look like a cartoon character. We laughed. One time we threw a party for their friends. They threw chairs. We had to shout. Ten year old boys are odd. Children are animals.

And then it was over. Rosa went to 'big school'. Dressed in a uniform she became part of the machine. Within weeks I had lost her. When I tried to talk to her she shrugged. “How was your day?”
“Alright.”
“What did you do?”
Shrug.
“Did you learn anything new?”
Shrug.
“Who did you play with?”
“We don't play any more.”

Messy bedroom. Diffident attitude. Out of reach. Not knowing someone. Grief. I missed her. When I was 11 I had missed my mother. Nights in bed. She was not there. She was 6,000 miles away. I cried inside my head, until my belly ached and my head wanted to vomit, “Mommy, mommy”. She never answered, except for that one time she phoned up. I did not want my daughter calling out in the same way. You never recover. It causes a kind of constipation. A poisoning. I did not want that for my daughter, but every day she was getting further away, receding, becoming indefinite. I wanted to say “Don't leave. Don't disappear”. I did not know how to keep her visible, how to hold her in my mind's eye. I was terrified.

Affairs of the Heart

2006-12-18T03:05:00.000-08:00

I was 37 weeks pregnant when he told me. The children were sitting either end of the dinner table. I had not put the flaps out. Everything was unmade. The pan in my hand felt instantly heavier. It was summer. I wore hippy cheesecloth. My legs were mottled. My ankles were swollen.

I do not recall his exact words, just that they took all the air out of me. I was tired anyway. And sweating. I remember a vague crumple, as if my heart had been ripped out of my body through my anus. There was confusion and a nauseous sensation. Dirt on the floor stuck to the soles of my feet. Flat feet. Flat head. Flat thoughts.

“Who is she?”
“That's not important.” It bloody well was to me. “You don't know her.”
“How do you know her?”
“From the internet.”
I was unfamiliar with the internet. I understood that it provided a system of communication. He spent hours at his computer, writing his thesis, or so I thought. “Are you sleeping with her?”
“No, but we want to.”
'We', they had become a unit, with a common purpose.

The desire to slip my shoes on and waltz out of the door almost overwhelmed me, but I was the size of a tank and would not get very far. I had nowhere to go. Matt looked strange all of a sudden. I thought I knew his face, the way his eyes moved about in their lizard sockets and how his bottom lip always stuck out slightly. I realised I had no idea who he was or what he was doing.

He complicated the issue by being sensitive. Did I want a cup of tea. “Yes, that would be nice,” but tea does not fix anything. Apparently I needed to sit down. That was not true. I wanted to lie on the floor and feel the wood at my back, at least it could provide some solidity. If you are on the floor then there is no further to fall.

I do not recall the exact order of the events that followed. I remember asking to see their correspondence. He opened his e-mail account and another new message was waiting. One of the attachments was entitled 'Not for the children'. I presume this was because she was on her bed, legs spread, big, red gash smiling at the camera. She had long blonde hair. There was a video as well, of her waking up and walking around her bedroom naked. The duvet cover was crisp white linen with embroidery anglaise detail. She had big breasts. I hated her.

He signed an e-mail “More tomorrow, lover”.
She said “We must find a balance or it will die – MG”.
He replied “We will, it won't”.

I could not comprehend. I thought he loved me. I believed in that. I did not know he was going to take it away, like mother, like father. I never expected he would find another and leave me alone. He had and he did.

I trawled and trawled, digging up shit from the sea bed. I begged with words. I wrote to him.

“I see the words cascade down the page, beatifying a relationship far removed from our days of coffeeless mornings and warm bed feet on cold, broken tiled floors. I sense you slipping gently into love, caressing each other with whispers across the airwaves. I see your mounting excitement, your desperate desire, your devouring audience, and I know that this wasn't about what I wouldn't provide but about what I couldn't provide, and I wonder where I am now, where we are now in this shadowy time, and I cry for your touch. Please be with me. I feel so heavy, so lost. I want to find big words, striking words, words that stretch and sear, but I am tired, oh so very tired.”

We talked. I needed to understand how I had managed to lose the only thing that I had ever wanted to keep. He explained things. I listened to him. At times incoherency took over. I wrote to her. I do not think she expected that. Although it was perfectly acceptable for her to make an intervention into my relationship, she was not prepared to allow me the same right in their relationship. My husband, seeing me struggle to understand, knowing I was trying not judging, found her dismission unpalatable. Up until that point she had been a seductive wordsmith. All of a sudden she became the typical, manipulative woman, jealous and possessive. He lost interest immediately. I proved myself because I did not revert to form. He worships sluts and whores, not bitches. I won.

I changed my name. Morrigan, the goddess of lust and death, seemed appropriate.

Three weeks past in the stinking heat of August. My advanced pregnancy stuck out of me like an overinflated football. I was worried about the birthing. Doctors had told me that I could run into problems. I did not care. There was simply no way that I felt safe enough, given my previous experiences, to go into hospital to have the baby. Preparations were made at home. The community midwife delivered boxes of cotton wadding, clear, plastic tubing, etc.

Towards the end of August I became bored. Matt was struggling to finish his MA, as he had to hand it in on 1 September. He did not have much time for me. I went out with the friend, into town. Walking down Sidney Street, past the comic shops and really really expensive florist. Looking in the jewellers window. There, right in the middle, resting on a piece of black velvet, a big silver ring, oval, a baby in utero, all curled up, legs at the chest, arms folded in. I did not have the £65, but my friend lent it to me.

Matt thought it was beautiful. When I looked at it I imagined the baby inside me and the thesis inside him. Both would be coming out soon. Complete. Totally cooked. Done. He planned to go on and do a PhD. I planned to stay at home as a full time mother.

Just twinges at first. A dull, low back ache. I was watching a sit-com on TV, laughing, it was funny. In bed I could not settle. We had sex/made love. By 1.00am I was in agony. Into the bath. No, that did not seem to help. Sitting on the sofa. “Phone the midwife,” I said. He seemed to hesitate. “Phone the fucking midwife now, the baby's coming.”

I watched the African masks on the wall. They are big. A man and a woman, carved out of some hard wood. They were a gift to father when we were living in Nigeria. Their heavy lidded eyes stared at me, calmly. Their mouths arranged themselves into knowing smiles. The man's face is wider and flatter than the woman's. Her chin and forehead are more delicately shaped. She told me it would be all right and breathed a cooling air onto my face. I felt bird wings around my head. I could hear them in my ears, not fast, like a little bird, flapping urgently, rather big, strong strokes, black and well muscled. I breathed in time to their beating.

My stomach swelled and relaxed, hardened and softened. I put my hand down and felt my vagina. You were wrong mother, it is like a flower, it was coming all open in my hand. I thought of the jasmine in the garden, how the tiny, white petals bunch up together in the cold and then spread out in the warm. I like the smell of jasmine.

The midwife arrived. Matt hauled me into the bedroom. I sat on the edge of the bed. She needed to examine me, but there did not seem to be any space between the contractions. When she finally managed to insert her fingers, she confirmed that I was fully dilated.

I struggled into the t-shirt, the one Ness had worn having her babies, and Clare had worn having her babies. It was white and on the front said 'Women celebrate'. I could still feel the big, black wings. They were growing out of my back. Clare's baby, Rowan, had been born only three weeks earlier, barely enough time for the t-shirt to be washed, dried, posted and received. She had told me “It's better on your knees, if you kneel up gravity does most of the work for you”. I could hear her in my head and the pain ripped through my belly. I could feel both women holding me and supporting me. Black wings, two of them, either side.

Grabbing hold of the headboard, I pulled myself up. I found myself face to face with a huge poster of Matisse's 'blue nude'. She is so loose. Her body so open. There is space between her limbs. I relaxed into that thought and felt myself spread, as if I was a blanket, fluttering in a summer's wind. All rigidity left me.

“You can feel the baby's head if you want to”. I did not want to. My knuckles gripping the headboard were turning white. Inside me, a growing sense of impension. The baby's head moving down and down, into a place that I had never known before. Pain had previously been two dimensional. Sensation described by external appearance. I had not travelled to the cavity between my hips and found its deep, red glow, its pulsing. It had always been superficial, but then I was there, suspended inside myself, right at the core of my being.

That space makes a noise, it has its own melody, low and growling. I felt it fill me up, reverberating like a mumbling earthquake. The sound came out of my mouth and when it did it was hot. 'This is the voice of life,' I thought, 'This is how it sings, tunelessly, wordlessly, grunting'.

She moved from me. Reaching between my own legs I caught her and pulled her through, immediately holding her to my breast. I wrapped my hands and arms around her. No air or other would get to her. She was all mine. I kissed the top of her slimy head. Her legs moved. A moment of silence cut through the air before the midwife asked if she could take a look. Everything was fine. I knew everything was fine. The afterbirth was delivered. Matt cut the umbilical cord. I was snuggled into bed and Raven, she of the great. Black wings, who rhymes with Rowan, was placed into my arms.

Mild confusion followed. Tea and toast with honey was provided. Baby was weighed. Matt's father arrived, with his camera kit. He had missed the birth. It did not matter. He said he could hear me from the bottom of the street, strange noises under his feet, rumbling through the earth. Baby was washed by her father. She cried. She did not like it. I fed her. The eldest of our children was woken to greet her new sister. Forgetting how to dress she ended up with her feet through the arm holes of her gown. We all laughed. I did not need any stitches.

Later that day Matt printed off his finished thesis. We had both birthed our load at the same time. Life felt complete for an instant. Family came round. I was wrapped in a quilt and moved to the big armchair in the lounge. I dozed and/or chatted. Raven was almost entirely silent. She lay in Matt's Dad's arms for hours. He stared down at her. He had missed the births of his own children. More tea. More toast. Matt kissing me over and over again. I felt whole, in my little basement, with the beautiful wooden floor and the softly singing fire. We were a family. I was acknowledged as the creator. And I finally understood what a goddess was, because in that moment of birth, when I brought forth life, I had been a goddess – Matt told me that.

The Difference Between Wanting and Having

2006-11-28T14:23:00.000-08:00

Of course, we don't always know what we want. We have been trained, since birth, for disappointment. We start off as babies, when we cry we get fed or changed or cuddled. We are not denied much. But as we grow older discipline is enforced. We are taught that we cannot have everything. When we're crawling or toddling our parents, for some godforsaken reason, think it is their duty to refuse us. We become frustrated. Invariably this leads to punishment.

Sometimes our punishment is our own distress, at other times mother removes herself, occasionally we are humiliated, in the worse possible scenario we are abused. From such situations we cannot escape, a small child never can. We do not have the words to describe it to ourselves. The people we depend on compromise our safety. Now, we can either think 'I am being unjustly punished by a bad parent', or we can create a fantasy 'I am being justly punished by a good parent'. Essentially, we sacrifice our self worth in order to create the illusion of security.

Matt finished his degree, and got a first. We decided to move to Brighton. Having spent five years living in a shit hole in Birmingham/the Black Country we needed to be somewhere clean and safe. Plus, this is where his family live. Mine were useless. Worse than useless.

Choosing a house was fun. It was very big shopping. I did not know Brighton at all. Everything was cream, or duck-egg blue, or a gentle shade of lemon. Maybe it was the sea and the beach, all those old Regency buildings, the fact that everything moved in sonambulistic leisure. I felt the place would suit me. A new start.

It was a bit of a disaster. We thought we could do the house up, but it was beyond us. Every time we peeled back a bit of something, we found more problems. Life is like that. Papering over the cracks was an all too apparent problem in our home.

A friend, Bags, moved with us. He was terribly depressed. I could not leave him on his own and start afresh. It seemed cruel. 'Goodbye, thanks for the memories, deal with your own neuroses'. You do not do that to a friend.

That first winter we had no heating. Despite the fact there was an open fire in one of the bedrooms, we did not light it. I do not know why. We hurried to install another fire in the lounge. We did not have the requisite skills. We plastered it in using our bare hands. I was surprised when my skin blistered. Something to do with lime I believe.

The dog could not settle. He was accustomed to running around in a pack on a council estate. He hated wearing his lead. He sat down on the pavement and I tried to drag him down the street. At home he hid under the table. It is true what they say, you know, you cannot teach an old dog new tricks. Eventually he moved out to live with someone else. She loved him a lot.

I found a job pretty much straight away. I had qualifications and experience. Matt did shift work at a residential home for people with mental health difficulties, and studied for his MA. We barely saw each other. He took care of the kids while I was at work, and I took care of the kids while he was at work.

Rosa started school. She was only four. She looked ridiculous in her uniform. Why does anyone want to put children in grey? Like the dog, she did not settle. I noticed that she began to wring her hands and bite her nails. I went to see the teacher. She told me Rosa was disruptive. “How do you mean?” I said.
“Well, for example, when I told her to sit on the carpet today she asked why,” I waited for the teacher to carry on, but she did not. We pulled Rosa out of state education and sent her to a Steiner school. She was much happier there.

Jordan continued to be in and out of hospital. We had been looking forward to our first Christmas in Brighton, surrounded by family. We went to the children's service. I love carols. “In the bleak mid winter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.” Halfway through Jordan keeled over. I ran from the church, carrying him in my arms, cursing God to hell. It was Christmas eve and we were in intensive care. Instead of waking up on Christmas morning, and seeing the children's eyes bulge because of the pile of presents under the tree, I came to, after half an hour's sleep, propped up in a blue, plastic chair.

If God was not dead already, I would kill him myself.

I liked Brighton though. It had something I never realised I missed. An horizon. Growing up in Birmingham was concretey. Reality was grey-brown. The buildings blocked out the sun, no matter which direction you looked in. And they went on ad infinitum, except where there were roads and cars. I went down to the beach. I stared out to sea. There was space, forever and ever space. Matt said that there was an ancient Greek democrat, or philosopher, or something, and he had a stutter. He used to practice his speeches by shouting at the ocean. I did that.

One night I went to meet Matt from work. We only had one bicycle between us. I rode there, all the way along the seafront, and he gave me a backy home. He went too fast. Sometimes I ended up holding on to his jumper so tight that I caught his flesh. We stopped off at a pub, in the arches, under the promenade. It was cold, but I could never get enough of the beach or the sea. He found that funny.

Thing is, if you can look past the buildings, to somewhere else, an empty place, you can find a piece of your head that feels like that, or maybe it makes that feeling. My favourite words in the whole world are einsturzende neubaten. I think they mean new buildings falling down. It does not matter. It is how they feel.

The doctor said she thought I might have cysts on my ovaries, and sent me for a scan. I lay on the narrow bed, green paper towel rumpling under my bottom and shoulder blades. The radiographer lubricated my belly and moved the mouse backwards and forwards. He stopped. I thought it must be something really a bad, like a tumour. He left the room. He came back five minutes later. “Are you married?”
“Oh god, is it really bad news? Does my husband need to be here with me?”
“It could be good news.”
'How can having a tumour be good news', I wondered.
“You're seven weeks pregnant.”

I watched the grainy blob appear on the screen. He pointed out where the head was. I stared in utter disbelief. “How the hell did that happen,” I blurted out. He laughed.

I walked back home along the beach, stopping off at an Italian ice-cream cafe. Why is pistachio ice cream always green? Matt had been working night shifts and was in bed. I woke him up. “We're having a baby.” He kissed me and fell straight back to sleep. I went downstairs and told Bags. He seemed to think it was great news. Two hours later Matt staggered into the lounge.
“I had the strangest dream,” he said, “It felt so real. Weird.” Bags was pissing himself. Matt's eyes flicked from side to side. I could almost see his brain working. “Are you pregnant,” he said guardedly. I was surprised how small my voice sounded when I said yes.

The next month I started bleeding. I was at work. I went to the toilet. There was blood everywhere. In a blind panic I got someone to drive me to accident and emergency. The doctors seemed quite matter of fact. “Spontaneous miscarriage, quite common.”
“Have I lost the baby?”
“Maybe, maybe not, time will tell.”
I lay very still. I thought if I did not move then it might be able to reattach itself somehow. Matt was at college. I was on my own. I worried because I had not known whether I was happy or not. Maybe I had accidentally wished the baby away I desperately searched around in my head for a name. I wanted to say goodbye. I needed to identify it as a person. You cannot be a person without a name. I called her Aphrodite.

Matt arrived. Crying happened to me. He insisted on seeing the doctor. It was 6.00pm on a Friday, I thought maybe the doctors had all gone to the pub. There did not seem to be many of them on the ward. One rolled along and said I could have a scan on Monday and that would confirm things. If the baby was dead then there was a procedure. I did not want to wait over the weekend. I did not want to carry half a dead baby around inside me. I explained this calmly. The doctor was annoyed. Although a radiographer was on duty, he was busy somewhere else. I did not care. He could be busy with me.

We held hands as the mouse ran over my belly. They found a heartbeat, but said the foetus had been compromised. I asked what I could do. “Nothing,” was the blank answer. Matt took me home and put me to bed. We had sex. I thought she might as well come out the same way as she went in.

The bleeding stopped. She must have decided to stay. I spent the next eight months trying to ignore what had happened.

The other children were fine. Matt continued with his MA “An Introduction to Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics”. I had no idea what he was on about. He disappeared under a mountain of books. My job changed. I went from wills, trusts and probate to personal injury. I preferred it working in a secretarial pool. The other girls made life interesting.

Bernice was approximately 60 and had the longest fingernails I have ever seen. She was involved in this stale relationship with a married man. She always wore brown. Her hair had an inordinate amount of volume. Pauline was blonde. Married to a scaffolder and with four boys at home, she was a bit rough and ready. I was never terribly sure what she was ready for. Jeanette was a timid woman, mousy hair, mousy movements. Her body shook all the time with nervous energy. She was very thin. Her husband was one a gangster, a proper one, with a sawn off shotgun. Our main boss was a man called Trevor. He could be a bit of a moody bastard, but mostly he was fair and functional.

We used to go to the pub at lunchtime. I could never remember the name of it, and so it became known as “The Golden Shower”, instead of “The Golden Lion”. I was unaware what a golden shower was. Dirty things slip into your head without you noticing.

I felt safe, but bored. Tiredness overtook me most nights. The children swirled around me, along with the housework and general terms of life. I did not have any real purpose. I cleaned. I cooked. I screwed. Occasionally we went out. Television was my real refuge. I lived my life vicariously through soap opera characters. I remembered staying with my sister, in her first house when she left home, I must have been about 10. We used to cuddle up in her bed, on a Friday night, in our socks with hot water bottles. She liked my little body. I kept her warm. We squinted at her small, black and white television. American people moved about on the screen. “Soap” was something new then. Canned laughter rattled out of the mono speaker. We both thought it was funny. I do not think I knew why. I just liked to be next to her when she laughed. Something about her then went into me and made me happy.

Memories And Accusations

2006-11-27T15:06:00.000-08:00

Yes, the dead have their place, in amongst memories, and accusations. But the duty remains to be discharged

The train journey was long and boring. I felt my body rock on the rails. Nothing fits anymore. I jolt, in surprise, as if everything is unexpected.

We arrived at Portsmouth, mother, sister and I. The platform was grey and flat, stretching into a distance that ended in gravel and another town. Mother stepped down from the steps, her high heels clacking and her long skirts swirling. Paulette peered out, like a bird, unsure of flight. I hoisted the sports bag, containing father's ashes, onto my shoulder. It hurt where the handles dug in.

“We could leave him in a locker,” mother ventured.
I looked at the ranges of grey metal, with their perfect, snub nosed, key extrusions.
“No.”
“But we said we'd have prawn cocktail.”
“I'll carry him.”
“It would be much easier if we left him in a locker.”
“I'm not leaving my goddamn father in a left luggage locker at Portsmouth station.”
“Have it your own way.”
I always did.

The pub was vile. Green velvet curtains, their linings stained by nicotine. Pulpy chairs and stools. Tables with slick varnish. A young waitress came over to take our order. She did not care. I did not care. The last thing on my mind was squishy seafood drowning in an acid sauce, slapped onto a bed of shredded lettuce.

The food arrived. The bag was at my feet. We had struggled at first, to find anything substantial enough to carry him. Being as he was being buried at sea his casket was lead lined. We had been surprised by its weight. Lead is heavy. My nephew, Christopher, had provided us with and old sports bag. It was black. It said 'Head' in large green letters. I had father in a sports bag. I don't think he would have cared.

“And a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale, with a half pint glass.”
“Gin and tonic.”
“Gin and tonic.”
Mother and sister were like clones.
“Ice and a slice?”
Mother was confused.
“Yes, yes, ice and lemon.”
I took over. I always had to take over. They had lived under the umbrella of his bombastic protection for so long that they were unable to make a decision. He had taught me differently. He would pick arguments with me just to check that I could answer back. Of course, we fought like cat and dog, but really we were the same species. He needed to ensure that I knew how to stand up for myself. He had watched the other women in his life become immobile. I was his precious, his chicken wing. He gave me special attention.

After lunch we went to the base. Mother said the right things. Paulette prompted her. I did not care. The naval officer smiled benignly. He was wearing white gloves. I wondered how dirty you could get standing still.

My back hurt. The handles of the bag dug into my shoulder blades, that soft bit of flesh between my neck and the knuckle of my arm. I could feel it dragging me down, making me lopsided. I tried to switch, the way you do with pain. I thought if I could share it out then maybe it would not hurt as much. The result was that my whole back ached.

When my muscles are damaged they burn. Fire shot through my body, like sunshine through a window, or the flash from a nuclear blast through eye glasses, left on a table, while tea grows cold. White turned brown and brown turned white. Decay sometimes muddies. Bleached bones are left in the desert..

I carried Daddy on my back, like he had carried me, when I was a small child, “Knee high to a grasshopper”. There was one time, I wet myself. He said it did not matter. Before I sat my high school exams, he squeezed my ankle, we were sitting in the car, and said “I know you've done your best, no-one can ask any more of you”.

Yes Dad, I remember when you wired in my cooker, and you ended up bleeding, because you had to drag the cables through the wall. You laughed when I crashed your car. You thought it was funny. You played squash with me, even after I hit you in the balls with my racquet. When I was a kid you used to get me to pull your finger so you could fart. We watched cartoons together. I know the way you sweep your hair over your head when you're stressed. I have heard you swear a million times and your hand hit the table/desk/door frame. I understand why you get angry and lose your temper. It is not that you hate me, or anyone else, it is that you are scared of us. You have always felt small. And here you are. In this miniature coffin, six inches by four inches. And I am carrying you. You are dead dad. You are dead. And you are the only dad I ever had. You only get one. You were mine.

The small boat sailed out, under motor power, in to The Sound. When it reached a certain position the driver, who I expect is properly called a captain, turned the engine off. The wooden structure swayed on the waves. “This is the sea dad. Remember the sea? You always loved the sea. So deep. So wide. You can lose anything in the sea. You nearly lost yourself during the war.”

A navy man stood up. He was wearing a uniform and those strange white gloves. He put a trumpet to his lips. He played The Last Post. When I was a Girl Guide we had words to those notes: “Day's done. Gone the ...” I could not remember the words. “All is well. Save thee rest,” but it could have been 'safely rest', I never hear anything properly, “God is nigh”.

The casket slid off and plopped into the water. Such a small noise. Such a big thing. The Union Jack, that had laid over his small frame, was now flat and fluttering. I had never understood his obsession with this flag. It belonged to him more than love or hope. He believed in its symbolism. The United Kindgom. His country. His sanctuary. He fought for it. He thought himself as part of it. It owned him. He did not own it. Loyalty, fidelity and patriarchy. This was MY father. He was not a man of the people. He was a man for the people.

I massaged my shoulders on the train. I did not mention my injuries. It was the least I could do. You were on my back throughout my life and you damn near broke it in your death. Father. You were father. I never knew you, until you slid out, from under that flag. There is more to being a man than your wife and kids.

Guilt Gnaws

2006-11-27T04:18:00.000-08:00

Guilt gnaws like a dog at a bone, tearing thin, translucent flesh, splintering calcium deposits.

That is what is wrong with Jordan, as far as anything is can actually be considered wrong. With each seizure, or series of seizures, his brain turns to bone. Calcification they call it.

It turned out that the man did not like me as much as I liked him. I went for promotion. I failed. My attitude. I am not oil on troubled water. They could not fault my work, but my relationships with my colleagues left something to be desired. I decided it was time to move on.

Matt's studies at university continued. He had a real aptitude for what he was doing. When we first got together I would sit in the spare room, reading and revising for my examinations. He came in one day and said “I wish I was as intelligent as you”. I accepted his admission of inferiority. As time wore on I realised he was far more intelligent than me. At first, when he discussed philosophy with me, I understood what he was talking about. After two years I was lost. His brain worked so quickly. He would take apart concepts in the same way as he took apart car engines. I watched him as he examined each component. I was jealous. I had never been acknowledged as academic.

The children grew, in direct proportion to my shrinkage. Rosa started school. She seemed very tiny. I had to put her gloves on for her in the winter, because her little fingers did not bend the right way. I liked her to wear a hat. Most of the heat we lose goes from our head.

My cooking was getting better. We bought a camper van. One day we went picking magic mushrooms with Billy, Brian and Bags. I used to go out with Viv, to clubs, to dance. She was beautiful. No-one noticed me when I was with her. I took Rosa to music lessons at the Midlands Art Centre. She crashed and banged about with tambourines and ethnic type instruments. The other mothers eyed me slightly suspiciously. There was obviously something about me that said “Council estate”. I did not have a cashmere scarf.

The first time I noticed it he was sitting in the garden. It was a sunny day. He had his burgundy carry bag with him. It was the way he sat and stared about him, slightly vacant, detached, as if we were all in a different place to him. The second time I was in the city centre and mother held his hand. They never held hands. In all the years they had been married I had never seen them holding hands. Such a simple thing. A less than intimate contact. But an admission of connection. They did not make those public statements.

It became obvious on Christmas day. Father did not understand the function of gift giving. He thought everything was for him. His smile was sickeningly simple, painted onto his face like a loose slash of incomprehension. The delight in his expression was child like. I felt sick.

Three days later mother telephoned. He had kept her awake all night, repeatedly filling the bath. The next day he ran from the house and tried to take his clothes off in the middle of the street. My sister tackled him to the floor, in an attempt to preserve both his and her dignity. As new year approached it became obvious that something would have to be done.

A nurse was employed. Father's behaviour became more extreme. He would have outbursts of shouting. It became apparent that he could not stay at home. Mother looked like wet washing. Paulette, who, as Tommy said, “Would use your dad's shit for toothpaste,” began to suffer the agonies of a child who realises their parent is regressing to helpless. I remained fairly calm. This gibbering wreck was partly the father I knew, although now he resembled the drunk one, the insanely stupid one, the unpredictable and terrifying one.

I decided to put him in a home. Mother and Paulette objected, but not vociferously enough. I knew it was what they wanted and what they needed, yet they had to make representations to the reverse, because father had always made us promise that we would never put him in a home. He was scared of being abandoned. I considered it my duty to abandon him in the same way that he had abandoned me. It was a simple imperative. My family could not care for him. He was a danger to himself and others. He needed professional help.

I spent three days touring local nursing homes. Some were mildly horrifying, with thin smears of filth. Others were downright degrading. I did not want father to be left dribbling in a chair. I did not care what it cost. We could afford it. He could afford it. This was what was going to happen.

Eventually, I found a nice one, with a large lounge, cheery staff, seemingly good food, and an atmosphere of relaxed indulgence. I took mother to see it. She made me vow I would never put her in a home like this. The words rolled off my tongue. Lying is easy if it is expedient.

All the arrangements were made. Father was to be transferred from home, in an ambulance. He was deteriorating rapidly. Years of heavy drinking had taken its toll. The corpus callosum, which joins the left part of the brain to the right part of the brain, was falling apart. His thoughts rattled around inside his head disjointedly. Every once in a while, however, the tiniest sliver of sense sparkled and he would snap into lucidity. This is what happened as he was lifted into the back of the ambulance.

“Where am I going?”
Mother and Paulette literally ran away from the question. I stood staring at the yellow open weave blanket covering his legs. The paramedic patted father's hand. I knew I could not escape. I climbed into the back of the ambulance.
“You're going to a nursing home.”
He looked at me, total terror in his eyes. “You're putting me in a home?”
“Yes, I'm putting you in a home. You're very sick. I need to make sure you get the care you need.”
He started to cry.
“It's not like the orphanage dad. We're not just going to leave you there. We still love you. We're not putting you away.”
I could not cry. I had to remain upbeat. How was he going to believe me if I seemed to be grieving my apologies already?
“I don't want to go,” he whispered.
“I'm sorry, but it's not your choice. You're too ill to stay at home.”
“You'll come and see me?”
“Of course I will you stupid old bugger.”
He laughed the way he used to, and as quickly as sense had returned to him it left. That idiot smile spread its way across his face. I took his hand in mine. His eyes moved sleepily. When he looked at me I knew he could not see me. The madness had stolen him again.

I did not go and see him every day, but when I did I took Jordan. They got on, the senile old man and the gurgling baby. I would let Jordan sit on father's lap. He did not wriggle. It was as if he knew the mind of the broken lap underneath him.

The doctors wanted instructions. We talked about outlooks and prognoses. Obviously, father was going to die, it was just a matter of when. I instructed that all treatment be withdrawn, except for pain relief. After two months he took bad. A chest infection confined him to bed. It developed into pneumonia.

Flicking through papers on my desk at work I was annoyed that no-one answered the phone ringing in my boss' office. I ripped my audio typing headphones from my head, pushed my chair back and stamped the office, grabbing the phone. “Yes,” I said tersely, knowing that I would be speaking to the receptionist, not a client, but it was not the receptionist, it was the head of personnel. As soon as I heard her voice I glanced through the glass panelling into the secretarial pool. Vicky, my team leader, was looking back at me. Everything started to move slowly.
“I'm sorry, but your sister's just called.” I knew what was coming next. I thought maybe if I put the phone back in the receiver and did not hear the news then it would not have happened. Instead I stood up straight and locked my knees. “Your father has just passed away.” Vicky's eyes were full of concern. It suddenly occurred to me that she had been told before me. I put my hand on the desk to steady myself.
“Is it OK if I leave work?”
“Of course, of course, take as much time as you need.”
I already knew this meant between three days and a week, because I had checked company policy in this matter.
“Thank you.”
I collected my things and left the building as quickly as possible. It was vitally important that I get to my car.

Ever since I started driving my car had been my screaming refuge. With the windows rolled up, the radio on loud and an open road in front of me I could really let go. I could say I felt shaky, but in reality, I did not feel anything. I was on automatic pilot. I was going to the nursing home. I imagined the rest of the family would go there. I started the engine and turned the radio on. Elton John was belting out 'Circle of Life' from the Lion King. It was bizarrely appropriate.

I remember nothing else of the day, except for seeing father dead. The nurse showed my nephew, Christopher, and I into his room. He was still warm. I noted mother had wrapped a rosary around his fingers in the usual manner. He was not a Catholic. I was amazed she had done this. I touched his face. It was odd to think that everything had stopped, completely and utterly. I looked around the room. I wanted to take something that was his. I went to the vanity unit and picked up his comb. It still had flakes of his scalp between the teeth. I put it in my back pocket. I noticed his slippers on the floor. He had the same size feet as my nephew. The idea of dead man's shoes, however, felt uncomfortable. I took the watch from father's wrist and gave it to Christopher.

Later, at home, I sat on my husband's knee in the kitchen and cried. He patted my back. I was not entirely sure what I was crying about.

The funeral was arranged. I saw him in his coffin. They had surrounded him with swags of baby blue shiny material. He looked ridiculous, especially as they had rouged his cheeks. Mother took me out to buy me a funeral outfit. She said he would have wanted me to go all beautiful. I chose a white suit, expensive. I looked great. I wore my red shoes, the ones that the axe man had never managed to chop from my feet. I was always going to keep dancing.

I did not cry. Everyone else was crying. I did not understand where they got their tears from. I felt all dry inside.

Afterwards there was food. I could not eat. Supposedly the soup was nice. I just wanted to get drunk and go to sleep. People were terribly polite.

Father was dead. Father is dead. Mother gave me his necklace, a huge, thick chain with a medallion of Jesus' face. I put it on. It still had him in it. I could hear his voice. I took it off and hid it in my jewellery box. My father was dead. Everyone told me how sorry they were. I did not what to say back. I was pleased he was gone. I looked at his casket and thought about how little he was now, all burned up, burned out. I do not remember anything else.

I Took My Baby Home

2006-11-26T16:23:00.000-08:00

I took my baby home. Fiona said his head was a perfect shape. Father said “If it ain't broke, don't fix it”. But it was broke. We saw the paediatric consultant. He explained that our son may have Sturge Webber Syndrome. The birthmark on his face could be on his brain. “Epilepsy,” he said, and I remembered Nigel at college, that time he stood up in the canteen and then crashed to the floor twitching.

A brain scan was organised. Mother came with me and the baby. They gave him a mild anaesthetic. He went limp and floppy. Afterwards they said they would write to us. I did not want to get the letter. I wished to remain ignorant. You can dream in bliss. Once you know, you know, everything is settled. I did not want to be finalised.

Two days before Christmas I telephoned the hospital. “Please, you said you would write and we still have not received a letter.” I listened to muzak while the medical secretary took a look. I stroked my hand along the top of the windowsill. I should dust more often. The garden needed tidying up. Green stains had appeared on the red slide. The grass could do with trimming around the empty flower beds.
“It'll be in the post tonight,” she eventually said.

I made the dinner, something with potatoes I expect. I did the dishes, wearing yellow, rubber gloves I expect. I helped my daughter on her potty. I changed my son's nappy. I cradled him in my arms after his bath, like I always did, and sang, like I always did. “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take your sunshine away.” He smiled. I did not have happy in me. I looked at him and stroked baby oil into his skin, over his shoulders, down his arms. “You're beautiful. I love you.” I said it again and again. I thought maybe my positives could seep into him like the oil. I never did that for my daughter.

Matt continued at college. His results were good. Mother was frightened of the new baby. She worried that he would 'take bad' on her watch. I found this strange. She had been a nurse for years and years. Why could she not trust herself to look after him. I desperately wanted her to, so I could get a break. She remained adamant.

I went to night school, twice a week, and studied law. Because of the way my brain works, I found it easier to deal in absolutes. With law it either is or is not. There is no need to compare or contrast. I am hopeless with questions that ask me to abstract. My favourite film quote is when Walken gets out of the car in “The Deer Hunter” and says “This is this.” He is flinging his arms out to survey the scenery. But he is right. This is this. There cannot be anything else. When I was younger I did not understand the term not being able to see the wood for the trees. I thought this literally meant that I could not see the wood, because the bark of the trees was getting in the way. I did not realise that it referred to the ability to stand back, and consider more than the individual, the bigger picture. Sometimes, I am lost in what people say.

The next morning I was expecting the letter, the one the secretary promised. I got up early. Sitting in the kitchen my ears strained to hear the sound of the letter box, when the postman shoves the things through the door and the metal rattles. It went, rat-a-tat-tat. I ran to the door. No mail. Again. It was 7.00am. “It's me.” It was my best friend, Bags. “Let us in then.” There was only one of him, but in Birmingham we make ourselves bigger my pluralising every issue.

At the table we drank coffee. Cereal boxes stood erect. My daughter shovelled food into her mouth. My stomach did not feel like it wanted anything in it. There was acid. Occasionally it bubbled up into my throat. I don't like being sick in my own mouth.

I heard them and imagined them all at the same time. A gentle whoosh as they pressed themselves into my house. Whiteness and manilla. Enveloping, but not in comfort. Truth arrives in the morning, along with junk, the two lying next to each other, in a perverse familiarity.

The letter from the hospital was immediately recognisable. I opened it the way I always do. Using the nail of my left thumb to roughly tear the shortest side. Folded three ways. A grossly distorted fat fan. I read it. Wordlessly I passed it to Matt. Bags poured himself some more coffee. We drink espresso boiled on the stove. The bitter sting seems to suit mornings. Matt finished and handed it to Bags.

There was a word burned into my mind, “Bleak.” What did they mean “Bleak”? “The outlook is not entirely bleak”. By saying that they were inferring that the outlook was exactly bleak, and not in a midwinter kind of way. I like that carol. It is my favourite Christmas carol. “Frosty wind made moan”. I felt like that. There was a coldness stalking my bones, freezing my soul. I did not used to think I had a soul, but at that moment I believed I did, and it was turning to ice, along with my heart.

Bags put the letter on the table. “Brain damage,” he spat out, “I'll tell you what brain damage is. Those 15 young lads that gang raped those two girls last night, they're brain damaged.” I stared at him. Matt held my hand across the table. My daughter continued to spoon cocopops into her mouth and kick her little, fat legs in her high chair. “Jordan won't grow up like that,” Bags continued, “He'll have a good heart, and in the end, that's what's important. Brain fucking damage. Don't listen to them”.

I got up from the table and went to the sink. I shoved the plug in the hole. I watched the water run, careless as anything, just running. I wanted to run. Maybe I could be a droplet, in amongst all the others, shiny and clean. I plunged my hands into the water. I was not wearing my rubber gloves. The scalding heat felt good. My skin reddened instantly.

We waited for the first manifestation. Sure enough, at ten months old, Jordan had his first seizure. I forget whether we called an ambulance or whether we took him to hospital by car. I do remember, however, that they could not stop him. He continued to twitch and his eyes continued to roll despite the medication they gave him. For three days it went on. At one point, Matt had hold of Jordan's hand. “Come on my son, come on my son.” He said it so softly. It reminded me of a cliché from a comedy show, or a football fan trying to will a goal. Eventually the doctors were successful.

I asked Matt to take a photograph. My kid, lying in a hospital cot, metal bars obscuring the shot, he looked like he was in prison. I needed the picture in case Jordan died. I wanted to be able to remember what he looked like. A little bit of me died anyway.

It happened again and again and again, about once every three months. Afterwards, even when the fits had stopped, Jordan was weak down one side. His movement would come back. They said that it might get to the stage where that did not happen. It was like sitting on a time bomb.

There are some things you do not get used to, like cystitis, no matter how often it happens, it does not get less painful. I was worried that perhaps he would just disappear. That one day he might just go, somewhere, his brain dying. Every time he started twitching I thought that I could be saying goodbye. I felt sick. I was like standing over a freshly dug grave each morning.

We went to a family support event. It was horrible. There were children who had grown into adults, slavering in their wheelchairs, nothing more than scraps of people. I looked at them and then looked at my son. What would he become? This condition was stealing him right out from under my nose. And all the while I had to love him and care for him. How do you love someone that can vanish at the drop of a hat? How do you protect yourself against that reality?

I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller. I saw pictures of the earth taken from space craft. It was like looking at my life. It was remote. I could not see it in its entirety. It just seemed distant, as if it was something else.

The people around me, friends and colleagues, they did their thing. Maureen was excited about her new car. Lucy worried about her credit card bills. Viv always had a new love interest. I stood on the outside. I wanted to stand up, sometimes, right in the middle of everything they were saying, and scream “My son might die today. I won't know until I get that call,” but I never did. They would have thought I was mad, or worse still, they may have tried to understand and offer me advice based on pity. “I'm so sorry,” is not a phrase I could appreciate. I was not sorry. I was furious.

My daughter took a back seat. It is not that I ignored her, more that I did not have the emotional capacity to deal with anything else. She was cute and smiled a lot. She learned to walk and talk. Her blonde hair was getting longer. She liked watching a particular children's programme called Rosie and Jim. She used to shout “And Jim! And Jim,” at the television, because her name is Rosa and she thought it was about her. She loved having a whole show named after her.

She played with neighbours. Always out and about. We did not believe in things like stair gates. Instead we taught her to climb. She went up forwards and came down backwards, nappy bum sticking out. She giggled when I tickled her belly, which was not often enough. Her laughter was yellow and I was living mainly in grey. I looked at her beautiful, little face sometimes and tried to work out how she had got here.

Her father loved her. He took her out with him all the time. Once he lost her pram on the bus. I could not believe that he got on with one child and one pram and forgot 50 percent of his baggage on leaving. He gave her crisps before she should have been allowed them. I shouted at him. He used to brush her hair and tell her stories. She had his eyes. When they looked at each other it was as if no-one else existed for them.

Mother adored her. Father was jealous. She was allowed to do anything at their house. Even when she shat on their best rug mother laughed. And Rosa loved mother, in a way I never could. Their relationship was simple, neither of them had hurt the other. Mother never raised her voice and Rosa did not have to, because she was listened to. What ever noises fell out of her mouth were interpreted as important. I could have screamed myself hoarse and mother would not have heard, did not hear.

I found myself a job, fairly well paid, as a legal secretary. Jordan was enrolled, along with Rosa, in nursery. Matt looked after them when he was not at college, but two days a week it was a long trot. One time I was pulled out of work because Jordan took bad. I was exhausted. It did not matter. I enjoyed my job. It gave me a sense of purpose. I was away from the home, and the kitchen floor that I could never get clean, because the tiles were made from cheap, brown plastic.

I liked my job. I felt important, organising court cases and being relied upon. I did not make mistakes. It was easy. If you do not make mistakes then everything goes right. It was just a question of being organised and efficient. I could do that. Not everything was fucked up. I could manage and make things work. I earned a good reputation. I learned precision was valued. I was good, really damn good. It did not matter that I had birthed an inadequate and that I could barely communicate with my other child. Hell no, I was good at my job. I worked for the man and the man loved me. What more was there?

Secrets and Surprises

2006-11-24T04:39:00.000-08:00

Things remain unspoken. There is a difference between a secret and a surprise. I was always surprised. It was always a secret.

Our house was pleasant enough, three storeys high and practically a new build. The kitchen was huge, maybe 30 foot long, plenty of space for a sofa, dining table, baby paraphernalia, etc. On the second floor was the lounge, with grey carpet and pink walls, and our bedroom, with green carpet and blue walls. We swapped them round. I forget why. On the top floor the baby's room, with pink carpet and beige walls. The bathroom was serviceable. A small room at the back was meant to be Matt's study.

We had moved from a smaller place. Our stuff was spread out. There was a wonderful sense of sparse reality. Ornaments had space to breathe. Clutter seemed stringy. It was possible to move from room to room without falling over anything.

I got a job. The baby was enrolled at nursery. Matt was enrolled at college. I worked for an estate agents and surveyors as a secretary. It was a small company. Much of the time I was left on my own. The offices were not near any major social areas. I had no-one to talk to and nowhere to go at lunchtimes. I was bored.

I went to work and I came home. I typed and then I tidied and then I cooked. Television was a constant companion. I watched other peoples' lives dance about on the screen in front of me. Their ways did not match with my ways. They had things I did not have. They enjoyed things I could not afford.

Matt read and studied. He liked college. He went there even when he did not have lectures. A whole world was opening up in front of him. He thought about things. I did things. Money was not too bad. It did not even occur to us that we could or should go on holiday. That was simply out of our reach. We went to an auction once, to buy a television. We looked at all the sets. We had never been or bid before. I was too shy. I whispered to Matt “I don't mind which one we get, except I don't want the one with the teak surround”. We came away with the one with the teak surround. Things like that happened to us.

Our neighbours were friendly enough. Fiona and Giles were a laugh. They had two children, one the same age as our's and one two years older. I spent a lot of time with Fiona. There never seemed to be anything to do, so we would sit in each other's kitchens, drinking coffee.

She was nice. A big girl, a bit older than me. She was always happy, except for when she was not. She had experience as a mother, where I was lacking. Our children played together, which was a godsend, because I found it difficult to know what to say, minute by minute, hour after hour, to a baby, but they amused each other.

There was nowhere to go. The local park was not safe. One day I took the baby to play on the swings. A man, who seemed to high on glue or something, came up to me. He was swinging his arms around his head and shouting “Look at me, I'm a helicopter”. He was not a helicopter. He wanted me to agree with him but I could not. He kept coming closer. There was no-one else around. I gathered my baby up and ran away.

Shopping took up a large portion of my time. They do not build supermarkets in poor areas. I was forever wandering up the road to buy pork belly draft or vegetables. I could barely cook. Every day I was meant to produce dinner. Matt would eat anything. Sometimes he had to. Mother cooked all the baby's food. She gave me little, plastic containers, seven to last a whole week. I kept them in the freezer, defrosting each one as I needed. I did not even know what they contained. The child ate them though. I assumed mother was better at this than me.

We talked about having another baby. I wanted something else to do with my time. If I had two children I would not have to go and work in the horrible estate agents, where the men shouted at me every time I made a mistake. I did not want to be a secretary. I was lonely, so lonely. I had forgotten how to read, so there was nowhere for me to escape to. I was stuck in that office, staring at the computer screen. They threw my work back at me. It was difficult to get all the comments to fit into the little boxes. When they talked into their dictaphones they muttered. Sometimes I could not hear what they were saying.

I felt sick. I went into the toilet. There were three cubicles, but only three of us that worked in the building. Why were there so many toilets? I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was pale. I had a strange vest and suspender outfit on. The vest was cut in such a way that it arched up revealing my belly. I thought I was getting fat. I missed lunch again. I felt even sicker. After two weeks of strict dieting my belly was beginning to stick out, like an Ethiopian. I laid down. I could not go to work. The nausea washed over me constantly. I dare not lift my head off the pillow. The doctor was called. It took him two minutes to diagnose my illness. I was pregnant.

“So?” Matt asked.
“I'm fucking pregnant.”

It was not like the first time. Matt did not run to my side and smother me in kisses. Instead, he stared at me.

“How did that happen?”
I rolled my eyes. “It only takes one time.”

We had been using contraception, except for that one Sunday afternoon, when the baby was asleep, and we rolled into each other.

I thought maybe I could be happy about this. Matt was stunned. He had just started university. We talked about a termination and decided that it was not a possibility. For one reason and another I could not throw his baby away. We announced it to family and friends. It seemed reasonable. There would be two years between our children. Nicely planned. It is normal. This is how it works.

Every day I was sick. I felt tired. The pregnancy progressed. The due date was confirmed. I worried, because when I looked at our daughter I could not understand how I could love another child as much. Everything, she had everything from me. Her little face, fat cheeked and with sticky out ears. I saw that face at night before I went to sleep. Her eyes were so big and so blue. When she clapped her hands sometimes she would miss. I sang to her. She used to crawl up my body and go to sleep with her head in my neck. Her body was always warm. Her feet were still dimpled. She was just beginning to walk.

Matt sat his first year exams. The due date came and went. I was taken into hospital again, to be induced again. My babies did not seem to want to leave my body. It was summer and very hot. We had no money. That is not true. We had 37 pence. Not even enough to catch the bus. We walked along the main road, me wearing a red dress, him carrying my case. He left me in hospital. I did not want him to go. I was scared. I wanted my other baby. She had been taken to mothers.

The next day they brought the baby out of me. They had not listened to what I had been saying for the last six weeks. He felt too big. He got stuck. The midwives still were not listening to me. I could not put my legs to my chest. It made my body shake. I looked at Matt. I could not speak. I tried to tell him with my eyes. My whole body was shaking. He was as cool as a cucumber, one that has been left in the salad crisper in the fridge. He shouted. Bells rang. A doctor arrived. They had to dislocate the baby's shoulder to get him out. They put their hands right inside me and did that, then dragged him free. Silence.

Silence.

I propped myself up on my elbows. Matt was watching them poke and prod the child. He was placed under a grill. A strong light was shone in his face.

Silence.

Matt came back to me and got hold of my hand. I thought there was something wrong. Last time I had been given baby, straight away. She had slithered up my belly and onto my breast. This time they took the baby.

A few coughs. Splutter, splutter. And then a cry, big and throaty, angry. They held him upside down by the ankles and he wailed. A nurse wrapped him in an open weave blanket. It was white. She brought him to me. I held open my arms. The tightly bound bundle was passed over. He was like a bullet slug. I looked down at him. There was something wrong with his face. It was black, all over one side.

“What's wrong with his face?”
“It's a birthmark.”

I looked again. The whole of the right side was a deep purple. Matt peeled down the blanket.

“And now we've got to get you stitched.”

The nurse threaded the needle. I was surprised to see it looked like a fish hook. She asked me to place my feet in the rests.

“OWWWWWWW!”
“Stay still dear.”
“It hurts.”
“Do you have a flannel,” she said, addressing the question towards Matt. He nodded. “Be a love, roll it up and stick it in her mouth. Not much point giving you an anaesthetic. Just bite down on the cloth.”

The pain was excruciating. Burning stabs shot through my fragile skin, that they had ripped. I told them he was too big. Matt took the baby. I stretched my head back, until my neck arched off the bed. A coolness came over me. The air made my sweat cold. When she had finished, and Matt gave me the baby back, he was all pink and his birthmark was bright red. I did not like it. He did not look right. He reminded me of a white puppy with a big, black patch over its eye. He screamed. I handed him back to Matt and asked if he could be kept in the nursery that night.

I slept. When I woke up I thought maybe I had imagined the mark on my son's face. I went to look for him in the nursery. I recognised him instantly. There was another woman in there. She had her back to me. I ignored my baby for a minute and went up to look at hers. He was wrapped tight, his little head poking out of the top of his swaddles. His nose was funny, all squashed flat. His lips was split in two and curled upwards. The woman turned and looked at me. “Cleft Palette,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Oh,” I said back. She had a twisty smile. I went and picked up Jordan and brought him over to her. I showed her. She looked down. “Birthmark,” I said. She began to cry. I did not know what to do. I put my baby back down and wandered off into the smoking room. I wanted Matt to come and rescue me. I thought perhaps I needed a cup of tea. I certainly could have done with a shower. The pad between my legs was soaked.

Head, Heart And Hands

2006-11-23T16:17:00.000-08:00

Head, heart and hands, it's like sometimes they move in different directions.

Matt came out of prison. It was all a bit of a rush in the end. They granted him parole, gave him two thirds of his sentence off. Within a matter of days they said he could have home leave.

I picked him up from the prison. I felt dirty. I had been sleeping with someone else. It is not possible to feel anything except dirty.

I watched his face in the car, framed by the window. His arse was sitting on a grey weave. He was happy. I could not tell him. “Hello dear, I've be completely and totally unfaithful.” I could not do that. He had 48 hours. It is not a 48 hour conversation. Well, it is, providing you do not want to do anything else. He had been locked up for eight months. This should not be his weekend.

We went home and fucked, every which way. I was shy. I hated my body. Before he got sent to prison I had not had the stretch marks. He seemed to not notice. I knew he saw. You can't miss foot long white stripes.

He liked being with his baby. She responded to him. She smiled. He played with her. He would not let her go. They talked to each other. He used words and she used noises. Against her body his hands seemed very big. But he was fair. A little bit for her. A little bit for me. He tried to share himself out.

On the way back to prison, while he was sitting in the passenger seat of the car, I told him. I do not remember his reaction. I cannot imagine it was good. We got to the car park. He did not kiss me. I was unsure of what to do with my lips, speaking out of them would only make things worse.

Over the next two months, waiting for his release, things went messy. He was my husband, and yet I had failed to fulfil the basic requirement of fidelity. I could not face him, so frequently did not. Visiting orders came and went. I was meant to go three times a month. I missed some. What do you say to a man who you have hurt in such a manner? 'Oh, I am sorry'?

Crawling and creeping, lacking dignity, I decided I was shit. If you love someone you do not do this to them. Surely, it is possible to keep your legs together? Apparently not. Not in my case. I was a hole, not a whole. All those promises, for nothing. I must have been lying, or deluded, or somehow lost. He had expected me to wait. I had not waited. I had sought the first cheap thrill.

Did I like it? Yes.

I cannot write this. The author is not meant to burst in. I am supposedly god, all omnipotent and powerful, silently in the background, directing the action. I am not meant to be on my knees, blowing someone else. Stories are to act in a linear fashion. Whatever is undesirable is to be edited. I cannot edit this. You have to know this in order to accept the future. If you can understand this then maybe what happens next will make sense.

He was, and is, my husband – but I should not skip forward. I did betray him. I made a series of promises that I did not abide by. I was weak. I could offer a million excuses. The baby cried. I suffered from body dismorphia. Pregnancy and birth had weakened by intellectual and moral defences. I had post natal depression. These are all excuses. Women go through war. They wait for their soldier husbands. I was required to commit to a matter of months. I did not do this. I failed. Essentially, this is what this is about. I did not achieve. I got it wrong. I punished him more than the state ever could. I took the one thing he thought he could believe in, and screwed it up, trampled all over it, took it away from him. I left him with nothing.

And why? Because I needed a distraction, something other than the screaming baby and the grinding poverty. That sounds like an excuse. I wanted a cuddle. I wanted to be wanted. But my husband wanted me already. I had that validation. I had the eyes, that were blinded by state organised non seeing. I had the arms, that were handcuffed by stated organised oppression. So what did I do? I joined in. I allied myself with it. I said “Yes, and you're not here, this is another way of not winning”.

Of course he came home. How could he not? And I made my choice. I chose him. He hated me and loved me for that. The first row, it was simple. He threw his wedding ring out of the bedroom window and packed his bags. He came back from the bus stop as I was searching on the grass. He joined me, he always joined me, and then our neighbours, one guy wearing headphones and carrying a mop, pretending, everyone was always pretending, that he had a metal detector. We laughed. It was resolved for a moment, or two, or three.

Every time we fought, he saw the betraying whore in front of him. At first it was evenly matched. I snatched the glasses from his face and screwed them into an incomprehensible heap in my heads. He lost his temper and shouted. Then I threw plates against the wall, from my vantage point of bed. Shattered glass was picked up, curry was wiped from the paintwork. Then it got more terrifying. He kicked me unconscious. I lay outside the bathroom, curled in a foetal ball. I saw yellow, and pale blue. I felt his boot in my belly. I felt his hands in my hair. He screamed my whoredom at me. He left me, spinning and surrendered, my head against rough carpet, my knees pulled into my chest.

On and on and on and on.

Every time I excused myself and him. I had no bruises, not to speak of. Occasionally, a pain, that resisted for a day, angry and insubordinate, but he knew, and I knew, and no-one else would understand.

Locked, because this was not how I was meant to be. Locked, because this was not how things were meant to be. You have to leave. Everything black and white. “Look, no grey,” but there is always grey. Violence is like paint. You mix the colours enough, and without consciousness, and you end up with brown. Life is not a matter of watercolours, draping drooping trees over glistening lakes. No. Life is about people kicked to death, with boots covered in blood.

“And violence brings more violence, and liars bring more lies.” The two are irrepressibly connected. Which is first? The chicken or the egg? Where is my responsibility? Do I bare any responsibility?

I lay on the floor. The carpet was rough against my cheek. I could not raise myself, standing would only conceive and receive more punishment. He was shouting, I forget what. The bathroom door was open. I could see the bottom of everything, The sink looked tall. The toilet looked curvaceous. I thought perhaps I could calm him. I tried to send words from my brain out of my lips. Everything I said, everything I did, served to further his temper. He was not fighting with me, prostrate in front of him, he was fighting with himself. What he was saying bore no relation to the actual situation at the actual time, rather it was anger, pure, unadulterated, vicious anger. I had done something. I had placed him a position where there was nothing except rage.

He stopped. I curled. Later there was silence. Always, afterwards, there was silence. I felt my bones. I ached inside. He was gone. He had removed himself. I did not think about leaving. There was nowhere to go. It was an aberration. We did not mention it. The next morning, over coffee and cereal, it seemed like a crocodile amongst lilies. I did not know whether to mention the flowers of the thrashing tale. He did not say he was sorry. I did not say anything. Life rattled on. Trains rattle on, as if they do not fit the rails. They sway backwards and forwards, on their endless journeys, to destinations they will arrive at, and then leave again There is no end point. They do not arrive. Each station is merely a stopping, and then they are off again, full trash, with their tired upholstery. I thought maybe our marriage was like that. A buffet car selling stale bacon sandwiches. A few drunkards urinating on the floor on the toilets. I did not know.

We moved house. A fresh start. It was as fresh as brie. Matt could not find work. He tried for college, writing an essay about the Chartist movement in the Black country. They were impressed. He was in.

I cleaned the kitchen floor every day. The cheap tiles never shone. I thought maybe the lack of dust would keep our feet clean. Our feet were never clean. We were up to our ankles in shit.

Every night we got stoned. It made the laughter come, as if there was not a tight belt around our chests and a vice around our heads. I thought it was funny that our lounge carpet did not fit properly. We hid the edges with the sofa. Perhaps it amused me that we could only afford cheap meat and never went out.

Friends came and friends went. I never told any of them what was going on. They did not know. I did not even talk to myself about it. I had no idea what to say or what to think. I understood the feminist approach, “All men are rapists”, but I did not see my husband like this. He held me. He brought me to orgasm, with kisses and fingers and tongues. I did not feel oppressed by him, rather I felt scared. His head seemed like a foreign place, such as Algeria or Madagascar. I imagined sandy surroundings, bartering traders and blue-black skin that shone under the sun. I realised this was probably escapism, but there is no place for a woman who chooses to stay with a violent man.

Violence, that which seeks to subject another. Violence, that which crushes/invalidates/raises/confirms the other. What is the other? When I looked at him I did not know him. That's a lie. I knew him. Those veins, that I had found so attractive, stood out on the side of his neck. Those nostrils, that flared as they sucked in air, terrified and excited me. Those eyes, that stared and hunted out the cold blood, fascinated me. I liked his blows. I wanted to be under him. My fear was just looking for a way not to be frightened. Always someone had hurted me, humiliated me, no-one had hit me in love. I wondered who the fear belonged to. Who was scared of who. Where did the power lie. I had the high ground. He behaved like an animal.

I cannot explain. I can never explain, how the rope around my neck does not mean I will hang. If I cannot scream, because the hand over my mouth prevents it, then the only one feeling it is him. He took me. He made me belong. No-one had ever done that before, owned me before. Father had his reasons, but they were different. Matt did not want to break me, he wanted to have me. I cannot explain. You will not understand. To belong to someone else you have to be in their power. Could I give this to Matt? Would I be willing to step outside the feminist rhetoric and provide my subservience? The decision was mine. I always knew where the door was, right in the hallway, with a big brass handle. I did not leave.

The Abbess Of The Abyss

2006-11-22T02:01:00.000-08:00

The abbess of the abyss walks the path between wisdom and intelligence. She has trod many routes, roads have risen before her, occasionally ignorance has led her down blind alleys ...

It looked different in the morning, in as much as there was light, people were awake and the blood in my bed had dried into stiff ribbons. My baby was still there, pink and snuffling, in her clear, plastic fishtank. Flowers arrived. The lilies spilled onto the bedside table, their orange pollen leaving a scattering of dusty. Sunshine flooded the ward, through large windows, and coated me in a thin, filmic sheen.

I fed her (my breasts hurt). I spent time in the smoking room (my addiction had not been cured by pregnancy). I thought of her father (and his hand-drawn representation of Matisse's blue woman). I was vaguely aware that I drifted, along with the poisonous plumes puffed from the cigarettes. I stood outside of time and inside of passage. Things (a baby, an afterbirth, milk) left my body. Other things punctured me (realisation, responsibility, loneliness).

People came and people went. Paulette and Tommy. Mother and father. His mother and father. Not him. He was somewhere else.

I took the baby home and fiddled to get her into a nappy. The square of material was too large for her tiny bottom. I did not want to wedge her legs open. Her babygrow seemed overly big. When she cried her whole face joined in with her mouth. Her fists became little balls of annoyance. Limbs, legs and arms, flexed back and forth, demanding attention. My breasts filled with milk, until they almost burst. On the outside they felt like rocks, slightly lumpy, solid, very hot. My nipples protruded, attempting to escape from the pressure building up behind them. The pain was excruciating. When she put her mouth on me it burned.

I picked her up. I put her down. I washed her eyes with cotton wool. I changed her. I stroked the top of her head. I cleaned in between her toes. I nibbled her too long nail. I could not imagine introducing stainless steel to one so young, blades, no.

On the fifth day she was ready to meet her maker. I dressed her in the white, velvet suit he had bought her before he went to prison. The hood flopped about around her face. Her eyes were still shut most of the time. When she opened them they were little beads of very dark blue.

In the visiting room of the prison I passed her across to him. He looked down at the bundle in his arms. “She's very small.” I felt insulted. I wanted him to say “She's very beautiful”. Her head rested in the crook of his elbow. She was asleep. “And how are you?” he asked.
“I'm fine, yes, fine, a bit tired.”
“You look well.” What do you say to the woman who has just had your baby while you were locked up in a cell? The conversation was stilted. I suspected that he had nowhere to go with his emotion, so he kept it inside.
“I got the hospital to phone you as soon as she was born,” I offered.
“Yes, I know.”
“What happened?”
“I was in bed. The wing had been locked down for the night. A screw came and hammered on my door and then shouted 'it's a girl, 7lb 14oz, mother and baby both doing well.”
I wanted to ask him how he felt, receiving the news of his first born through a metal door.
“And then all the men started up, banging metal against metal, you know, mugs and plates against bed frames and windows. They made a right racket.”
And so my daughter had been welcomed into this world, of prisons and convicts, with an orchestra of domestic percussion. Jesus had bells. She had tin plates.

She began to cry. Matt looked shocked. Some of the other prisoners turned around. I suppose it was not unusual, for life to continue on the outside. He was not the first man to miss the birth of his child due to incarceration. I went to lift up my top and put her to my breast. “Not here,” he hissed.
“But she's hungry.”
“Do you have any idea how long some of these men have been inside?”
“No.”
“Or what for?”
“No.”
“Look, you getting your tits out is not a good idea.”

I took the baby from him and tried to jiggle her to sleep, but her little belly could not help making the shrill noises come out of her mouth. “I think I'm going to have to go and feed her.” He was disappointed. We only had an hour together and I had to leave. “Bring a bottle next time,” he said.
“But she's breast fed.”
“Not in here she isn't.” He was annoyed because he was upset. I could see from the way his mouth worked and his eyes looked.
“OK, next time I'll bring a bottle and you can feed her,” I said, “I'm sorry, I didn't think of it.”
He smiled a thin, tight smile, one of those that you have to try and force onto your face. “Don't worry about it.”
But I did. I felt my eyes beginning to mist over. I returned his thin, tight smile before scurrying from the visitors room. A female screw stopped me on the way out. Peeling down the blanket from the grunting child's face she said “Aw, she's beautiful”.

We rattled along nicely, me and the baby. I spent my days attending to her needs. She was fairly portable, and I had a car, so we went out and about, saw friends, spent time in the park, got to the supermarket, etc, etc. Unfortunately, once the initial euphoria had worn off, I began to feel pressurised. It was not unusual for her to wake three or four times in the night. I would feed her and put her back in her cot. She reacted angrily. I winded her. She burped. I tried to lie her down again. She screamed at me. I left her, closing the door carefully behind me. I sat on the landing listening to her. She did not stop. I went back in. She was all red and rumpled, her fists flying. I fed her again. I burped her again. I put her down again. She screamed again.

This went on for a few weeks. During the day I felt ragged. Exhaustion was beginning to take over. If I got in the bath, she screamed. If I tried to make something to eat, she screamed. All the time, this noise of her crying for me. I knew she wanted me. I was her mother. It was my job to meet her wants and provide something to satisfy her.

Some days she was crawled about inside me, as if there was not enough space left in my head for me to exist. I could not string a sentence together. Thoughts would wander off all over the place. Jobs got left undone, because I was constantly interrupted in the middle of them. Eventually, my time ended up being broken down into small lumps, like crumbs in the bottom of the biscuit tin. I started to hallucinate, mainly black shapes and shadows out of the corner of my eye.

It was worse at night. I so desperately wanted to sleep. I would get into our bed and snuggle against the pillows, imagining Matt's arm wrapped round me, laid slack against the dip of my waist. Listening, always listening, to see if she was sleeping or stirring. Once I had convinced myself that I might get a few minutes shut eye she would start up. It was not her fault. She could not help being hungry and frightened in a room on her own. I would drag myself out of bed to see to her needs. It did not occur to me to bring her into bed with me. The nurses and mother had advised against this, in any event, suggesting I should instead wrap her tightly in a blanket to give her a sense of security.

One night, looking down at her miserable, red face and her fists that had fought free of the swaddling, I realised I wanted to hurt her. I picked her up under the arms and held her away from me. She screamed right into my face. Her whole body dangled from my grip. She was floppy and stiff all at the same time. I hated her. Her gummy little mouth, twisted and raging. Her saggy nappy bum. The folds under her chin where grime collected. I felt cold all over. I knew something was wrong. I should not hate my own baby. I should love my baby. My baby should make me smile and feel happy. How could I feel happy at 3.00am?

I put her down gently and went into the lounge. The red phone on top of the speaker suggested to me that I might like to talk to someone. I picked up the receiver and dialled my parents' number automatically. Mother answered. “Hello?”
“It's me,” I said.
“What's the matter?”
“I'm angry with the baby.”
“Where is the baby?”
“In her cot.”
“Have you hurt her.”
“No, but I wanted to.”
“What did you do?”
“I just put her down again. She was crying. I picked her up and put her down again.”
“Did you feed her?”
“No.”
“When did you last feed her?”
“About an hour ago.”
“She'll be fine.”
“What about me?”
“Have a cup of tea and a cigarette.”

I wanted mother to hug me, to come over and fix the problem. I knew, deep down, that mother would not do that. I knew in the same way that you know when you have a headache coming, or that you are going to be late. The baby was screaming a storm. I wandered into the kitchen and put on the kettle. Tea was not going to resolve this situation, but in the five minutes it took to make it and start drinking it, I felt calmer. I had not hurt my baby, even though I had wanted to. I had walked away and shut the door. 'Sometimes you have to do that,' I thought to myself. It does not make the problem go away, but it keeps it in the one room, contains it.

And so it went on. Every week I took the baby to see Matt. He cuddled her and fed her. He kissed me. I watched him talking, in his blue and white striped prison shirt. His head and face were shaved. He was doing a course. He got on well with the other guys on the wing. Occasionally something would happen, but nothing major.

I went to college on Monday's to get a secretarial qualification. Mother looked after the baby from 8.00am to 9.00pm. I liked being without her. It felt like my arms were my own. I did not miss her, when I was in the canteen, eating without being interrupted by her crying, or when I sat in the classrooms, learning to touch type, my fingers concentrating without having to hold or juggle something else. I was surrounded by girls, and we chattered and laughed and talked about clothes. They went home, to a dinner cooked for them by someone else, and then they went out, with their friends or boyfriends. I went home and tidied up, struggled to pay the bills and visited my husband in prison. My life was like a branch of a tree that had been split off by lightening in a violent thunderstorm. I was lying on the ground, they were reaching up with their eager leaves towards the sun.

And then I fucked someone else, almost by accident. I did not mean to do it, it just happened. I want to forget about it, in the same way that I want to forget about the man who put his penis through my open car window and masturbated into my face when I was 17. I cannot forget about it though, because Matt cannot forget about it. While it was being done to me I was doing it to him. A daisy chain of black spiders. I do not like spiders. I wish I could forget about it, and that he could forget about it.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. We cannot see backwards until what is in front of our faces is behind us. The abbess of the abyss walks wisely. In the dark crack, where is it claustrophobic, lies knowledge. If I can fold this between the pages of a book maybe my wish will come true.

Waiting, Queuing and Clutching

2006-11-21T05:43:00.000-08:00

The waiting room was filthy, yellow matt paint decorated with indiscernible skid marks. I had queued for an hour in the rain, clutching a visiting order that would entitle me to spend 15 minutes with my husband.

I was uncomfortable. Despite only being six months pregnant, my belly was huge. She lashed about inside me. She always did whenever I sat still for more than a few seconds.

I looked at the people around me: a big, black guy, massive feet in boat like shoes; a couple, probably mother and father; a woman with frazzled, permed, blonde hair. Her kid was nuts. She grabbed him at one point, trying to stop him running around. He wriggled free of his coat. She was left holding fur trimmed green nylon.

The toilets were worse than the actual room, but the baby was pressing on my bladder so I had to go. Returning to my grey, plastic moulded chair, I watched the trickle of people being admitted to the visiting area. Every once in a while the door opened. A screw, standing on the other side, shouted out a surname. Corresponding people stood and shuffled across the scuffed vinyl. The door shut.

Crazy kid started to kick off. At first his questions were mild, “Where's my daddy?”
“In a minute love,” his mother replied, brushing bleached, straw hair from her agitated face.
After a few more opening and closings of the door his enquiries became more excitable. “Where's my daddy?” he screamed.
“Not long now, come and sit down,” she said, offering her arms and lap.
“No! I want my daddy.”
“Shhhhhh.”
“I want my daddy,” and with that he ran at the shut door, shoulder first. The hefty wood repelled him. He bounced backwards. Undeterred he tried again with the same result. He stopped for a moment and studied the door. He kicked it. He started pounding on it with his fists. The door opened.
A po-faced screw looked down at the three year old boy. “Stop it!”
“But I want my daddy.”
“Tough shit.”
The door shut again.
The child began to hammer on it, with his feet, his hands, his head. The mother tried to gather him up, but he was wild and screeching “I want my daddy, I want my daddy, I want my daddy.” Everyone else in the waiting room sat silently. I bit my lip.

“L______.” That was me. The screw smirked at my burgeoning belly. I ignored him.

The visiting room was also yellow, with a grey floor. Formica tables were organised in neat lines. I saw Matt. He waved and smiled. I tried to. The Women's Royal Voluntary Service were running a hatch cafe in the corner, providing teas and coffees, plus a few uninteresting biscuits, crisps and such like.

Two steaming polystyrene cups rested on the table between us. He took hold of both of my hands. I remembered what Martin had told me, “Don't cry. Don't let him see you crying. At the end of the visit you walk out of there. He has to go back to his cell. Don't make him take the memory of you crying with him”

“So, how's things?” I said, the question running out of me in an exhalation of breath.
“Apart from my fucking trousers, things are great.”
“What's wrong with your trousers?”
“Put your hand under the table.”
I did as I was told. He guided it to his flies, which were open, instantly revealing an erection. I flicked my eyes from side to side, not really knowing what to do. I tried to pull my hand away, but he gripped my fingers and squashed them together.
“Bloody broken.”
“What's broken?” I said in confusion. It did not seem broken to me.
“My flies.”
“Oh,” and I laughed.

Once a month I saw him, while he was in Wandsworth, but we wrote every day, and I made sure everyone he knew had his prison number (MW1054) and address. As my pregnancy progressed it became more and more difficult. Wandsworth was some 200 miles away from where I lived. Although I had a car, the round trip of eight hours took its toll. Fortunately, we had a friend, a good comrade of Matt's, who lived in Oxford and he invited me to stay and drove the last leg of the journey.

As I approached my delivery date I wondered what would happen. Matt had put in for transference to a local prison and his application was accepted. The day before the baby was due he was moved. I did not know where he was. They take them on a round trip, picking up other prisoners along the way. First he went back to Brixton, then to the Scrubs. I panicked. How could I have a baby if I did not know where its father was? It was bad enough he was not going to be there at the birth, but surely I should at least be able to tell him when his child had been born?

A guy, from the Trafalgar Square Defendants' Campaign, eventually found out that Matt was being held in Winson Green, or shortly to arrive there. I was shocked. I could see the Green from my kitchen window. It was extremely odd to think that he was in there and I was out here. I told our friends. A massive, and incredibly bizarre, campaign swung into action, posters were made (“Free Matt L______ Political Prisoner”) and they were stuck to every vertical surface, 1,000s of them. A picket was organised. Dozens of people turned up to stand outside the prison. I was amazed. For the first time I did not feel like I was on my own. All these folks. They understood. They were willing to support me. It was at this point I realised that what Matt had done, not only in the riot, but also, by pleading self defence in the resulting court case, mattered. People thought a lot of him.

I managed a few hours on the picket, but hefting around an extra stone in weight, hanging off my front, soon exhausted me. I was taken home. I did not want to go. What if he arrived and saw everyone except me? Damien persuaded me. Apparently, it was my job to safely deliver. Everyone knew that. I went. Matt arrived some 45 minutes later, to rapturous applause. He was travelling by coach, so had seen all the posters. The screws at the front desk even said “Oh, so you're Matt L____”. I think it probably gave him a boost.

Unfortunately, I had hung onto the baby for so long that I was totally unable to let go. My delivery date came and went. I huffed and puffed through the next two weeks. They took me in for an induction.

The plan was that my eldest sister, Paulette, and Matt's mother, Sarah, would be my birthing partners. In the event, that went sort of pear shaped. A truly horrible doctor fisted me at 9.00pm. I screamed. He explained he was attempting to perform a cervical sweep. The midwife threw him off the ward. Of course, I knew that a baby's head was shortly to emerge from my rather small vagina, however, I was not prepared for a fully grown man's hand to be introduced in such a violent manner. I started to bleed. I was given Valium and told to sleep.

Lying in my hospital bed I felt so lonely. All the other mothers had troupes of people surrounding them, happy foil balloons bouncing away, bottles of bright fizzy stuff, cards with congratulatory pictures. I had nothing, except for “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning” and it was a Monday.

I awoke the next morning with sharp pains gouging at my belly and cunt. I could not speak. I could not catch my breath. Every inch of my being was with that pain. There was nothing except that pain. The world was edged in black and in the middle was that pain.

They took me down to the delivery suite. “Can we call anyone?” Matt's mother had promised to be there at 9.00am, but she was not. I gave them my sister's work number. An hour later, in desperation, I phoned Craig, the guy I shared a house with. He arrived within five minutes. He helped me as I clawed along the wall. I did not want to sit down. I did not want to lie down. I wanted to walk, but every two minutes an agony I cannot describe robbed me of my legs.

He did not want to help. This had not been the arrangement. I wished Matt was there. He could hold me up. He would. I could lean on him, in the corridors. He would not mind if I had to grunt or scream. He knew what to do with me. I did not have to speak to Matt. He just knew.

The walls were green. There was a midwife in latex gloves. She kept telling me to relax. I wanted to kill her. She gave me some drugs. The clock on the wall looked weird, always telling the same time, or a different time. A car alarm sounded in the car park. The noise got all stretched. I thought for a while that it was the song of my vagina, bleeding in and out. My sister arrived. She mopped my brow. Matt's mother arrived. I was mad with her. I wanted my sister. Mother arrived. She caught me at a bad moment.

“Fuck off!”
“Darling ...”
“FUCK OFF. I HATE YOU.”
“I just ...”
“FUCK OFF, BITCH, FUCKING FUCK OFF.”
“Me and your father will be in the waiting room.”

“I told them,” my sister said.
“That Matt's in prison?”
“Yes.”
“What did they say?”
“Not much.”
“Are they angry?”
“What do you think?”
I thought they probably were.

She came, after eight hours of painful pushing. I had my foot on Paulette's shoulder. From her face I could see that everything blew her away. She understood the privilege and enjoyed it, encouraging me and comforting me.

When they gave me the baby I looked at her. She was a skinned rabbit, all pink and raw. Her hands made these mad movements, indiscriminate air grabs, all pointy fingered and desperate. The nurse put her to my breast, grabbing my nipple between her thumb and forefinger. I felt a vague surge of embarrassment and disgust. The baby's mouth was on me. Suckling piglet. Very pink.

Tired, I wanted to go to sleep, but people kept coming in the room. My sister's husband, wearing a horribly loud Hawaiian shirt. I swore at him. I did not mean to. Words kept coming out of my mouth, as if all the pain had been stored up into expletives. Mother and father poked their heads around the door. I crawled back in the bed, my feet scrabbling against the sheets. Underneath me everything was wet. Blood was beginning to crust over my thighs and make my skin stiff. I felt curdled.

They took me back up to the ward. I was blurred. Some women said “Congratulations,” I just looked at them. I wanted to lie down. I wanted a cuddle. I wanted Matt. The baby was put into a fish tank and wheeled to the side of my bed. She was quiet. I sat propped up staring at her. “My baby, this is my baby.” She moved her head. Her hand was jammed up against her face. I pulled the covers down and looked at her body. Her legs wiggled. Her big toes stretched out from the rest of her feet. Pink. I touched the top of her thigh. Soft. My baby. I did not understand how this thin thing had come out of me. One minute we were fucking, the next he was in prison and a whole other human being was here.

Suddenly I was surrounded by nurses. They hauled me to my feet. A wheelchair arrived. I was taken to the bathroom. Shaking. Everything shaking. In the shower. Water. They peeled my gown off me. Cool water. Hot between my legs. I looked down. Blood pooled at my feet in large clots and angry streaks. I was crying. A nurse had hold of me, around the waist. She was stroking my hair. “I want Matt. Where is he? I want my husband.” I crumpled. They could leave me in the shower, on the floor, with the tiles. No more. Nothing else left to give. Empty. Soft belly. Something had left me.

Matron walked in, all breasts and navy blue. “Now now, perfectly understandable. You're not the first woman to have a baby and you won't be the last. Stand up so we can wash you. There's a girl. Legs straight. Lean against the wall.” I could feel her hands on me. “The special soap nurse, the lavender one. That's right. We've got you. That's right. That's right. Let it out.” She was in the shower with me, getting wet, keeping me standing. “It's alright. You'll see. It'll be alright.” She wrapped me in a big towel. I slumped down into the wheelchair. She pulled my head onto her chest. “A good night's sleep. It'll all look different in the morning.”

Desire's Grief

2006-11-20T13:36:00.000-08:00

Loss is not lost, rather it is an absence, a lack, a grief of indeterminable capacity and quantity. Desire only remains if it is not sated. Once desire is met, achieves its fruition, it can no longer want. How can you want for something that you already have?

Mother said “If you don't get married in white it will kill your father”. Do you know how many men have been inside me mother? Have you any idea of the cocks that have passed between my lips mother? I acquiesced and tried on wedding dresses for two whole days. Big ones, small ones, fussy ones, plain ones. It was as if she thought taffeta could cleanse me. It was as if she thought I did not want father dead.

I thought it ironic. I did not know what irony was. I doubt I could have articulated it. Irony was a mature thing. Irony knew how to apply eye-liner in the French fashion. Irony understood less was more. Irony did not lose her temper and strain to prevent herself from lying face down on the floor, while kicking her legs and screaming.

Of course, I did not tell him. He helped choose the wedding menu (steak). He agreed to the arrangements (I would stay at my parents' house the night before). He understood why it was appropriate that we have two, entirely separate receptions.

In my sister's bed, waiting for sleep to steal me, I asked her “What's the secret of a happy marriage?”
She said, “Good sex”.
Pause.
“And don't ever back him into a corner.”
Pause.
“And you'll have to forgive him more than he'll ever forgive you.”
Stop.

The next morning, dry because he had not left his love inside me, I ate chocolate yoghurt while staring in the mirror at myself. It was framed in white wood, carved into intricate curlings, stroked with gold detail. I looked at my face. Eyes clear. Skin unblemished. Lips slightly colourless. Mother appeared beside me. “I made this for you.” I took it from her. The fabric felt like cloudy promises, like when you don't know whether it is going to rain or not. “I sewed each bead on by hand.” It was beautiful. She reached up and put it on my head, obscuring my white-blonde mohawk. I had a bowl in one hand, a spoon in the other, and I was wearing a t-shirt and men's chequered boxer shorts. The cotton on my body hung slack, well used. The silk on my head made a contrary statement. Mother was crying. On the outside tears came out of her. I was crying. Dry eyed I looked at my reflection.

Family arrived. I was duly congratulated. Uncle Frank was there in his grey pinstripe, and Aunty Maisie, in her permanent grief, since Gerald slit his wrists and died in some far away bath. She could not save him. I missed him. He was conspicuous by his absence.

Tommy decorated the car, in white ribbons and balloons. When we drove to the registry office people stopped and waved. I signalled in return, like a queen. For one day, in one moment, while they looked at me, I saw hope in their eyes. 'Another fool, willing to make the leap of faith, perhaps we're not all stupid'. The bride being driven to her future. Blind faith in the face of hopeless defeat. They saw me, and I saw them, wishing and wanting that everything, always, could, forever, be alright.

When I arrived he cried. He stood there, in his second-hand suit and his Route 66 shoes, and he cried. I must have been a vision. He then borrowed the requisite amount of money from his brother to pay for the ceremony.

After it was over, when I turned around and looked at the guests, I saw mother, something falling out of her eyes and running down her cheeks. It was not liquid joy, flowing unchecked, it was pain. Her brow was crinkled. Globules of everything she had missed in her own life slid across her face, magnifying what was underneath them. I saw her creases, ironed in. I saw that she was wet washing in the rain, and that no-one had taken her inside. She wished for better, for me, for her, but somewhere, deep, the truth of the reality burned her. She had to cry. It was the only chance she had to extinguish the flames. I gave her a handkerchief. I had nothing else tucked into my garter or soul.

The reception was a disaster. Mother, anxious to avoid any connotation of introspection, did what the best of us do, she found that the best form of defence was attack. “When are you going to get a job?” she snarled at my new husband.
He faced her, not knowing her, and hated her.

Speeches came and went. Aunty Margaret got drunk, but Aunty Margaret always got drunk, no matter what the occasion. Matt's brother, as best made, made a few embarrassed stutters. Everyone 'Awwwwwwwwwwed' at his ridiculous attempts at humour. I felt pale in my sincerity, transparently transigent.

Glasses were raised, cakes were cut, presents were opened. After a while the scowled squabblings became more audible and difficult. What is a family reunion if not an excuse to drag all the skeletons out of the cupboard? People were flinging doors open all over the place.

“At Paulette's wedding father had sex with someone in the backgarden,” Rosie said.
“I don't want to know,” I replied, “I was only three. Why do you tell me these things?”
“You need to understand what sort of man he is.”
“Now? I need to understand that now?” Her husband guided her away from me, which was just as well, otherwise I would have ripped the wig from her super orthadox, tight arsed head and rammed it down her fucking throat.

Matt seemed to take it all in good humour, until later that night, when the dogs who were living with us ate all the remaining wedding cake and shat all over the house. The traditional punch up ensued, together with the obligatory police attendance and all round frayed tempers. I sat in a crumpled heap in the lounge, crying, watching the blood trickle down the door, where Wozzi's nose had connected with the clean, white paintwork. The following day Matt's father apologised and gave me a potted tea rose.

The marriage was duly consummated and the pregnancy test proved positive. I was happy. I wanted a baby. I was curiously unperturbed by my new husband's impending prison sentence. As soon as the pregnancy was confirmed I found myself with my head in the toilet. From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning until I shut them at night I was nauseous. I wanted to vomit. I suspected this might bring some form of relief. I retched for hours.

I spent day after day lying on the sofa, under a baby blue honeycomb blanket. I felt useless, limp and utterly exhausted. I had expected a joy at the growing realisation of our baby. Instead, a sense of illness and dependency dogged my waking hours.

Occasionally we went out, to meetings or Court. Because Matt had committed the crime in London he had to be tried in London. Unfortunately, we lived some 200 miles away. We travelled by coach, as it was cheaper. Backwards and forwards, once a month, for pointless adjournments. The prosecution kept changing the charge. It went from a relatively minor 'affray', right up to 'attempted murder' and 'incitement to riot' at one point, both of which carry a potential life sentence.

Worry gnawed at me constantly, like grit in my eye. I realised I had not thought things through. My husband may well go to prison for a very long time, and I had his baby in me. Yes, I had somewhere to live. The state would support me, once it had made a single parent of me. But what of our relationship. How would the child know its father?

Often we stayed with friends in London, before or after the hearings. One one such occasion, when sleeping at Sam and Dave's we were awoken at 3.00am by a wild eyed Dave. He had knocked ever so lightly on the door, then opened it a crack and peaked round the corner. I lifted myself onto my elbow, surprised at the sudden invasion of light from the hall lamp. He crept in and sat down on the end of the bed.

“We're at war.”
Matt woke up. “What?”
“We're at war with Iraq?”
“Now?”
“It's on the news.”

We went through to the lounge and slumped on the sofa. Watching the rockets and bombs, courtesy of satellite imaging, was like looking at a black and white firework night. There was nothing to say. We were at war. We could not understand exactly how that had happened.

The day of the final trial arrived. Matt had elected to plead self-defence, saying that he had only attacked the police because he, and the demonstration he had been on, were attacked first. There is something to the argument that the best form of defence is attack. He was well represented and had many good witnesses to speak up for him and confirm his version of events. The jury was having none of it though, and found him unanimously guilty.

We retired for lunch, while the judge considered the sentence. Although it had occurred to me that there would be a point of separation, it did not entirely land in my fuzzy head that this meant Matt would not be there. He was always so present. Now, he was in the cells.

They dragged him back out. We all stood for the judge's arrival in Court. I did not. We did not include me. I was six months pregnant, tired, emotional and feeling very stubborn. If the judge wanted to force me onto my feet he would have to get a Court official to literally pull me off my seat.

“In light of blah blah blah and the severity of blah blah blah and the erroneous representations you've made to this Court blah blah blah I find I have no alternative blah blah blah.”

When he said two and a half years I saw Matt visibly buckle and realised that, through this who performance, he had never, not once, shown any fear, until now. His face softened. His resolve dented, only slightly, like a shoulder taking the recoil from a rifle. He put his hand in his jacket pocket and called the guard to his side. The guard nodded and then approached me. Matt had passed his lighter, the one I had always really liked, across. I looked at it. Brushed steel. It felt heavy in my palm. Of course I would take care of it. Within a week I had lost it.

They led him down into the cells and then off to god knows where.

My friend took my arm and escorted me from the building. Inside, my head and my guts, a big hole had opened up. It did not have any colour, or texture, rather it was just a blank space that was producing blank thoughts, or perhaps it was swallowing all my other thoughts, gulping them down like a dog does with cheese.

We were in an underground station, travelling on the escalators towards the train platforms. I locked my knees to stop my legs from shaking. All those people, coming the other way, going up and out into the sunshine, all busy busy. They did not know what had just happened to me, or my husband, or my baby, or, for that matter, British justice. They were blissfully unaware. Probably some of them were thinking about their dinner, or that girl that they fancy in accounts, maybe whether they should wear the brown boots or the black court shoes to go out that night. Matt wouldn't be thinking these things. He would be sitting in a cell, on his own, frightened, lonely and wondering what was going to happen next.

I decided then and there that they might have him but they were not going to take me. They could have his body, for a while, but as long as I maintained my vigil on the outside then they would never have his mind. They could not steal anything from us. Sure, they could stick a spanner in the works, for a while, but it would only be a phase. They were trying to break us, discipline the revolution out of him, punish him for not being a good boy and letting the riot cops smash a demonstration off the streets. Well, 'Fuck 'em,' I thought, 'With their mighty Courts, their boot boys pigs and their unholy fucking wars. They could go screw themselves. Cos we've got something they'll never have. We've got love'.

The baby was kicking about inside me, almost like she was saying 'Go on Mom, give 'em hell'. I rubbed my hand over my belly, until I found her rounded rump. 'My baby. Our baby.'

After The Fire

2006-11-17T05:44:00.000-08:00

Prometheus was punished by the gods for giving humans the gift of fire. He was shackled on a rough mountainside, harsh flint at his back, carrion at his front, tearing the entrails out of him. Because he was a god himself he was immortal and, therefore, his torture eternal. They cursed him well. They curse us well. “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods, - They kill us for their sport.”

After the fire the local council, because they owned the building that had burned down, placed us in a hotel. It was a nice hotel, with clean spartan rooms, checked bedding, tea and coffee making facilities. I flicked around the television channels. Clean people, whose coiffured hair finished off their well fitting clothing, talked at me. I watched the news footage of the biggest tower block disaster Britain had ever seen. I saw the newspaper with pictures of me, taken on a long lens, being pulled into the hydraulic lift.

We only had what we stood up in. We were given vouchers and driven to a superstore. I bought some knickers. socks, a bathing suit, trainers, a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. We were driven back to the hotel. We went swimming. The cold, clear water washed my body. We were driven to the doctors. He prescribed Tamazepam. The little tablets looked appropriately innocuous. He mentioned something about post traumatic stress disorder. I did not understand what he was talking about. We were driven back to the hotel. I went swimming again. Under the water the sounds in my head were muffled. The density of the day and situation was replaced with fluidity.

At dinner, also provided courtesy of the local council, we had wine. It was a carvery meal. Joints of meat rested under vaguely yellow lights. A man with a big knife cut whatever you wanted. For the first few days this felt like a treat. After a week it felt like an imposition. I longed for ravioli or beans on toast.

I telephoned mother and explained what had happened. She was not in the least concerned. I asked if I could borrow some money. I needed a toothbrush, toothpaste, some personal toiletries. She said that I might, providing I came home to collect it. I asked to talk to father. He was busy. I screamed down the phone “I've nearly been burned fucking alive. Why can't you drive five fucking miles to lend me a tenner? What the fuck is the matter with you?” She told me to watch my language.

They turned up later that night, at about 8.00pm. We had just finished dinner. They did not know about Matt, that I was living with him, loving with him, and they were entirely unaware that we had decided to get married. In the lobby of the hotel I found mother, in her mink coat, and father, in his camel coat. Their shoes were immaculately shiny. Mother's mouth was pinched. All the skin around her lips was puckered into sharp, ugly lines. I wanted her to run towards me and gather me in her arms. I wanted her to be pleased that I was alive, grateful that I had not been snatched from her. She sat, primly, on the edge of her seat, looking at me over the top of her glasses.

There was a rage inside me, furious, boiling, licking and growling like the fire had been. I knew I wanted to punch through her windows and send smashing glass flying about. She looked so judgemental, in her American tan tights and perfect peach lipstick. But it was not bloody perfect. It was too orange for a woman her age. And she should not have been bothered about her lipstick, or her fucking fur coat, she should have been worried for me. I had nearly died, and all she could do was sit there smirking.

“This is Matt,” I said, introducing him, “We're getting married”. That wiped the supercilious smile of her face. She looked to my father. He rose and strode out of the lobby, the automatic doors swishing aside. Mother followed him. “Just sit down,” I said to Matt, “They'll be back”. But they were not, only her.
“Why do you do this?” she said.
I wanted to reply 'because I can, because you make me, because it doesn't matter what I do, or how I do it, you'll always think it's wrong,' but I did not. Instead, I looked her straight in the eye and said “You can't stop me”.
“Do you know your father's just been sick in the car park?”
“I don't care.”
“No, I don't expect you do.”
Father re-entered the lobby. “We're going,” he said to mother in a gruff voice, and turning to face me “We'll talk about this another time”.
“Can I have that tenner,” I said, holding out my hand.
“No you fucking can't,” and with that they left.

For the next few days Matt and me swilled about, eating and fucking, being not entirely sure what we were doing. Life seemed to have somehow become suspended in willing disbelief. We had no home, no money and no idea what was going to happen next.

We went to the registry office and booked the wedding. Walking through the underpass afterwards, the cars trundling over our heads, I wondered if every day was going to smell of piss and exhaust fumes.

The council offered us somewhere else to live. Within two days of moving in one of the walls collapsed. We were put back into the hotel. He had nightmares. He used to wake up screaming. I did not know which day of the week it was. Tamazepam made me feel ill, dozy and dazy.

They took us back to the flat. The burned out shell stunk. All the animals that had been trapped inside had been left to rot on the stairs for a couple of weeks. Death and decay hung heavy in the air. There was no electricity. The stairwells were pitch black, except for torch lit illumination. It was like being in a movie. Eleven floors up meant 22 flights. By the time I reached our landing I had almost been overcome by the stench.

Our front door had been kicked off its hinges. It lolled about, utterly defeated in its purpose. The carpets were sodden. As we walked through the hallway our shoes made squelching noises. “We had to pump water from the canal,” the fire safety officer said.
“From the canal?” Matt asked.
“Because the hydrants weren't working, they'd been vandalised. That's why it smells so much.”

Looking up at the walls I could see the tide marks. At a certain point the flat must have been filled with water. It had left a brown, ragged stain just above head height. Matt went into the spare room and I followed him. Scattered all over the floor were his precious books, soaking wet, pages welded together. Hundreds and hundreds of books, totally ruined. They would never be able to be opened and read again. He knelt down and picked one up.

“Take anything you want,” said the council official, whose discomfort was all too visible in his sweating brow.
Matt turned on him. “You fucking let this happen. We told you months ago, after the first fire ...” his voice trailed off. He turned the book over in his hand. He picked up another one. The council official scuttled away into another room. The fire safety officer followed him. I could hear them mumbling.

Matt crouched down onto his haunches. “Look at my fucking books.” He put his head in his hands and started to cry. I had never seen him cry before. I did not know what to do. I touched his shoulder. He took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.
“Let's go and look at the rest of the flat,” I said. He rose and threw down the two books he was holding.

The bed, in our bedroom, was drenched. A large puddle of water sat in the middle of the mattress, causing it to sag. The red duvet looked like an enormous, skinned animal, soggily dead.

It was better in the lounge. Everything was still soaking wet, but the books in the bookcase had somehow escape major damage. The fetid reek, however, was unbearable. Mould had already started to grow up the walls, in dark green-black smears. The posters hung their heads in some sort of shame that I could not understand. The council official and fire safety officer were standing on the balcony smoking.

And then I heard it, a feint miaow. Surely the cat could not have survived this? I ran in the kitchen, where the plates from our last meal were still festering. The liver and onions had taken on a terrible tone after two weeks. The peas looked wrinkled. I picked one up. It was bullet hard. I listened. No other sound. Walking over to the window I took a look at the city spread out in front of me. I remembered the first night I had done this. There were times, when I was bored, that I used to throw water out of this window. I would see it hit the floor, exploding dark grey patterns across the concrete, and then I would hear the noise. That is how I learned that light travels faster than sound. I repeated the experiment over and over again. I excitedly showed Matt when he came in from work. He laughed and hugged me and put his face in my neck.

Again, that miaow, louder this time. Part of the ceiling had fallen in. Could it be? “Matt, Matt, come here.” He wandered into the kitchen, pushing his hair back, shaking his head. “I can hear Kaya.” I stood very still, listening with every inch of my being. There it was again. He rushed over to where ceiling rubble decorated the top of the fridge and began to move it aside. Nestled, scared and shaking, right in the centre of this unmarked grave, was my cat, Kaya.

“Oh my god, oh my god.” She was so skinny and frightened. My natural instinct was to shove her inside my sweatshirt, to warm her up a little. She clawed at my chest. I pulled her head up so it poked out of the V neck. She was still wet. She shivered so much that I thought her bones were going to break. “Kaya, Kaya, Kaya.” Her little, bald face, from where her previous owners had burned off her fur with cigarettes, pushed itself into mine. She tried to purr, but her voice came out all cracked up.

“Are we all finished here?” the council official asked, strolling through the lounge.
“Yep,” Matt replied through gritted teeth, “For now”.
The official flapped around some papers on his clipboard and refused to make eye contact. Matt put his arm around my shoulders and guided me out of the flat. Kaya struggled slightly. The fire safety officer led us back out of the building. We were leaving as the dead woman's family were arriving.
“Could you not reach her in time?” I asked the fire officer.
He shook his head. “She wouldn't leave her cats.”
“Did any of them survive.”
“No.”

Love And Romance

2006-11-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

There is a difference between love and romance, but I do not know what it is. Perhaps love is circular, like an argument between two people who will never agree, and romance is the delusion that one day they might.

In any event, we learned to live on love and fresh air, because the air is always cleaner when love is in it. I asked to move in. He said “Yes, you can have the spare room”. I paid for the electricity to be re-instated, so we were not always sitting in the dark. He never threw me out of his bed. I never slept in the spare room.

His flat was immaculate. Despite having very little in terms of classy furniture, he made the best of what he had been given/scrounged/stolen. The lounge carpet was brushed daily (he did not have a vacuum cleaner). Dusting was done on a weekly basis. All ornaments were removed from the teak effect bookcase and replaced once both it and they had been scrupulously polished. The kitchen sink was not allowed to become stacked high with dishes. Food was eaten at a dining pine effect dining table.

It was the books and posters that captured my imagination. I had never seen so many. A whole archive of illustrated political activism was pinned to the walls. From the graphic images and headlines I learned about South Africa, the history of Trotskyism and the Cuban revolution. He had many books, some on shelves, but most of them were stacked, horizontally on top of each other, in the spare room. Matt was a kind of book orphanage. He wanted to be a collector, but lack of money prevented him from immediately achieving this dream. What he had were what people did not want any more, the 'surplus to requirements' tomes, the 'I can live without that' volumes. He gave them all a home and they were precious to him.

Two books in particular fascinated me, Marx's Capital, I and II. My Uncle Frank had told me that every miner, at least in Kirkcaldy, had at least two books in his library, Das Kapital and the bible. This could have been his old communist romanticism, but I do not think so. Frank was not a bullshitter. Having grown up under the same roof as mother and, therefore, necessarily as their father, he had somehow emerged as a conscious and caring individual. I was convinced that Frank would like Matt, and vice-versa.

Our lives amalgamated instantaneously. I had no thoughts of 'what if?' Unlike my previous relationships this one felt 'right'. We did not use any form of contraception, deciding that we wanted a baby. I was ready. He was ready. Being prepared to tie myself to this man for life seemed a natural conclusion of the love I had for him. Waiting and planning were deemed unnecessary. We were too caught up in each other to consider hurdles or walls and, in any event, love, like adrenalin, gave us legs and we could always build ourselves a ladder.

Since reading Anthony and Cleopatra, at the age of 16, I had been looking for a man who would fulfill “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch
Of the ranged empire fall. Here is my space.
Kingdoms are clay; our dungy earth alike
Feeds beast as man; the nobleness of life
Is to do thus; when such a mutual pair
And such a twain can do't.” I did not want soggy love, or the love that already knows its own defeat, through fear, or selfish concern. I wanted a love that was prepared to risk everything. And so we did.

On Friday 13 July 1990 the block of flat we were living in burned to the ground. The fire started at some time around 7.00pm. We remained blissfully unaware of it until about 8.00pm, by which time it had taken hold of one side of the building and filled the stair wells with toxic smoke. We wrapped wet cloths around our faces and tried to run down the stairs, only to be beaten back by choking fumes. We returned to the flat. Fire engines arrived, lots of them. Matt went out onto the balcony to wave and attract attention. At first the firemen ignored him, as they concentrated on tackling the blaze.

We were confused as to why they appeared to have no water. From time to time the jets spurting out of their hoses stopped. More fire engines came. Residents of the local estate started ripping the fence staves out of the ground, so the trucks could get nearer to the building.

Inside, I soaked coats, towels and other items that I could be used to block the gaps in doors. I started at the front of the flat and effectively sealed us in, working back through to the balcony. And there we stood, for nearly two hours, watching the firemen try and fail to extinguish the fire.

Smoke began to fill the flat and I panicked. The hydraulic lifts fitted to the back of fire engines are only designed to reach up to the ninth floor, we were on the eleventh. The fireman below shouted something at us, but we could not hear him. Matt produced a tow rope, blue nylon, stained brown from use. “If it comes to it we'll have to climb down the outside of the building, jumping balcony to balcony.”
“We're fucking 150ft in the air and we've got one rope, how the hell are we going to do that?” I replied.
“Do you know how to knot?”
“Yes,” because I been on various climbing courses when I was at school, “But there's no knot I can tie which we can undo from 20ft away. The rope's not long enough to make it all the way to the ground”.
“We don't have to get to the ground, just to where they can reach us.”

I looked over the balcony. The earth rose up to meet my gaze. I felt very very sick. The glass, further along, in the part of the tower block where the fire had started, began to explode outwards. Shards rattled down on top of the firemen who were still struggling with their hoses. Massive flames leapt out where the fire had finally found some air. They licked up the side of the building like a hungry dragon.

“Hey, hey you!” It was a fireman on a platform. His face was very dirty under his yellow helmet. “We can't get the guys in with breathing equipment, the building's collapsing. You'll just have to sit tight.”

I fainted. Matt slapped me round the face. I started to scream. “Shut the fuck up woman,” he said, “Hysterics aren't going to achieve anything”. I was shaking. Every hair on my head felt as if 10,000 volts had been shot up my arse. My legs were liquid, like mercury, spilling about. I thought of poison, it would be better than jumping. If I jumped I might not die on impact. All my bones would get rammed into all my other bones. Sharp points of broken bones would slice into my muscles. My own bones would become arrows inside my body.

The fireman in the platform was waiting. “Look, I've got some rope here,” Matt said, shouting above the roar of machinery and noise of burning and exploding.
“Tie it and throw it down,” the fireman replied. I managed a competent knot. The coiled rope was thrown and the fireman caught it. He tied it around his waist and half climbed, while Matt half pulled him, onto the balcony. “Hello,” he said cheerily, “Right, who's first?”
“She is,” said Matt, helping the fireman to untie the rope from his middle and then tying it around mine.
“Lower yourself gently, love, that's right,” Matt was practically pushing me over the balcony. Left leg first, then right leg, until I was standing on the tiny ledge. “Now you've got to jump out, push yourself back, and Gary'll catch you,” the fireman said. I looked behind me. Gary was balanced at the end of an extendable ladder, which was in turn perched inside an hydraulic lift.
“OK,” I nodded. Matt kissed me quickly and I sprang away. Gary caught my flailing legs and pulled me onto the ladder, guiding me down by my arse. I was shaking and crying and thinking I was going to to sick, but I was in the lift.

I looked up and Matt was performing the same operation. As he flew through the air, rope slack, arms back, knees bent, I wondered if he was going to make it, but Pete grabbed hold of him and pulled him down the ladder. The fireman on the balcony tied the rope back around his own waist and joined us in a similar manner.

The lift was sucked back into the engine, amidst great whirring. I could not take my eyes off the tower block in front of me. One side had almost completely gone. Everything was orange. Big, black clouds of smoke kept billowing out of the broken windows and floating off into the night sky. The smell was horrendous, acrid, not like a bonfire, more like burning plastic. It filled my mouth and nostrils.

We staggered out of the lift. I had lost my shoes. I think I left them on the balcony. We had been getting ready to go to a party. I was wearing a short black dress, with netting underneath, so it flared out from my thighs. We wandered about for a bit. It was chaos. So many fire engines and ambulances. No-one came to talk to us. We did not know what to do. I decided I needed a stiff drink and we went to the local pub and I drank cider, very quickly. My head spun.

“We're in shock,” I said, “We need sugar, chocolate, anything.”
“Alright, but we better go to the party and tell Pete what's happened.”

Pete was Matt's best mate. He lived on the thirteenth floor, but he had set off early to help set up the party. We were pretty sure that he was OK, because he had knocked for us and we had said we had to finish our dinner and he had said “I'll see you there”.

We left the pub and started walking. We knew where we were going, but everything seemed a bit confused. The whole world looked different. I went into a corner shop, to buy some sweets, and was surprised to see that they sold Kendal Mint Cake. I remembered this from my outward bound courses at school. Very high in sugar it is an excellent antidote for shock. We stood outside nibbling on this peppermint chalk.

Eventually we made it to the party, which was being held in the social club of a local mental hospital. Staggering in I think we made quite an impression. Everyone turned and looked at us. We were covered in filth and I was not wearing any shoes. Matt walked straight up to Pete and said “Your flat's just burned down mate.”
Pete looked up from his pint, still laughing at whatever was said before we arrived. “Come again.”
“Merryhill Court, it's just burned down.”
A shock rippled across Pete's face. Ben came over. He could see something was wrong. Matt explained what had happened. Two brandys arrived. I started to cry. Two more brandys arrived. Ben said we could stay with him. Realising that we were probably best sitting down in a quiet room, Ben offered to give us a lift. As I rose to stand my legs gave way and blackness surged over me. I came to on the way to the car. Matt was carrying me. I looked up at him. The street lights were reflecting off his glasses. He stashed me in the car and carried me out at the other end.

Ben showed us to a small room at the top of the house. Facilities were basic, a mattress without a sheet, two sleeping bags, a distinct smell that meant the room needed airing, but I did not care. All I wanted to do was take my clothes of and get into bed next to Matt. I needed to feel his skin and his arms all around me. I was desperate for something soft and flat underneath me, that would not move or morph into a big dragon of a threat.

I put my head on his shoulder. He put his hand on my waist. “Can we get married tomorrow?” I said.
“Well maybe not tomorrow, but soon.”
“Promise?”
“Promise.”
“Do you love me?”
“Yes.”
“More and more every day?”
“Yes.”

Blank Sheet of Paper

2006-11-15T08:56:00.000-08:00

Youth is a blank sheet of paper. As you drift into fully fledged adulthood it becomes crumpled and muddied, but it is up to you whether you write and draw on it. Some, feeling themselves coming into their power, choose to determine which path they will follow. Others follow the paths laid out for them.

Meeting Darren was a seminal moment, although no semen was involved. It was a college disco. I was miserable, having just been dumped for the billionth time by arsehole Antony. Actually, he did not so much dump me as repeatedly make our relationship impossible, thanks to an overbearing gambling addiction.

I knew Darren, but only vaguely. He was two years above me and majoring in Art. I was rather lamely following an English Literature course. I know I looked as if I had been dragged through a hedge backwards. I liked to display my unhappiness via untidiness.

I sat at a table on my own, clothed from head to foot in black, and scowling at everyone. This did not seem to put Darren off. He sidled over, pint of Guinness in hand, and said “Do you mind if I sit here”.
I did not answer.
He repeated the question.
I was amazed that he had not just helped himself, having become so accustomed to Antony doing exactly that.. I held out my palm, indicating that he was welcome to park his arse. Rather than attempt to draw me into conversation, Darren leant back in his chair, taking the occasional sup from his pint, and generally observed what was going on around him. This gave me a chance to study him at close quarters.

He dressed strangely, apparently always the same badly fitting black suit. It had a certain charm about it though and reminded me of French intellectuals photographed at the Parisian barricades of 1968. His ginger hair was shaved almost to his scalp. Scuffed Dr Martens were secured to his feet.

“Do you want to dance?” he said suddenly.
“Yeah, alright then,” I was about drunk enough.

Whoever was spinning 'da choons' obviously had a penchant for The Rolling Stones. I quite liked them myself. As soon as I was on the dance floor I realised this had been a massive mistake. I watched in horror as Darren merrily stomped and swayed, entirely on the off beat. It was as if he was dancing to a record someone else was playing, somewhere else. I let my arms flop to my sides and stood stock still, hoping he would get the message. But he did not. He was unperturbed by my behaviour and carried on regardless. In the end, realising I looked more of a prick just standing there, I began to non-committally move. After a couple of hours and a couple more drinks, I found that I really was enjoying myself.

Darren offered to walk me home. I refused. “Look, I got something for you,” he said holding out his hand.
“You stole the disco tape!”
“Ah, I'll give Nigel a copy tomorrow, he won't mind.”
I looked at it. 120 minutes of The Rolling Stones. Cool. I was not going to complain.

And that is how it started. I spent quite a lot of time with Darren. It was summer, often we would lie on his purple candlewick bedspread in his back garden. He introduced me to Tartex, Gil Scott Heron and anarchism.

The small cafe in Saltley seemed pretty unassuming. 'Vegetarian Wholefood' it said outside on its hand-painted sign. Inside it was cosy, with pine tables surrounded by mix and match chairs, pot plants scattered around various shelves, nice demi-punk music and a book corner. It was like being back at school, but without the teachers or the grey paint.

I can't remember what I ate, something sloppy and wholesome probably. I felt comfortable there instantly and, when I saw the sign on the wall asking for volunteer staff, I thought 'Why not?' Paul, behind the counter, recruited me immediately, said I would have to come in for a training session next Thursday, and that he was pleased to have me on board.

Dougal's, for that is what the caff was called, operated as a workers' co-operative. I had no experience of such organisations, but I learned quickly. Essentially, the ethos was that if you worked, then you were a member and entitled to say in what was going on. I loved it, the cooking and cleaning and getting pissed in the back kitchen on Friday nights, serving customers with vegetable crumble instead of apple crumble.

“What's that?”
“I don't know,” I said, staring into the bowl, so stoned my eyes were on stalks.
“It looks like a carrot,” the customer said, moving the offending article from underneath his soya ice cream.
“Ooops, sorry,” I was giggling so much I nearly wet myself running back to the kitchen, bowl in hand.

As well as food we served politics, of the anarchist variety, to anyone and everyone who would listen. The people around me fell roughly into two camps; the life-stylers and the class-based. Life-stylers seemed to think that we could change the world by leading by example. However, I was slightly confused as to how drinking Barleycup would bring down capitalism and defeat the military-industrial complex. The class-based activists made more sense to me, with their defence campaigns, Black Cross and street fighting actions. I joined them.

And so it was, that I ended up chained to law court doors, dumping cars without engines bang slap in the middle of town during rush hour and standing on a department store's porch roof, dressed as tarty santa, ringing a bell, and shouting “All prisoners are class prisoners. Free Martin Finnegan”.

Mother was so proud.

My parents were furious. They decided that it would be for my own good to withhold my grant monies. Father refused to pay my university fees. Mother said “If you move back home, and live by our rules under our roof, then we're willing to support you. If you persist in behaving like scum you leave us no choice.” As a family we had already explored these options with Rosie. She decided to become Jewish so that she could marry her partner. Father went berserk. He completely disowned her. We were not even allowed to mention her name. I gave my parents the traditional two finger salute and went and found a paying job.

It was tough, trying to keep up with college, two jobs and a social life. The amount of weed I smoked did not exactly help either. There were other drugs, most notably speed. I was up and down like whore's drawers. Had a cracking good time though. Did it all, saw it all, pushed it so far I nearly met my maker a couple of times.

Darren was still in the picture, introducing me to the ancient and mystical art of shoplifting, how to roll a foot long spliff and, most importantly, an appreciation for live Irish music. He was an accomplished fiddle player and on Tuesday nights we would go to The Antelope together. I liked sitting there, in amongst the haze of cheap fags, listening to the old guys give it some welly. Life did not seem so cold with a few pints of Guinness in you and a tune on your whistling lips.

One night we deviated from the usual plan. Darren wanted to go to an anti fascist meeting. I was not much bothered. The NF and BNP were all over Birmingham, and big fuckers they were too, I remembered from that time they had busted up the Troops Out meeting I was at with Antony. “C'mon,” Darren said, “Just to keep us company. I don't know anyone there.” So I agreed and we trekked into the centre of town.

The meeting was a shambles. The guy who was meant to book the room had fucked up in some way and we ended up all standing in a corridor. He was nice though, 'meeting room fuck up guy'. He had this very blonde hair, almost white in fact, a semi-mohawk, shaved into an exact point at the nape of his neck. I quite liked the look of him. I volunteered to draft a leaflet with him and we arranged to meet the following Thursday at Dougal's.

He did not show up. I spent an hour waiting for him, drinking bloody Barleycup. Paul kept telling me how unusual this behaviour was for the guy. 'Yeah right,' I thought, 'I should've known'. Then he phoned, Paul passed the message on, he had flu or something and could not make it. 'Well, at least he phoned.' I thought no more of it. I did not go to another anti fascist meeting. Life rumbled along as normal.

Mother, in a fit of pique, made sure when I arrived home on Christmas morning that everyone had already opened their presents. Mine were slung into a black bin-bag in the corner of the room. We had a huge row. At the meal table I threw my prawn cocktail at her. She was already drunk. I do not think she even noticed. Father made us all stand for the national anthem and queen's speech, as per usual. He made no mention of the Class War t-shirt I was wearing, nor did he allude to the three rings through my nose. After dinner I spent most of the afternoon smoking spliffs in the bathroom, standing on the toilet and exhaling out of the window.

I worked in a pub in Balsall Heath, which everyone called 'The Old Mo'. In common with most English pubs it was divided into two areas; the snug and the main bar. Mostly men drunk in the bar area, often accompanied by the old dogs who hung around waiting for someone to throw them a boner. It was pitiful really. I would have felt sorry for them if they were not always so bastard rude to the prostitutes who used to drink in the snug. I could never quite work out how those who accepted their payment in booze were able to consider themselves so much more superior to the woman who went for the straight cash transaction.

I liked the whores, mainly because they were honest. One in particular, this buxom, blonde lass, all frizzy hair and lipstick, used to tip me well. I did feel a bit guilty taking her money, being as she had to work so hard for it, but it would have been insulting to say no when she chirruped “And one for yourself love”.

Paul came in one night, with his mate, who was just about to start working there. I was surprised that it was 'meeting room fuck up guy'. I do not know why. Sometimes when you see people and then you do not see them it is like you are never going to see them again.

“Matt,” he said, holding out his hand to shake mine.
“I hope you're going to pull your weight around here,” I said, stacking the glass washer. Acerbic with a hint of cleavage. I knew what I was doing.

He was fun to work with, always cracking jokes, smiling a lot and did, indeed, pull his weight – unlike so many barmen who expect the girls to do all the work. I lusted after him, perhaps because of his hair, maybe his southern accent, or it could have been his silver cigarette case. He had style. “I smoke Embassy Filter because they fit exactly into a joint, you don't get any of those nub end left overs.”
'Now there's a man who's got a brain,' I thought.

It happened gradually, over a period of months. I was living with someone else, who was such a child that he thought posh nosh was adding curry powder to a can of baked beans, and Matt appeared to be gay. I think it was the pink tie dyed combat trousers and the fact that no matter how much I threw myself at him he did not seem to notice. Occasionally, as we brushed past each other, beside the till, my body would linger, involuntarily, so I could remain in contact with him for a few seconds longer.

The turning point came when I saw him rioting on the television. It was not what he was doing, although I found that interesting, more the expression on his face. There was a shot of him being arrested by two police officers, one of whom had a truncheon wedged under Matt's chin. I liked the way his nostrils flared and the veins stood out on the side of his neck. I was fascinated to note that, despite mounted police, missiles and his own precarious situation, he did not show one single sign of fear. I covered his shift without a murmur. I assumed he was locked up somewhere in London.

Three days later he turned up, with his cigarette case but minus his pink combats. We worked our shift as normal, every once in a while somehow finding an excuse to touch each other lightly. It is customary for bar staff, at the end of the night when everything is all tidy, to stay for one drink. I sat on a stool at the bar and he perched behind me, putting his hands on my shoulders, pressing his thumbs between my blades. I was tired. It felt good. I offered him a lift home. He accepted. In the car park outside his flat he asked “Do you want to come up for a coffee?” I did.

He lived on the eleventh floor of a tower block. Because he had neglected to pay his electricity bill, he had no power and, therefore, no light. I stood in the kitchen, looking out of the window, the city below twinkling in amusement. “So how are you going to make this coffee?” I asked.
“I wasn't,” he said, “It was a foil. Sounds better than 'fancy a shag'”.
“Yes.”
“Yes it sounds better than fancy a shag, or yes you fancy a shag?”
I laughed. “Both.”

Transitions

2006-11-14T14:45:00.000-08:00

Transitions happen in the blink of an eye. It is no accident we refer to breaking with the past. At that point, when something stops working, or morphs, there is the sense of immediate death. Dilapidation is always a possibility, but even then, eventuality will intervene and declare “No more. It is finished”.

The first one I met at a youth club. He had cropped, brown hair. He made me laugh. He went the way of everything ... nowhere. The second one I met at church. He was blonde haired and blue eyed, built like a brick shit-house and very shy. I noticed him and he noticed me. Neither of us knew what to do next.

Thank god for New Year's Eve parties and cheap cider. Big Ben struck midnight. He kissed me forever. Blue. His jumper smelled of him. A brief period of uncertainty followed. I was nervous to imagine outcomes. He wrote to me. I wrote back. We agreed to meet. I panicked. I apologised. We agreed to meet again.

He avoided kissing me for the next three months. I was only allowed to see him on Friday and Saturday nights. It had been determined I should grow up into a lady and, to this end, telephone calls were limited, clothes were scrutinised and behaviour was monitored. They need not have worried, however, because I was scared silly. I had no idea what to do with the hulking boy. I rather suspect he felt the same way.

After a while we got to know each other. Despite his vicious rugby playing exploits, he was actually a gentle young man. I realised I was in love one night, while sitting cross legged on my bed, clutching the telephone. We were talking about something and nothing. It did not matter. The important thing was that he seemed to understand my gibberish.

He called me “Dolly”. When I asked him why he said “Because you're a daydreamer”, then he picked me up like a child and pulled my pelvis onto his hip. He often carried me around in this manner, but only in private. Publicly he used to let me sit on his shoulders. I'd bend my knees so that my feet were tucked under his armpits. Secretly I enjoyed feeling the back of his warm neck against my crotch.

Our relationship developed. At 16 we were both curious about our bodies. Two years of heavy petting followed. Worried that God could see me, I religiously hid under the duvet. Obviously, I had not imbued the omnipresent one with the same abilities as Superman, until the priest confirmed that God did indeed have X-ray vision. I could not stop though. It was as urgent as the need to eat or breathe.

On Saturdays we went to the library. Surrounded by oak panelling and fine leaved knowledge we felt virtuous. Frequently we got lost in the philosophy or history sections. Books were our refuge. We had no interest in shopping. We did not care for vacuous socialising. We sat quietly, next to each other, combing texts for nuggets. When we found something we would read it out, leant up close, so it was half whispered in the willing ear.

We also visited the museum and art gallery. The big statue of Buddha fascinated me. It was golden and massive. Exhibited at the foot of a staircase, different aspects of it came into view as I climbed. Forever burned into my memory is Lucifer, cast in bronze and standing twice as tall as a man, his stiff wings defiant, his naked body inviting and exciting. I looked at his penis, rigidly nestling in amongst metal hairs. I laughed when they moved him into the cafeteria. I always chose the table next to him. I liked him watching over me while I drank tea.

I had a particular thing for the pre-Raphaelite paintings. The peaceful palettes appealed to me. Rosetti's Persephone mesmerised me for hours, time after time. I researched the myth, of pomegranates and snatchings. She was condemned to live half the year in the underworld, until eventually she became the queen of the dead. Her blue dress in the picture spoke of her maidenhood. A virgin, corrupted, who survived and defeated her deceptive rape to win a victory of sorts.

The inevitable happened, and because I was too ashamed to admit it and, therefore, use contraception, I ended up pregnant. I did not tell him. Not only did I consider it to be my fault, but also, I thought it was my problem to resolve. I had an abortion. We were both in the middle of our A Levels. It did not hurt and, once I had decided what to do, it did not cause me much grief either. I possibly should have involved him, because lying on such a magnitude had repercussions.

I went to college and met lots of new people. Stuart's 6ft 7” frame drew my immediate attention. He was as camp as nine rows of tents to boot. Ness became a firm friend. We had a thing about fancy dress and, it did not matter whether an event required it, we went along as Batman and Robin, or pirates, or Hindu Goddesses, complete with blue body paint and extra arms. It was Nick who really caught my eye though. He was tall, skinny and from somewhere “Dahn sahf”. He took me out on his motorbike. I welded the soles of my shoes to his immaculately shiny exhaust pipes. He was not best pleased about that. We got drunk together in his room and he would always end up in the cupboard above the wardrobe. The way he bent his limbs reminded me of a double-jointed escape artist.

It was only infatuation, but it was not fair to my boyfriend. By this time the relationship was three years old. I loved him, of course I loved him, but I wanted something else, Nick to be precise. I worried for days about how to tell him. It did not matter which way I tried to bend it, there was going to be pain.

“I'm sorry, but we've drifted apart/Andrew, I love you, but it's just not working/I think I need some space. I've just started college and there's a lot of new stuff ...”

Turns out I did not have to say anything. He opened the front door and I followed him into the kitchen. He leant his arse against the sink, facing me, smiling. I don't know what message was coming out of my eyes, but his smile faded right about the same time as he folded his arms.

“Andrew, I ...”
“It's fine. I understand. You don't want me any more.”
“No, it's just.”
“Could you leave, now, I'd like you to go.”

I let myself out. I did not see him for over a year. During this period I threw myself into excess and general debauchery. Nick did not want me, in pretty much the same way as I did not want Andrew, and Laurie did not want Nick, in an almost identical fashion. Failing relationships based on friendship I then decided to fuck anything that moved.

There was Luke, Jason, a different Nick, Steven, Andy, Simon, Steven's brother, whose name I now forget, four guys I did in one night, and I don't think I ever knew what they were called, John, another John, Christian, David, Kevan, etc, etc.

The sex was pretty useless to be honest, except in a couple of instances. Mostly it was just a case of validation. 'I exist because you're fucking me'. I even accepted money once. Not in a straightforward cash transaction, but Simon bought me a very nice dress. I wondered if I was a whore. I bought a t-shirt, it said “We are all prostitutes”.

I saw Andrew in the pub. Rebecca, times two (Briggs and Williams) and me were stopping off for a pre-club drink. He was with his new girlfriend. My instinct was to snarl. He came over, on his own, and knelt at my feet so that we were face to face. “How have you been?” he asked.
“You know ...” I scratched the back of my head, where hair meets neck, I always do that when I am nervous.
“No, I don't,” he said simply.
“I tried to call but your dad wouldn't let me speak to you.”
“Really?”
“Yes really.” I fiddled with a beer mat.
“Well it's nice to see you.”
“And you,” I answered automatically.
“Take care of yourself,” he said rising.
People only tell you to do that when they have got no intention of performing that function themselves. I watched him walk back to his girlfriend. She put her arms around him and shot me a poisonous glance. I shrugged and left the pub.

Antony's was our usual haunt. A soul club on the outskirts of town, it seemed to cater for the under twenties. I liked the music. I liked the atmosphere. I was pretty well known there. The tiny dance floor enabled an intimacy of sorts. It is nigh near impossible to strut your stuff to 'Sex Machine' without becoming entangled in someone else's personal space, when there is only a few square feet available.

I drank lager with Jack Daniels chasers. I hated the taste of both. I smoked Gauloise Disc Bleu. They made me cough. I thought I looked cool, in some bizarre way. I wore red stilettos, black, silk stockings, short skirts and crisp, white blouses. I tied my hair back in a severe bun. I usually had my horn rimmed spectacles perched on the end of my nose.

I would not go as far as to say I was popular, although my reputation preceded me, and guys knew that they would, generally, be able to get what they wanted at the end of the night. However, I was a good dancer. Trained in classical ballet I had practically perfect poise and a natural instinct for rhythm. I liked the way men looked at me. Their eyes give them away as helpless puppies. But I was never the prettiest there, if I had been maybe I would have kept my legs shut.

I was surprised when Adam turned up. Rebecca (Briggs) was delighted. For years, while we were at school together, she read my fantasy fuelled stories along with the rest of the class. Adam was the boy the next door, literally, but, because I lived a considerable distance from school, he had remained unknown. Now, here he was, in glorious technicolour, holding court, as was his wont.

'Crap, crap, crap, crap, crap,' went through my head. I knew Rebecca was going to call me on this one. Impending humiliation knotted my stomach. And what the hell would Adam do? We had barely said two words to each other, let alone enjoyed the torrid affair I had written about from the age of 13. Rebecca's smile was definitely malicious. She sashayed away from me and towards him, all gorgeous eyelashes, long hair and perfect finger nails. Half Portuguese and half English aristocrat, she really was something to look at. Shame consumed me like molten lava. I stood glued to the spot, until he called me over.

He dismissed Rebecca with a wave of his hand and she scuttled away. “Tell me you don't think that woman's your friend?”
“She's a bit odd,” I offered by way of an excuse, trying to hold something back that I could use as a possible explanation.
“She's an evil cow,” he said.
I blushed furiously.
“Do you know what she just said to me.”
“I can guess. Look Adam, I'm really sorry but ...”
He picked up my shaking hand in his and called the waiter over. “What you drinking?”
“Er, JD I guess.”
“On the rocks?”
“Er.”
“You better make that a double,” he said to the man with the tray. “Let's go and find somewhere to sit.”

Rebecca was looking daggers at me as Adam found a quiet spot. He opened up his arm, so that when I sat down I was pulled into his side. “You're a funny one,” he said, “How long have we known each other?”
“I dunno, since were about eight.”
“Right, so that's over 10 years.”
“Probably.”
“Since we were kids?”
“Yes.”
“I remember you when you were a kid. You were really bloody unhappy. Your parents kept dumping you off on your sister.”
“That's because they lived abroad.”
“Right,” he said, nodding in time to Wilson Picket's 'Midnight Hour'. The drinks arrived. I gulped mine back. “God, your mate's a bitch.”
“I know that.”
“And you're not. C'mon it was shit for you. So you made up a few stories. Who the fuck cares?”
“She does.”
“Well she's none the wiser,” he said winking.
I felt tears starting up in my eyes. “Thank you.”
“Don't fucking start crying. I'm flattered. Honest I am. Don't worry about it,” and with that he shielded me from Rebecca's gaze by covering my face with his as he kissed me. “Now go on,” I realised this was my cue to depart his company, “And do yourself a favour, get rid of bitch features”. He slapped my arse hard and I laughed from right down inside.

Death Needs Time

2006-11-13T13:13:00.000-08:00

“Death needs time for what it kills to grow in.” Slowly, always and forever, that endless march, that spinning wheel, that circular argument with life.

Nigeria was a maelstrom. It was like being picked up by a hurricane and dumped down in a place that bore no relation to reality. At the airport, black men with black guns, found me out and bribed father to release me. Their west African tones were clipped and frightening. I did not understand that they hated me because I was white.

We were driven 'home', by Ezekiel, father's chauffeur. The bungalow, where my parents lived, was part of an ex patriot estate. There was one road in and one road out. Armed guards arrived at night, tall and regal with bows and arrows. Father called them “The black watch”. One sat at the front of the house, the other at the rear, underneath my bedroom window. When they moved around their shadows were thrown against the whitewashed wall. It scared me.

Grace, the maid, stood in the kitchen, hands on her ample hips. Mother spoke to her and she laughed. She was always laughing. I could never work out at what. Her weight ensured that her feet were always planted firmly on the floor. They turned out a little. She waddled when she walked.

The gardener was called Chico. His brother, David, was the cook for next door. Chico was a little simple, but he climbed trees like a monkey. There were several in our back garden. A particular favourite was the paw paw tree. The fruits it yielded reminded me of soapy melons, with pale orange flesh. I ate them with salt. Astringency was required.

Plantain and sugar cane also grew in gay abandon, spilling about all over the garden. Chico cut me rods of the cane, with his big machete. He hacked down hard, pulling and twisting. I whittled the bark off and cut it into small chunks. “You chew, you chew,” he said. I put a chunk in my mouth. He nodded and smiled. Sweet syrup washed over my gums and tickled my tongue. I kept chewing, until the fibre of the cane was sucked dry. I spat it out.

Our house was surrounded by a concrete lined trench, about two foot deep, dug to drain the water away. I had never seen rain like it. It fell in droplets the size of oranges, and they were warm. As soon as it had started it stopped. I liked standing in it. Despite the fact it carried dirt and detritus it washed me clean, better than a bath or a shower.

The bathroom was my nemesis. I liked the word nemesis. Father heard me scream the first time I went to bathe. He shouted through the door “It's only a gecko, it won't hurt you”. The small, green-brown lizard had frozen on the side of the bath, its long toes stretching to enable it to cling to the plastic. I looked at it. It looked back at me, then started to bob its head up and down up and down. I squealed again. “Just get in the bath, it won't get in with you.” I hated the practicality of father sometimes. Easing myself in I made sure I kept the gecko in my sights. Little head, up and down, up and down. It ran away quite quickly, its long tail following it.

Reptile life, however, was preferable to insect life. One night, putting my dressing gown on, I felt prickles between my shoulder blades. I reached back, intending to scratch. I tensed when the scuttling started and howled when the spiky feet made it round to my belly. Father skidded into the room, across the white, polished, stone floor as I jumped up and down. “What is it? What is it?” he said breathlessly.
“I don't know, it's on me. Get it off me. Get it off me.”
“Stand still forgodake.” I was dancing around in horror. He ripped my dressing gown and night dress off. The biggest cockroach I had ever seen fell on the floor. It was brown. Its shell was very shiny, almost like mahogany. Father unheeled his flip flop and brought the rubber down hard. He missed. The cockroach ran up the wall. He did not miss the second time around. The insects shelled body exploded. Blood popped out of it and sequinned the stipple effect. A large smear was spread across the wall. “Christine. CHRISTINE!!! Come and clean this off.”

I put my clothes back on very gingerly. Father told me that I should check everything before dressing. I felt sick in case there were cockroaches in my underwear drawer. Later that night I found I could not sleep. I squatted outside the sitting room door for hours, hoping that somehow mother and father would see me and invite me in. I must have fallen asleep, because the next morning I awoke in a camp bed at the bottom of their bed. I was very grateful that they had not put me back into my own room. I did not have any flip flops.

Lying flat on my back I listened to the wildlife outside. From my vantage point I could see only the ceiling and the glittering white doors of father's wardrobe. He had a poem pinned to the front. Over the period of a few weeks it singed itself into my retinas and burned itself onto my memory:-

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or, being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with triumph and disaster
And treat those two imposters just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on";
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!”

This was who father wanted to be. I knew that. He spent his life working with wornout tools. He never breathed his loss. His will was his own. He understood what it was to have his dreams turned to shit. He had started again. It was the last line though, “You'll be a man my son!” that must have really cut.

Arthur White, father's father, my grandfather, was, by all accounts, a terrible man. A violent alcoholic, he had married his first wife, father's mother, for her money. He beat her. He abused her in the most awful ways possible. Father told me that he often “Heard her screaming”.

He tried to garnish fond memories of his mother, but she died when he was seven. There was this one time, when he was out playing with his friends, and he was overtaken by a sudden bout of diarrhoea. He ran home, shame faced, shit escaping from the legs of his shorts and dripping down his legs. His mother was in the kitchen, baking, he said “She was forever baking”.
“Leonard, what's the matter love?”
He rushed past her, to nowhere. She caught up with him. I expect, at this point, she was able to identify the issue. Rather than pushing him away, like a mangy dog, she took him in her arms and cuddled him.
“It's only an accident. Accidents happen to everyone.”

Father smiled a bitterly tight smile.

“After she died, he put the other two into the orphanage, but he kept me. Even sent me to school, 'til I was nine.” He brushed an imaginary speck of dust off his trouser leg. “Then I went into the mills. By 14 I was on fishing trawlers and at 17 I signed up for the war.” He put his head in his hands. “I did a dreadful thing, but it wasn't my fault, see.” Mother looked up from her knitting. “I had a step-mother. He only married her so he could get his hands on her shop. Drank it away he did, and he was always messing around with other women.” His voice went hoarse. “She got Doug and Elsie out of the orphanage, looked after them like they were her own.” He flexed his hand, forming his fingers in and out of a fist. “But he wanted shot of her, so he got her declared an unfit mother. I had to go to court and give evidence. I spoke up against her. I knew I was lying. I thought I was doing it for the best. I didn't know they'd put Doug and Elsie back into Dr Bernadoes. They never forgave me.” He got up and left the room.

I used to stand on the verandah, surrounded by the sort of vicious vegetation that can only grow in a tropical environment. Outside the city gates, in the bush, where civilisation was defeated by jungle, the trees stretched up to the sky, canopies fighting for space. On the tallest, that spread arrogantly, vultures would sit. I could see them in the distance, massively hunched, waiting. I knew they were scavengers. That they tore apart the bodies of the dead, no matter how rank, or how rotten. In places like Nigeria, everywhere in fact, there are always those who feed on the carcasses. They are sitting there, revelling in their patient virtue.

Hidden Moons

2006-11-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

Death is the most successful of stalkers. You cannot run from it. You cannot hide from it. No matter who you are, He will find you and persecute you with His gift. All you can wish for is that He is merciful, and yet you do not know the criteria to secure such a deliverance.

Sleep had yet to take me. The racket they were all making in the sitting room bent my ears towards them and away from intrinsic dreams. Father got me out of bed. My warm legs dangled against his sides. I was too big to be carried like this any more, but as he saw me rarely my age passed in front of him slowly.

He deposited me in the sofa. Mother took my hand. My cheeks were hot. “Darling, we need to talk to you about something,” mother said.
I blinked.
Father took over. “We need to make arrangements in case anything happens to us.”
Paulette smiled at me. Tommy smiled at me.
“Would you like to live with Paulette and Tommy?” mother said.
I was not sure that I would. “Are you dying?”
“No, no,” father said, attempting to comfort me, “But we will one day”.
I started to cry.

The conversation developed around me. They decided not only that I would be left to Paulette and Tommy, along with the mahogany hall table and two charming watercolours, but also, that I would live with them for the foreseeable future.

Father had secured a 'married contract', which meant mother could join him abroad. Her face looked upset. I wondered if she was so upset then why was she leaving. She never answered me on this point.

Paulette and Tommy lived by a big chocolate factory. On misty days the smell got trapped under the low hanging clouds and plagued our noses. Their house was modern, not very large, but full of love and clattering joy. Their two children, Christopher and Jasmine, were six and ten years younger than me, respectively. I was to go from being the youngest to the oldest in one foul swoop.

I shared a bedroom with Christopher. I had the top bunk. Like everything about Paulette's life it was sparse. The duvets were brown with white and yellow circles on them. A white-painted desk in the corner had a fold out chair. I spent hours writing at its sloped top. I liked the ink well hole.

The rest of the house was 'workaday', adequate but not opulent. The kitchen had a pine table, with two benches striped down the side. Wipe clean. A cork board covered the whole of one wall, and was decorated with various pictures, notices, etc. There was a small black and white television, hanging from a bracket. No-one ever watched it.

Cupboard were full of junk. Despite mother's meticulous detail to fresh is best, Paulette was one for convenience, mainly because both she and Tommy had full-time jobs. The biscuit tin was everyone's favourite. We were allowed two before we went to bed, along with a glass of milk, but I sneaked more. Everyone in the house was constantly at chewing gum. Paulette complained I sounded like a cement mixer, but I did not really breath through my nose, because of growths, so I had no option other than to gulp air with my mouth wide open.

The radio was the real star of the kitchen. It was always on, tuned to a local station or playing tape recordings. Paulette and Tommy's house was soul central, with the occasional stray into disco. No-one felt ashamed of dancing, so we bopped around the kitchen, singing, waving our arms about, laughing and generally having a good time.

Like most kitchens there was a back door, that led out into a small garden. Paulette worked hard at her garden. She liked it to look nice. She cared what people thought. Out of the garden gate was a big park, that went on for miles, past horses' field and down to a boating lake. I loved that outside space. Having lived in a small apartment, with cramped communal gardens, for a few years, I revelled in the freedom of having somewhere to go and be.

Lots of other children lived round and about. We were never inside. We roller skating, down the paved hill, that would occasionally jam against our wheels and send us sprawling. We skipped. We played cricket and football and a strange game called 'pile on', that involved throw and catch and everyone piling on. Karen Sketchley broke her wrist. Adam did not believe her. She was crying and everything. I walked her home. Her dad had something to say about that.

I found I made friends fairly easily here. It was slightly difficult, because I went to school quite a long way away, and they were all at the same school, but that was almost an advantage, because I had new things to say. Unfortunately, my school life was not very exciting and I embellished it. Similarly, at school, because no-one knew my home friends, I was able to romanticise my social life.

I wrote from very young age. I had little notebooks, that I could hide in my folded hand. In lessons, that were boring, I amused myself by writing stories. Every dinner time friends sat around me as I read my latest scribblings. Sometimes, they were pure fiction, but often I tried to pass them off as facts.

I had a particular attraction to a boy called Adam at home. He was very cool. His father had a beautiful, red sports car. I was not that cool. I wrote of him. He was my puppet. I made him do things he had never even thought of. He was my lover. He did not know that. The girls at school, who assembled to listen to my stories, thought my life was wild and very liberal.

At home I had certain responsibilities. I had to look after Christopher from 4.00pm until 5.00pm. I liked that time when we were in the house on our own. We ate chocolate cereal mixed with syrup. We played “Gymnastic Gym”. We tumbled about like acrobats. We rode rugs down the stairs like toboggans. I once searched through Paulette and Tommy's bedroom drawers, in an attempt to find something more interesting than 'The Blues Brothers'. I was rewarded with 'The Joy of Sex'.

Staring at the pictures, hand drawn and of people, notably the men, with long hair, I marvelled at their supple abilities. Everything seemed so easy for them. They were having sex, on paper, in black and white. They had no flesh or substance, except for in their furry areas. I was disturbed that the book seemed so brown and beige. I thought sex should be red and black.

Despite mother's holy disgust when she found my masturbating at the age of six, I had continued to do so, in private, secretly. My favourite method was to wedge a pillow between my thighs and lie face down in my bed, grinding my pelvis against the cushioning. I did not know what my clitoris was. I did not touch myself directly. I was never caught.

Paulette and Tommy were not particularly demonstrative. Mother and father were not particularly demonstrative. No-one ever held hands or told anyone else they loved them. It was deemed as unnecessary. Attitude and respect were held in higher esteem. I never heard Paulette and Tommy having sex.

One day, when she was doing the washing, Paulette found a calling card for a stripper's club in Tommy's pocket. She cried for a week. The club was down near the train station. I went. I wanted to go in. I could not. I stood outside and looked at the dilapidated façade. I thought maybe the women inside were perhaps as run down as the outside. I felt a bit sick. I did not know what strippers did or what the men did who watched them. Maybe they had the same jumps in their bodies as I did when I felt sexy. Maybe their stomachs felt like they were melting, like metal ice.

“We need some time alone,” Paulette said.
“Who?” I replied.
“Tommy and I. We're a married couple. Our kids are still quite young, and going to bed early, but you're always around.”
I did not know what to say.
“Can you go to bed at 8.00pm this Friday?” she asked.
It took two seconds for me to realise that I was not wanted, that I was in the way. Paulette and Tommy were not my parents. They had just taken me in while my parents were abroad. I was angry and upset. I cannot remember what I said in response, but Paulette replied “Look, you could of gone to boarding school, but I offered to look after you”.
“I wish I had gone to boarding school,” I shouted back.
“And cost mum and dad all that money.”
“I don't care.”
“No, you never do.”

I went to bed, as requested. Christopher was sleeping. I was not allowed to turn the lights on and read. I lay flat on my back, tears rolling down my face. I could hear the television in the lounge. Paulette and Tommy were laughing. I wondered what mother and father were doing. They were probably eating steak. The faeries had told me when I was little that if I wished for something hard enough then it would happen. I crunched my eyes up until my head shook all over and my top teeth were digging into my bottom lip. I wished very hard, but I did not know who I was asking to make my wish come true. I raced to the big, bay window and pushed the net curtains aside. Right up high, in the sky, was a twinkling star. I stared at it until it went all blurry. I wished and wished and wished, “Mother, I wish you were at home, please come home”. I looked at the star. It was moving, quite quickly, and closer to me. I realised it was an aeroplane and that I had just wished on a headlight. It flashed red against the heavens. I heard it pass over head, its roaring engines thousands of miles away. I got back into bed and cried myself to sleep.

Days continued to happen, one after another. I always knew what day of the week it was according to what we were eating. Monday, egg and chips. Tuesday, the meat from Sunday, cold, with potatoes and vegetables. Wednesday, salad with quiche/omlette/etc. Thursday, hot-dogs. Friday, fish and chips. Saturday, sandwiches. Sunday, roast dinner, meat and two veg.

Routine was very important. I knew where I was, in someone else's house, not part of someone else's family, but living by their rules and rhythm. I felt grateful and resentful all at once, as I shuffled along, according to patterns that did not belong to me, always at someone else's mercy, playing by someone else's time, trying to fit into someone else's life.

I looked at the moon. I knew I could only see one side, Pink Floyd had taught me that much. My life felt like that, as if only half of it was illuminated and visible, and that is was far away from me. I was watching myself from somewhere else. I think that is why they gave me the drugs, so I could feel like I fitted in, with everyone else, so everyone else felt like I fitted in with them. It is not that I was particularly destitute, more that I had begun to exist in books, either that someone else had written or I had written myself. When you have not got anywhere to be you create your own space.

God is Dead

2006-11-11T09:14:00.000-08:00

I cannot say, with any certainty, that God does not exist. Equally, I do not have the requisite faith to proclaim that he is alive, he is alive I tell you. I am reminded of Frankenstein and his monster. If only each of us could see the godliness of the other, be that a person or a concept. Surely the idea of omnipotence, the everywhereness of God, should extend to the human spirit. Not only is he all around us, but he is also within us. Jaded, confounded, blown side ways by draughts of guilt and frustration, we grieve for lack, absence. God is dead because we are dead.

And so it came to pass that I visited father, in his faraway places. The first excursion was to Kuwait, the land of deserts and pipelines. Father had borrowed a friend's apartment. Mother and I were duly installed.

Fahaheel was a small district. There were high rises, where the ex-patriot community lived, and low-rises, where the Arabs lived. Everything western was new. It would have shone, except for the sand, constantly whipped by the winds, so it coated and clung to everything.

The apartment itself was serviceable, if basic. The kitchen was long and thin, but with all the usual accessories; cooker, fridge, etc. I do not recall a washing machine. The sitting was sparse, but I had a favourite armchair, that was covered in striped beige fabric. I think I liked it because it was situated next to the book case. They were not my father's books. The man who the apartment belonged to was on extended home leave. He had packed most of his personal items away, yet the books were perhaps perceived as some sort of decoration.

A built in cupboard, along the whole of one wall of the room, housed the drinks cabinet. Kuwait was a dry country, adhering to the Muslim prohibition of alcohol. This did not stop the ex-pats. Liquor, in all its manifestations, can be quite easy to produce, and they made gallons of it. Date wine was thought to be a special delicacy. It tasted horrible.

Father took home brewing kits from England, and fastidiously kept a supply of rich, dark beer. One day, while we were sitting relaxing, an almighty explosion threw the cupboard doors open. Ale fountained out of the top of one of the bottles. Perplexed father covered what remained in a heavy blanket, in case the same thing should happen again. It was not until he was making his next batch that we discovered why his beer was so volatile. He consistently failed to measure his ingredients properly, substituting kilogrammes for pounds and ounces. Although this ensured that his brews were pleasantly sweet and, therefore, popular, it did somewhat raise the chances of explosions.

I do not remember my bedroom.

The bathrooms were positively space age. Formed entirely from a single piece of white, moulded plastic, they were like ablutionary pods, a la Star Trek. There were no sharp edges out pointed funnels, instead everything was curved. Windowless, they were illuminated by bright, recessed lights, that added to the space capsule feel. After use, I shut the door, pressed a little button, and the whole area was flooded with a disinfectant solution.

I like the smell of disinfectant, especially Detol.

From the apartment I could see right over the town. As sun rose, when all was still sleeping under a blue cast, the first prayer call of the day ran out from the mosque minaret. Tiny figures on the roofs below stood and stretched. “Why do they sleep up there?”
“Because it's cooler at night.”
“But we don't sleep on the roof.”
“That's because we have air conditioning.”

Mother and I frequently scuttled down to the bakery at 6.00am. Situated at the far end of the souk, we saw the queues from quite a distance away. We were always allowed straight to the front. The Arabs found my blonde hair and straw hat quite mesmerising, they even coined a nickname especially for me. I was 'the English rose'.

Hot, flat bread tasted delicious with melted butter. We also bought hard dough bread, that was sweet and dense. Father took sandwiches to work made with this.

Water took on a new significance for me in Kuwait. Dehydration can be a killer, so a large jug was filled every morning and put in the fridge. I had to have drunk it by six in the evening, otherwise I would not be allowed any “Pop”. Anything fizzy, that was not alcoholic, was called pop. For a reason I did not understand, Coca Cola was banned in Kuwait, something about factories in Israel. All other products associated with Coca Cola were also unavailable. I drank a lot of Sprite.

During the day mother and I followed a routine. After breakfast we shopped, wandering through souks, always receiving the utmost respect. Mother liked to look at the fabrics, that were ranged in glorious colour and texture, in the gritty stores. The vegetables on offer were foreign to us. Potatoes, it seemed, did not form part of the Arab diet, so we became accustomed to celeriac. Father did not consider this “Foreign muck”.

In the evenings, when he arrived home from work, he took us out to the gold souks. The old buildings were crumbling, but their windows, with their glass shelving and sparkling lights, were stacked high with glitter. Father knew one particular gold trader, and when we went into his shop he always offered us Sprite. After a few weeks of this ritual I realised that father's drink actually contained gin. I was shocked, because the guy who owned the shop was a Muslim. “Believing and doing, or not doing, are two completely different thing,” father said.

I stayed up late into the night, I could afford to because of the afternoon siestas. Temperatures reached up to 40 degrees in the shade at the height of the day. Despite the air conditioning it was still too bastard hot to do anything. As the heat wore off mother took me down to the pool. Splashing around in the water liberated us from the oppressive temperatures, but I still had to wear my sun hat and a t-shirt.

I did not make any friends. All the children already knew each other. I was only there for three months, so I was permanently on the outside, not part of the community.

Food was the real thrill in Kuwait. The Kuwait Oil company (KOC) had a club for expatriots in Ahmedi. As work canteens go, it was spectacular. We ate prawn cocktails, steaks and black forest gateaus practically every night of the week. Mother enjoyed this. It meant she did not have to cook. After 30 years of slaving over a hot stove, this was a welcome break.

Father took us to other places to eat. The Mariot Hotel was a big ship, beached just outside Kuwait City. Everything there was white (the tablecloths, napkins, walls, diners), except for the waiters. They were all brown and used to say “Yes Sir,” very quickly when father spoke to them. They nodded their heads and hurried about according to his orders.

At the Ahmedi club there was also a swimming pool, squash courts and various other leisure activities. On father's days off, that were Thursday afternoons and all day Friday, we went to the club and generally lounged about. When we first arrived I could not swim. I did not like the water. I found it difficult and deceptive. Father said it would hold me up. He even tried to show me by floating on his back like a big, fleshy starfish, but when I tried I sank.

“I've got you, I've got you,” he said, standing next to my horizontal body as I kicked and swallowed chlorine. He held the straps of my swimming costume in his hands, dragging it up between the crack in my legs, until I was so uncomfortable I was nearly crying. This went on week after week. It annoyed him that I struggled to lift both legs off the bottom of the pool. I wanted to swim, I really did, but the water kept pulling me down and covering my head. Eventually, in sheer frustration, he threw me in the deep end. Mother laughed. She liked the idea of sink or swim. “That's life,” she often said, shrugging her shoulders, when something horrible happened to me. Bruce, a friend of father's, dived in. His rough hands pulled me up. He was smiling, but I could see behind his lips and eyes there was a very real concern. For the rest of the day he played with me, in the shallow end.

Bruce was a joker. A draftsman. Father was his boss. “I come from a small town just south of Birmingham,” he said. I did not understand that he meant London. I did not have a grasp on irony. I thought it was a fizzy drink from Scotland, that made me tongue orange and my teeth each.

Once had got my confidence he taught me how to swim. I knew the principles. Night after night father would put me, face down, on the dining room table and make me move my arms and legs about. I felt like a frog. The wood dug into my hip bones. Bruce got me to understand that I should not fight with the water. I had to see it as a friend.

“Look, look at me,” I shouted to my parents, who were slapped out on their sun-loungers, under a yellow umbrella, at the side of the pool. Neither of them looked. We were meant to be going for dinner when I got out of the pool, instead I was marched to the car park and unceremoniously man-handled into the back seat. I could not work out what I had done wrong.

Once at home father began to rage. Mother was in the kitchen agreeing with him, while trying to cover up his snarling by banging pots and pans about. She had been looking forward to eating dinner, not cooking it. He went straight for the drinks cabinet and opened a bottle of pear wine, swilling it straight from the neck. I felt worried. I wanted to go and read in my bedroom. “Just sit there,” he boomed, lighting another cigarette. I slumped back into my favourite armchair.

Mother's face was twisted up. She threw the dinner on the table. What was on the plates slopped about. Gravy spilt. I made to move by father sprang at me and I shrank back. His face was millimetres from mine and he was shouting. I pressed myself further into the chair. His cheeks were red. His breath smelt of cigarettes and wine. He said everything so loudly that I could not hear most of what he was saying. He jabbed his finger into my chest. “You're a nasty piece of work you are.”
I nodded.
He poked me harder. “Shaming me in front of all MY men.” His circled the air with his arms. “I've been trying to teach you to swim for fucking weeks. What's the matter? Not good enough for you? Doing it wrong was I?”
“No, I ...”
“Oh shut the fuck up, you stupid little bitch,” and then he hit me and I banged my head on the book shelves. I tried to escape into the back of the chair, but he pulled me to my feet. I heard his belt coming off. It skidded against his trouser material. It sounded like an old man trying to breath. “I'm going to give you the thrashing you deserve, my girl, teach you a lesson you'll never forget” ...

And I never have. That day God died.

Mobeus Strip

2006-11-09T07:12:00.000-08:00

Mobeus strips fascinate me. I made hundreds of them once, so i could touch infinity. I felt like God.

I was not a naturally gregarious child. Finding my body awkward and my brain dyslexically unco-operative, I tended to shy away from most things. I liked horse riding, but a severe allergic reaction, to the beast and its hay, made me ill. I persisted. I wanted to be good at something, anything, I needed to find my talent.

Mutsy was a difficult animal. He wore a sheepskin nose band and was liable to kick people if they stood anywhere near his back legs. We got along. He let me sit in the saddle. He did not like to be ordered about. Heels dug into his sides made him wince and resentful. Pulling on the reins drove the bit into his stubborn mouth. Other riders made him angry and he constantly attempted to reassert himself with them. I was different. My fear of falling ensured I did not compromise him. I needed that horse to be on my side.

After several months he grew to trust me. He knew I would not hurt him or make him to things he did not want to do. He hated taking jumps. Prancing around was not his style. He was a galloper. A hedge was a challenge to be relished. And so we went out, to ride on the ridges of hills and look down on the sprawling city beneath us. I would point him in the right direction and he would pretty much do what he felt like. He had care for me though. His training had taught him how to carry a rider. I do not think he wanted to unseat me.

Sometimes, when we were galloping along, I took my hat off and hung it on an outstretched tree branch. I had to pick it up, on the way back to the stables, but I wanted to feel the wind in my hair. The helmet, with its robust chin strap, merely served to make me aware that everything needed protecting and that, no matter what I did, there would always be some sort of ties that bound me up. Mother would have said “It's for your own safety,” but I did not want to be safe, I wanted to be free.

“Knuckle down my girl.”
I felt less and less like her girl every day.
“Put your nose the grind stone.”
What was a grind stone?
“Hard work is the price you must pay for success.”
I did not know success was for sale.

I drudged on.

One day, out walking about on my own, visiting the large fish pond near our home, I saw a sign. “Wanted, friends, phone xxx xxxx.” I thought about that sign. I took mother to see the sign. She suggested I phone the number. It was a girl. She lived opposite us. She had friends, but her parents thought she should open out her social network. I arranged to meet her.

Felicity was a tom-boy, so much so that everyone called her Felix. About my size, but a year older than me, she was rather strange. She had very short hair, that was all wiry and prone to flying about on top of her head like fibre optic cabling. Her lips were brown-red rather than pink-red, and they were very supple. Indeed, her whole face was mobile. She was double jointed, and used to play with her fingers all the time, bending them back to form odd and grating shapes.

I liked her. From what I could tell she did not appear to judge me. She introduced me to her other friends, Robert and Stephen. They were brothers. Robert was fat and square. He was intelligent, but priggish with it, considering himself superior to everyone else. Stephen was athletic, with blonde spiky hair and something resembling a sense of humour. Felix fancied him, but she was 'one of the guys' and so it was never going to go anywhere.

We sat around in each other's houses, well, not mine, because the apartment was small, drinking coca cola and chatting. After about three weeks I found I was rather bored of the boys. They always seemed to want to do most of the talking and decide what Felix and me should be doing. It was tiresome. I had no desire to replace the bossiness of mother with an infantile man, so Felix and me left them to it.

Back at her house we played 'Risk', a game of strategy. We had three armies each and moved our men around the board according to throws of the dice. It went on for hours, and in the summer holidays, sometimes days. We played cards as well, gin rummy, trumps, rudimentary poker – which her older brother taught us.

I had never had a friend like Felix before, someone I could rely on and trust. She was not bitchy. We did not gossip. We went to different schools, she had passed her 11 plus, and so we did not know any of the same people. We were not trying to impress anyone. We just sat around, being who we were. We never ran out of things to say.

Her parents were communists. The had a big, red flag, with a hammer and sickle on it, hanging in their hall way. Like mine, they were quite old. Unlike mine, they were also quite Jewish. They did not seem any different to most old people. They would try and engage me in conversations about things I did not understand or find interesting. Sometimes, when I stayed for tea, they started going on about apartheid at the meal table. I did not know any black people. Everyone was starving in Africa. I had no idea what they were on about.

Quite a few of my 'firsts' were achieved with Felicity. I went to town with her, and without mother, first. That was a significant day out. Birmingham city centre is big. The stores took on a whole new meaning without an adult insisting that I defer to their preferences. Mother gave me £2 and I spent it all. I came home with a bag of 'things' from a haberdashery shop; ribbons, textured buttons, a square of pink and black checked fabric, some tiny, brass cat bells ...

While walking in the woods near home we found a mangled copy of 'Razzle'. It may have been well thumbed, I don't know, because it had been lying on the ground for a while and was heavily crumpled. We turned the pages over incredulously. Those women, holding themselves all open, so I could see their insides. It made me feel quite sick, but I did not stop looking. I wondered if I was going to look like that, when my breasts finally grew. I was not sure that's what I wanted. Something about it, the tone, the shapeless identity, reminded me of liver on a cold butcher's slab.

Felix was a girl guide, which I thought was funny, because she was so ungirly. She was always asking me to go along, but mother could not manage to collect me afterwards, being as the time clashed with the screening of her favourite soap opera. Too shy to ask for a lift from Felix's father I refused to go for weeks on end, until Felix broke both her wrists and my help was actually required.

It had been passed down to me, by my parents, like a second hand piece of furniture, that asking for favours was akin to saying 'I am weak and I need you'. I do not know why it was seen as such an admission of failure, but it was strictly forbidden, because it did not reflect well on them. One had to be able to stand on one's own two feet. Dependence, in any form, revolted them.

Felix's dad drove us in his VW camper van, a Devon conversion, bright orange. Her old brother called it 'the hippy mobile'. It was like the jaffa version of the Scooby Doo van. I loved guides, right from that very first night. Held in a church hall, there was plenty of space for us to run around and make noise, and all the adults were there just for us, to enable us to do things. They listened to me when I spoke and encouraged me to try new activities.

I remember standing in the car park, on an autumn night. The Guide leader, a blonde haired woman of 30 or so, lit a fire, a real one, properly, using tinder, kindling and then logs. I had never seen a real fire. I did not understand how this basic element worked, or how to control it. Then we stared up at the stars and she told us which was which and traced the constellations for us in the night sky. Later we cooked marshmellows in the fire, thrusting them on the end of sticks that we had whittled into a point.

I went week after week, joining Felix's patrol. We were thrushes and all had badges of rather dull brown birds sewn on our uniforms. There was the opportunity to gain achievement badges. You had to learn a skill, or reach a certain standard, and then you would be awarded the badge. The one I enjoyed the most was 'fire fighters'. For six weeks we went along to our local fire station and a fireman, called Gary, guided us through the basics. I learned that smoke rises, so you should always get as close to the ground as possible, and that if you are trapped in a burning building you should get to a room that is not on fire, shut the door, and lay towels, coats, anything that comes to hand, around the door to stop the fire getting in.

There was a practical section to this course as well. We got to hold the fireman's hose. They are very heavy and when the water comes through it throws you backwards with the force. And we went up in an haudraulic fireman's lift. We slid down the pole at the station, except I was not very good at that, because my hands are quite sweaty and I was a bit scared, so I clung on too tightly and made an horrible squeaking noise all the way down. Great fun. I liked the firemen and their engines were the best. Massive machines built for a specific function. For a while after that, though, I was worried the apartment would burn down, because mother was always dropping her cigarette down the side of the sofa, or leaving pans on the stove while she went out of the kitchen.

I'm not entirely sure mother liked my new found independence. With father away, and now the two older sisters had left home, I was all the company she had. It was not particularly hard being around her, mainly because she had very little to say for herself, but I generally felt like I would rather be anywhere else except home.

The tiny apartment cramped me. If I was in my bedroom I could hear her in the lounge. It always felt like she was coming through the walls. I liked Saturday afternoons, however, when he stayed indoors, usually in the winter months, and watched the matinee on BBC2. Black and white films were my favourite, with Bette Davis, or Katherine Hepburn, or Grace Kelly. Everything looked so clean and certain in black and white. And shiny. It was like watching the world the way it was meant to be.

We were allowed to cry watching the films. Mother and me gave each other special permission. It was what the films were for. You were not watching them properly unless you were crying. It was permitted because it was not selfish. We would be crying for other people, their tragedies and their successes. And they were always successful in the end, overcoming all the odds to get to where they wanted to be, or were meant to be. Justice prevailed. Truth was outed. Love won the day.

I much preferred Saturdays to Sundays. I did not like going to church. Death stalked the aisles. Fear was in everyone's features. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was God,” the priest intoned. We knelt down. We stood up. We sat down. Up, down, up, down, up down, for nearly two hours.

He browbeat us. He made me feel like everything was grey. Reading from the prayer book we mumbled our creeds. Singing we staggered through the hymns. There he was at the front, knowing everything, telling all the sheep assembled to listen exactly what they should think.

He threatened us. Small things were made big and big things were made irrelevant. I could not escape. God was everywhere, but not in me.

I had to beg for forgiveness.

Mary smiled down, but it looked like her mind was somewhere else. Jesus hung from the cross. He seemed defeated.

Star Trek made more sense, at least they were happy and allowed to ask questions. Their phasers made a pleasing sound. “Space, the final frontier ... boldly going where no man has gone before.” I wanted to do that, go on and on forever, finding new things, but instead I was stuck in this church, being told that I was a sinner, that I was born a sinner and I would die a sinner. Why did we have to ask God not to lead us into temptation? If he loved us so much why did he keep trying to trick us? It's like he did not really want us in his heaven.

Heaven. The sky is blue and then there is the blackness of space. It is infinite, with so many stars and planets. Somewhere out there is probably another life form, but they are sure to look different to us. I wondered if they had their Jesus. I did not have mine.

This Ain't Kansas Toto

2006-11-09T07:11:00.000-08:00

There is something magical about 'The Wizard of Oz'. It is a technicolour dream. One that comes round on a yearly basis, usually at Christmas. Dorothy is obscene, with her big breasts and bright, red lips. A young girl trapped in a woman's body. I can identify with that

'Big school' was upon me, like a snarling lion. Everything there was in mammoth proportions compared to my primary school. The toilets, for example, were full sized. The hall was enormous. The canteen was a riotous area filled with gossip and bad behaviour. We were allowed to choose our own food. I was not allowed to choose my own food. Mother made me a packed lunch.

It had been decided that I attend an all girls school. This was a better educational environment. Boys equalled distraction. I had failed my eleven plus, so entrance to grammar school was denied to me. I was simply not good enough. Mother wrung her hands. My reading age was so high. I must have made mistakes in the test. I must not have read the questions properly or formed my answers correctly. She had tutored me, for months on end, prior to me sitting the exam. She took my failure as some sort of personal insult.

School was not very far from where I lived. I was thrust out of the house at 8.10 every morning, not a moment sooner or a moment later. I had a bus to catch. I was not permitted to walk. Mother could not drive me. She had never passed her test. This was due to father's poor teaching method. He used to take her to a disused airfield once a week and shout at her. Frazzled, she decided she would rather walk everywhere.

I arrived at school in good time. I was never late. Punctuality was a virtue, similar to virginity. The uniform regime was strictly enforced. Skirts were to be knee length, not above the knee, not below the knee, but on the knee. At the beginning of every term we knelt on our desks so our form tutor could check the length of our skirts with a cursory glance. Blazers had to be worn from autumn until after the Easter break. They matched our skirts. Cornflower blue. I had never seen a cornflower. Apparently, they are blue. White shirts. Ties, navy blue with gold and white stripes. Navy blue V neck jumpers.

Make-up was strictly forbidden. Any girl found to be wearing make-up was sent to the science labs immediately, where it was removed with acetone. Similarly, nail varnish. Jewellery was allowed. Two small studs, or sleepers, one in each ear, and a crucifix. Fortunately, we were all Catholics, good catholic girls, supposedly.

When moving between lessons silence had to be maintained, at all times. We shuffled along, like mute cattle. If travelling north, we walked on the left, on the right if southward bound. There were two staircases, one at each end of the school. You went up one and down the other. You did not deviate from this dictate and cause a rugby scrum. That would be very unladylike and earn you a tongue lashing from the headmistress, Miss Brown.

Scrupulous politeness was required at all times. When a teacher entered the classroom we stood. “Good morning Miss Whoever,” we said parrot fashion, except if it was after lunch, then we said, “Good afternoon Miss Whoever,” except if it was a male teacher, then we said “Good morning/afternoon Sir”. We were not allowed to call a male teacher by his name. I don't know why. And the standard response was “Good morning/afternoon girls”.

Straitjacketed by rigid discipline was an advantage. Routine is everything to children. If you know where you are then you know what you are doing. Inconsistency breeds a chaos that, if left unchecked, causes things to breakdown. Children like boundaries, as long as they are not barriers. Clearly defined boundaries allow the child to understand what their role is, how they are expected to behave, and what the consequences will be if they misbehave. And boundaries have to be fixed. It is no good if they are jelly. A child has to run into a wall in order to stop, not get swallowed up by gelatinous authority. Negotiation was not an option. We were told who, what, where, how and why. The rules were not arbitrary. They served a purpose. We were made aware of this.

Consequence is everything. If this, then that. Do your homework, or else you will be in detention. Do not abuse the canteen privileges, because you will barred. Clear definition was one of the strengths of my school, however, I still managed to get it wrong.

There was this one time, when Penelope Somebodyorother, deserved a good slapping, and I gave it to her. The previous day, walking home from school, she had laughed at me, at my clothes, my general demeanour. She humiliated me. At registration the following morning, as she was leaning, head first, into her locker, I jammed her head between the two metal doors. She struggled. I smashed the doors into the side of her skull. She started crying. I felt very hot. I had not really thought the whole thing through.

“What on earth did you think you were doing?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not an answer,” said Miss Miles, thundering down on me from her desk.
“I'm sorry.”
“That's not an answer. What were you thinking?”
“I wasn't thinking Miss.”
“Why weren't you thinking?”
“Because I was angry Miss.”
“Yes, well, you see the problem then.”
“Yes Miss.”

To be honest, I could not really see the problem. If you are angry then you hit out. This is how it worked at home. At first there was sniping, closely followed by shouting, then the resolution would arrive when he hit her, or she hit me. It was a pattern. I could trace it along with my finger. It repeated. I understood the whys and wherefores. Consistency is everything to children.

Other people did not think like this. There seemed to be issues around communication. Apparently, it was possible to talk through how you felt. Why? How you were feeling bore no relation to the other person. They continued being in their space. Nothing I ever did could intervene.

One night, when they thought I was asleep, there was a terrible fight. Rosie came home, as she often did, to raid the cupboards and biscuit tin. Mother asked her some questions. Rosie did not answer them to mother's satisfaction. Voices were raised. I heard doors slamming. I crept out of bed. Quietly, from bedroom to hall way. Tiptoeing through the sitting room. Shhhhhhhhh. There they were. Mother looked quite flushed, through the crack in the kitchen door. She was moving her arms around as she spoke. Rosie had her back to her. Mother shouted. Rosie shrugged. Mother shouted again.

“He's a married man!”

Without apparent warning she removed one slipper. She had nice slippers, black, with feathers and diamanté on the front and little, pointy heels underneath. Despite the fact that she had feet like old moo cows, her slippers were gracious.

“Did you hear me?”

Rosie had heard her.

Mother launched herself across the kitchen, slipper in hand. Rosie ducked and covered her head, but it was no use, because there were gaps. One, two, three, four, five, and Mother was hitting home, holding the toe of her slipper, smashing the heel into Rosie's head. Father had told me that was the most efficient way to break something. “If you're ever in a fire, look at the window, usually they'll be double glazed or strengthened glass. Hit it hard, not in the middle, people always make the mistake of going for the middle, hit it at the corner, with the heel of your shoe, hard as you can.” This is what mother was doing to Rosie.

I went back to bed.

I heard her in the bathroom, Rosie, about 10 minutes later. She was crying that quiet cry, when all you hear is sniffing. Sliding out from under the covers I went to her, remembering Rive Gauche and the cancan girls.

“It's nothing. I banged my head. Left the cupboard door open. Caught it right on the corner.”
I watched her blood swilling down the plughole. It had seeped into her finger prints. She wrapped a towel around her head and made a turban. She washed her hands. Within seconds everything was white again, all white, alright.

Tommy arrived. Mother was sitting in the kitchen, on the stool with the fold out steps. She was wiping her nose quickly and her eyes were pink. Tommy and Rosie left. I knew they were going to the hospital, but I did not say it. In our house, if you said something then you made it real. Lots of things could happen, but as long as you did not talk about it, and it stayed all sealed up inside, then it was as if it was imaginary.

Events were like dreams. They happened somewhere else, in a murky space that was neither night nor day. Dream time was not real time. You could not remember your dreams. They were other, not like shepherds pie or the television licence. Dreams were nonsensical flights of fancy. Then this happened, then this happened, then this happened, and I woke up and it was all a dream. But I was not asleep. I convinced myself in the end. Mother would laugh, “Such an imagination”. Tommy called me 'little dolly day dream'. Sometimes he sang the whole song. “Pride of Idaho”. I did not know where that was, or why anyone would be so proud.

School was kind of fun, particularly as I had no idea what fun was. One year the whole class decided to do the 'walkathon' for charity. It was like a marathon, but instead of running, you walked, 26 miles, all day long, around the outter ring road of Birmingham. Being a bit of a show off I said I would do it in fancy dress. I scrounged the only thing I could find, a flame coloured tutu, and eagerly awaited the big day.

I got up early. The assembly point was at the boys' school opposite ours. We had to register, get our number badges, and set off by 9.00am. I went into the bathroom, that had a pale blue suite. Half asleep I sat on the toilet. In a daze I wiped myself. The tissue felt hot and very wet. I looked at it. Pressed into my fingers, so I could see the ridges, was a wad of blood red. I was surprised at the amount. If it had been a wound I would have thought I was bleeding to death. I knew what is was, of course I did. My sister, Paulette, had even provided me with a packet of sanitary towels, that I kept in my bedside table drawer.

I washed my hands. I got the sanitary towels. They seemed thick. I stuck one in my pants. Between my legs a wodge. I felt it against the top of my thighs, in the golden triangle. It filled up the space. I was damp and squishy. I worried that I might smell. I changed into my tutu. It was tight and squeezed the pad right up against me. I felt safer that way. My costume was crimson, with the occasional lick of orange and yellow. I put my hair in plaits. I painted roses into my cheeks. I pouted at myself in the mirror. My face looked young, oddly caroused by the stage make-up. I dared not even touch my cunt, let alone look at it. I felt like I had been cut in two. My head, still a child, but I was leaking the truth. I was a girl, stuck in a woman's body.

You Can't Hold Back The Sea

2006-11-08T05:20:00.000-08:00

Every day life ebbs and flows. You can't hold back the sea. Trick is to learn to swim.

The call was unexpected. I was in the garden. Tommy, my brother-in-law, came out to tell me. It was a dull day. Spring before it has sprung is like snow greyed by traffic.

It was a secret. I rushed inside. The apartment was buzzing. Mother was hurriedly shoving small, squares of carpet under the corners of furniture. Father had this thing about dents. They had both worked hard all their lives. They looked after what was theirs.

“Two hours!” Tommy would collect him from the station. There was not enough room in one car for all of us. I tried to help, but I think I just got in the way.

When he came through the door, suitcase first, I did not know where to put myself. Mother rushed forwards. He swatted her aside. In the dim hall way he looked kind of orange. His hair had gone white blonde. He did not drop his bags and scoop me up, but I could see he wanted to. His eyes were fixed on me. I was somewhat embarrassed under his gaze. At that moment the others were plainly aware of his favouritism.

I had always been his “Little chicken wing”. If I pulled his index finger he farted. He let me drink his beer, Newcastle Brown Ale, from his tankard. It used to come down my nose. It tasted like stale vinegar. I could not understand why anyone would elect to drink that stuff.

Come in, come in, come in. Sit down, sit down, sit down. He was on the sofa laughing. Everyone was relieved that he was home. Without him we were like a rudderless ship. We needed to be told that pictures hung on the wall “Skewiff', stupid people had to be described as “Maffy Muck” and mother needed to be called “Woman”, with just the right amount of aggravation mixed with long suffering gladness.

He opened his suitcase. There was not much in it, a few safari suits (beige) and pairs of desert boots (beige), but there were lots of presents. He pulled out a prayer mat. What a strange object. “They kneel on them, always facing Mecca, five times a day.”
“Where's Mecca?”
“In Saudi.”
“Oh.” I did not remember seeing anyone in Lawrence of Arabia kneeling on a prayer mat.

“This is for you.” I can't remember what it was. It was not mine in any event. “And this is for you.” Something else for someone else. “And you ... And you ... And you.” After 15 minutes laps were filled with gold. I had never seen gold like it, so yellow. Not that pale insipid stuff that jewellers sell, no, this was real gold, shining like the sun.

“Why is it so yellow?” I asked.
“Because it's almost pure. Absolutely pure gold is 24 carats. Here we usually get nine carats, which means that 15 carats out of every ounce is mixed with something else. There's more of another metal, or a compound, than there is of actual gold. This is 18 carat, so there's only six carats of alloy.”
“Wow.”

Father always answered my questions. It did not seem to bother him that they were many and varied. “Why is that carrot a funny shape? Where does coal come from? How do planes fly?” He knew. It did not make him feel uncomfortable. He could address my frantic interest. Mother had no idea. It was not within her remit. She understood how to cast stitches onto a knitting needle and at what temperature roast beef was to be cooked. She was an expert in so many areas. On special occasions she ragged my hair, carefully wrapping it round strips of material and then the fabric back on itself. In the morning I had beautiful ringlets. Icing cakes was her real forte though. What mother could not do with a royal icing, glacé cherries and some small, silver balls was not worth doing.

The gifts continued to flow. Tommy stood in the middle of the sitting room modelling a thobe and skull cap, along with leather flip flops. He was quite a swarthy guy anyway, and dressed up in this garb he looked Egyptian. The scattered gold added to the illusion. It reminded me of Tutankhamen and his famous death mask.

Then it was my turn. A ring, bright yellow with a big, pink stone. “Is it a ruby?” I gasped.
“No, just coloured glass, but it's pretty.” It was. I slid it onto my finger. It fitted. Father held out his two hands. Both were folded over. His big knuckles were winking at me. I had to choose which hand. He often did this

“A bracelet!” It was beautiful, circular, and the engravings made it flash in the light. I ran my fingers over it. The edges were scalloped, like a pie crust, the gold looked as if it had been pressed in by faerie fingers. There was a repeating pattern on the band. One flat, highly polished square, then a line drawn star burst. It went round and round.

“Put it on then,” father said. It was just the right size. The gold looked funny against my pale wrist. The only bracelet I had ever worn before was my silver christening band, and I had grown out of that years ago, so it had been cut off. I kept it in my jewellery box. Where the sharp pincers split it the edges were ragged. For a long time I wished that it still fitted me, but mother said it was “A baby thing,” and should be “Put away, along with your teddy bears”.

I wore my new bracelet all day. At bedtime mother wanted me to take it off and I objected. I needed to feel it on my wrist. Father had been half way round the world, and back, so it was good if I could hold onto that. It was like his journey had been made all small and manageable. I could hold it in the palm of my hand. I could see it decorating my body. It did not matter any more, that he had not been here, because now he was, and it all fitted together.

“You must put it in your jewellery box,” mother said.
“Please, can't I keep it on, just for tonight?”
“No. You might lose it.”
“I promise I won't. I'll just be in bed. If it comes off it won't go anywhere.”
“No. Put it in your jewellery box.”
I pulled the bracelet off. My wrist felt empty without it. I had only had it five minutes, but it was mine and I needed to have it with me, not stuffed in some quilted, Chinese, brocade box. I hated mother. Why did she always have to insist on the stupid things. She was bossy and she just had to make me do what she wanted. If I said no she had to turn that into a yes. It was a permanent battle of wills.

I did not know how to talk to her. She reminded me of this, saying “You don't know how to talk to anyone. You bark at people.” I did not mean to, it's just that words came out of my mouth in short bursts, mainly because I was only given three seconds of continuous attention at any one time. Mother was always busy. I was always interrupting. There was always something I should have done better, or differently, or more to her satisfaction.

“No, not with a duster and polish, that's just for the window sills. You have to clean all your furniture with a damn chamois.” I did not like those. They were board stiff when I got them out of the cupboard. I ran them under water. When I squeezed them out they were slightly slimy. I thought maybe it was the jelly, because they were made out of the inside of animal skin. How could anyone skin an animal?

Tanners they called them, the people who dealt with animal skin. They baked it or something, after ripping it off the muscles and fat. I thought they cooked the fat in, and on wringing it all splurged back out. I made my fingers itch.

“You have to wash the glasses first, and then rinse them under running water,” she said, inspecting the various items on the draining board. “And use this tea towel for them and this one for the plates and this one for the pots”. She pulled the colour coded, checkered towels out of their rubber mouthed holders. “Don't stack the glasses inside each other, they'll get stuck. And when you've finished wipe round the sink, with this blue cloth, otherwise the water spots will stain.”
“Yes mother.”
“Are you being sarcastic?”
“No.”
“Fine.”

I except she wanted me to learn how to do things properly. According to mother there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. But it seemed like there was only one right way and a million wrong ways. She never noticed the things I did well, not unless there was some sort of product involved at the end, like a cake. Even then, things disappeared; clay pottery pieces made at school, pictures painted and hung up for a nano second, lumpy, knitted doorstops, stuffed with old tights.

Things had to be 'just so'. Chaos made her nervous. She had a fear of runaway trains and thin ends of wedges. The hatches were always battened down, secured against some imaginary hurricane or other act of God. Mother was waiting, always waiting, for a catastophe.

Newton's Third Law of Motion

2006-11-06T13:26:00.000-08:00

“To every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.” I am pushing a rock up a hill. It is not a very big rock, but the exertion is enough to make me sweat. My feet skid about against the scree. I have to brace myself. It is heavy. I am trying to shove it forwards and it is bearing down on me.

I was safely installed in my new school. Mother walked me there every morning. I was never late. She liked to take the scenic route, along Westfield Avenue, past the big, old houses. A famous tennis player lived in one. Anne some-body-or-other. The driveways were long and boasted posh cars. There was a Scimitar. I called it a Skip-ta-mar. I had not heard of the sword.

Sophie lived on Westfield Avenue. She had blonde hair and blue eyes. She always looked clean. Her skin was smooth and flawless. She wore a blue, velvet dress. She looked like an expensive, porcelain faced doll. I was grubby. My cheeks were permanently rosy. I did not like my grey eyes, they appeared sullen. Rebecca Griggs was pretty, even though she had freckles. All the boys wanted to catch her when they played kiss chase. I did hopscotch. On my own.

The toilets in school seemed small. Despite the fact I had short legs I still needed to crumple down to rest my bottom. There was an entrance and an exit, with corridors running down either side. The boys would bang the doors open and push each other in. It was a dare. Rebecca and Sophie laughed. I wiped myself and washed my hands and went back to the library. I spent all my time there.

I loved the smell of books. The new ones that flashed their proud covers smelt of printing ink and rash promises. They seemed smug, in their PVC jackets, all shiny and just-out-of-the-wrapper fresh. Then there were the books that had been around for a while. They were slightly faded and apologetic. They had once been grand, like those new kids on the block, but now they were dog eared around the edges. They smelt like the words inside them. Read. My favourite books were the old ones. The ones whose paper was becoming ever browner, like leaves on a tree, moving into a supple autumn. I used to sniff those pages, inhaling the dry, must of a thousand turns. That is what a story smells like, something with history.

Clare Lefevre found the class hamster in a pot of yellow paint. It was as stiff as a board and very yellow. She screamed and Miss went running straight into the stock room. A minute later she emerged, looking very solemn, carrying 'Little Timmy' on a green, disposable, hand towel. We buried him in the school garden and planted marigolds on top. I thought that was weird, because the last thing Little Timmy would want to see was more bright yellow.

Our school was built on the site of an old factory and there were disused railway lines running along behind it. We used to go up there in the summer, on mini field trips. Every time the teachers said the same things:-
“Can anybody tell me what those flowers are?”
Foxgloves.
“And what are these?”
Pond skaters.
“Does anyone know how to tell the difference between a rabbit and a hare?”
Ear size, habitation, body shape. The teachers never believed that some of us had listened to them in the first place.

I sat next to Robin and opposite Jonathan. Robin was good fun. His mum and dad were divorced, and he lived with his dad. He was really into Status Quo and he knew all the words to their songs. He liked to play air guitar in the playground. He had long hair and a denim jacket with the sleeves cut out. If his face had not been so round and squidgy he might possibly have looked quite hard. Jonathan was handsome. He had that sort of blonde hair that is run through by brown streaks. He was very athletic and won practically every race and event on school sports day. He supported Manchester United and went mad if they beat any other team. I liked his teeth. They were white and sticky out, but just at the right angle, so they seemed sexy rather than goofy. He also had cancer. One day he stopped coming to school. They never told us what happened to him.

In assembly they told us stories that were meant to galvanise us into being good people. It was as if they were picking up where Jesus had left off. One in particular, that they used to regale us with over and over again, was the parable of the long chopsticks:- A dead man goes to this awful place. Everyone is starving and gnashing their teeth, but on the table is a rich feast. He goes to another place, where there is the same feast, but instead of hunger everyone is satisfied. “Why is there such a difference?” he asks his guide.
“In order to eat each man must feed and be fed by his brother.”
Only the good people had worked out how to use the mighty chopsticks. I did ask “Please Miss, why didn't they just use their hands?”
“Because they didn't?”
“But why not? If they were starving and everything then they must have thought of it.”
“Well they didn't.”
“I would, if I was starving and there was a table of food right in front of me.”
“That's enough of this disruption. Go and look up the word 'allegory' in the dictionary, A, double L, E, G, O, R, Y.”
“Yes Miss.”

She did not like me. I frequently found myself standing outside the headmasters office, and he did not like me either. He would pop his head round the door and beckon me in. He had a big chair behind his big desk and I was motioned to sit in the small, orange, plastic chair. He would say things. I watched his beard and moustache move about. His lips looked strange poking out, cherry red, from between the hair. It fascinated and repelled me at the same time.

On one occasion I ate a sachet of shampoo will I stood there, outside his office. It was peach coloured and, although it smelled of soft oranges and vanilla, it tasted revolting. After five minutes or so I was sick. It came down my nose. I was shifted from punishment duty into the medical room. Mother came to collect me. She took me home and let me lie on the sofa. Who says crime does not pay?

We survived pretty well in our little apartment. Mrs Richards upstairs kept mother busy, with her cancerous requests for help. Mother had been a nurse, one of those dyed in the wool types. She was very efficient, but with little, in fact no, bedside manner. I remember her pulling plasters off my arms and legs, dragging all my body hair out with the adhesive. “Oh don't make such a fuss,” she said, as I lost five layers of skin.

Then there was Priscilla and Noel, the couple on the top floor. “They're not married,” mother said in conspiratorial tones. It was the end of the 70s. Marriage was still a well respected institution. I think they got away with it because of their sports car, a rather natty red MG. That, and they kept telling mother they intended to marry. She admired their taste and commitment. In the end Priscilla went off with someone else. Noel sold the car.

On Saturdays we went to Harborne. Mother liked to call it “A village,” but being as it was totally within the Birmingham conurbation it was difficult to imagine it as a village. It had been once, apparently, before the city spread its linear tentacles. Harborne was “Quite lovely”. All the rich people lived there. Well, they were not as rich as us, because they did not live in Edgbaston, but they were still better off than most.

We would have lunch at Michelle's, a rather nice French restaurant. Mother liked to go every fortnight. She got to know the owner. We became regulars and were treated with all the respect such an investment earned. I liked to order the meals that we had to cook at the table ourselves. The waiter brought a shiny, chrome thing, on top of which rested a small frying pan. I pushed the thinly stripped beef around absent mindedly while studying the pictures on the walls. Rosie would join us quite often. She had managed to completely invert 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'.

When we were not at Michelle's we were at Valentinos, an Italian restaurant at the end of the High Street, that happened to be next to mother's favourite dress shop. “Will you have the veal?” mother said.
“No thank you.”
“But you've never tried the veal.”
“I don't want to.” It bothered me. It was very pale, the exact same colour as a baby's naked bottom.
“Why not?”
“It's a baby cow.” I could see its big, brown eyes and thick lashes blinking at me.
“Oh don't be so silly. The young of any animal is always more tender. What do you think lamb is?”
Thank you mother. I had never considered that before. Mind you, I had never seen a lamb, not in real life. I thought maybe I might quite like to be a vegetarian.
“And where is that going to stop? Are you going to refuse to eat eggs because they're chicken abortions?”
I hated that word, 'abortion'. The waiter arrived with my pizza. I could barely swallow. I wondered if my eggs were that size.

I had to write to father, once a week, on Fridays. I liked the thin, blue, airmail paper, with its feint grey lines. I tried very hard to keep all my letters even and straight so that my words looked beautiful. I wrote joined up, mother had taught me. She prided herself on certain aspects of etiquette, one of which was decent handwriting. Shoes was another of her fascinations. And well manicured nails. She certainly took her job of bringing me up very seriously. She pointed out other children and sneered that they had been “Dragged up”. She wanted to regurgitate me perfectly formed, into a young lady. She despised the term “Woman”. She spat it out with a secret vengence that I did not entirely understand. “A lady never smokes in the street,” she reliably informed me.

The pen in our household was a very precious object. It had belonged to my grandfather, her father, or rather the man she referred to as “William” - more spitting. It was black, with a gold nib. The outside of it was textured with some feather pattern. It did not take cartridges, instead, there was a rigid, rubber reservoir that was filled by dipping the nib in an ink pot and squeezing and releasing. We always used blue ink, that one with tones of black, not the garish peacock blue. I got through dozens of sheets of blotting paper.

And so I would sit, at father's desk, hunched over like a studious, little leper. As I formed the letters my tongue came out of my mouth and traced careful determination over my lips. I wanted him to be proud of my writing. Mother ensured this. Each missive was corrected and returned to me for amendments. Sometimes it took three or four attempts to achieve an acceptable standard. By which time, I was so bored of what I was saying that it hardly seemed worth repeating.

Once the task was completed my letter was folded away in its own little envelope and mother would write the address. It pleased me to see it finished and on its way. There is a type of closure associated with licking a flap and sealing it down. Letters are the ultimate in self publishing. You know you are going to be read, at least by one person, or you assume you will be.

Ouroboros

2006-11-05T09:23:00.000-08:00

“The living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen; nor of ears when there was nothing to be heard; and there was no surrounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him: for there was nothing beside him. Of design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For the Creator conceived that a being which was self-sufficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take anything or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands: nor had he any need of feet, nor of the whole apparatus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet.”

And thus Plato described the ouroboros, ancient Greek for 'tail devourer', the serpent who circles.

Some days rage consumes me. I swallow my own shit, there is the endless repetition and eternal return. Birth, life, death ... the earth orbiting the sun ... eat, shit, sleep ... questions, answers and then more questions.

I did not like school. It was an old red-brick building with large, dull, blue, wooden doors. Inside the classrooms were arranged around a rectangular hall. I only remember three things about this, my second, school.

One. We practised a dance routine to 'Save All Your Kisses For Me'. I had to make my toes go in and out by swivelling on my heels, while keeping my thumbs tucked into the waistband of my skirt. I found co-ordination difficult. I was not one of the beautiful girls. I did not have long, blonde hair. My face was fat and freckled. My teeth stuck out. My mother made my clothes, mainly from polyester. People laughed at me. I got expelled from the group. The rest of them went on to perform the routine in front of the whole school, at assembly. Everyone clapped.

Two. My best friend was called Carol. She had short hair and a fringe. There was something vaguely dirty about her. She was unpopular and so was I. We spent playtimes huddled together. She used to pick her nose. All the other children rushed about, 'British bulldog 1,2,3', 'Acky 1 2 3', I sneered at their number limitations. In the winter, camped by the logs, we covered ourselves with our coats. Under the padded fabric we were protected from not only the cold, but also, the stupefied gazes of 'the others'. Carol's cunt smelled musty, but it was soft and warm to the touch. My fingers found hers and her fingers found mine. The first time I thought I had wet myself.

Three. On the day I left that school, prematurely, because we were moving house, the teacher stood at the front of the class and wished me luck. The girls, seated at the desks behind me, snickered. I scratched my nails into the soft wood. Detritus collected and I nibbled it out, nervously. I felt hot. No-one cared whether I left or stayed. Miss Woodcombe's speech was merely a form of politeness. Paul, who I sat next to, and who was the best looking boy in the class, turned round and hissed at the girls. They were instantly silenced. He had his hand on my shoulder. Tears washed about under my eye lids. He said goodbye and kissed me on the cheek. I walked out of the big, blue door smiling.

Father was a consultant electrical engineer. The word 'consultant' was a very important part of his job description. Mother always used it, when she puffed out her chest and spoke clearly. She was unabashed, because status allowed her to feel superior. Our house was always described as 'detached'. Beef was said to be 'steak'. Mother took special care to pronounce 'croissant' correctly. It unnerved her that father said “PuG E ot” instead of Peugot. He was a literal man, with a Geordie accent. If something was bollocks, then he would call it “Bollocks”. Film was “Filum”. Any form of stupidity was challenged with “Don't be so bloody soft”. He spat when he talked. Insults exploded out of him.

He worked for Coventry City Council, designing the installations for street lighting and planning out the electrical systems for hospitals, schools and other municipal buildings. Occasionally he would take me on a tour. He explained the difference between mercury vapour and sodium lights – the former being white and smeary, the later being insipid yellow. He was particularly proud of the systems relating to Birmingham Airport.

Father took me to a lot of places. He was a volunteer for a charity and repaired the reel to reel players blind people used to 'read' books. He had to visit them in their homes to perform this task. He never used a map, always driving by following his nose, with the help of a compass that was attached to the dashboard. It looked like an eye, swivelling about in its liquid, searching this way and that for magnetic north. We'd bumble along streets. He knew most of Birmingham like the back of his hand.

The backs of my hands were small and pale. I imagined that blood vessel cars were driving along my veins, millions and millions of them, rumbling along a red stained highway. I had seen that film, the one where scientists shrink down a bunch of doctors and inject them into a patient. Everything goes wrong, it always does, but the final survivor escaped through an eye, washing up against the lashing beach, soggy and gasping. I think it was a happy ending.

I could see roads in my eyes. When I looked up, if I squinted hard, little threads drifted about, a foot or so away from my face. I tried to work where the map went, but the streets were all disjointed and they would float about chaotically. I asked my sister once, whether she saw fractured maps. “It's just your own veins.”
“What veins?”
“The ones in your eyes. You're looking at the inside of your own eye.”
“But how can I do that? I'd have to be looking backwards inside my own head.”
“Oh I don't know, but that's what it is.”
“How do you know that's what it is when you don't know?”
“Good God, why are you always asking questions?”
“Father Boundy says you shouldn't use the Lord's name in vain.”
She rolled her eyes.

They sacked him, Coventry City Council. It was part of a series of redundancies. He was like a cog in a machine, but once obsolete he did not know what to do with himself. He tried to get another job. They said he was too old. They said he was underqualified, because he did not have a degree. Father had worked every day of his life. He had no idea how to be at leisure, and we needed the money.

The house was sold. Mother had never liked it anyway. It was like the Firth of Forth bridge. No sooner had a job been done at one end, than another popped up somewhere else. I don't think Father minded that. It kept him busy and while he was busy she could not interfere with him.

We moved into a small, purpose built apartment, hundreds of miles away from our big house. It had been mother's dream for some time. It was the poshest area in Birmingham. Of course, practically all our furniture had to be got rid of. There was no room for the dining table, or chairs. The mangle was thrown away and replaced with a spin drier. The sofa remained. Father's desk was downsized. I do not know what he did with all his papers.

The flat, known as Augustus Court, felt empty, a flat flat. What toys I was permitted to keep were shoved into the built in wardrobe. My centrally heated bedroom was warm and cosy, but all my corridors were gone. There was no garden and, therefore, no faeries.

Father got a job abroad, in Saudi. We watched Lawrence of Arabia on the television. It seemed like he was going to another planet, inhabited by men drenched in white and scorched by an unrelenting sun.

He left one Friday. I had the day off school. The whole family went to the train station to wave him off. Mother said I was not allowed to cry, because it would only upset my father. He held my hand very tightly as we went down the escalator to the platform. His hands were big. He put my wrist between his little finger and the next finger along. I had always hated this. I did not like to feel that tiny bit of webbing rubbing against my skin. All of a sudden, I wanted that sensation more than anything.

The train came. The sound of its brakes ran a knife along my teeth. He picked up his suitcase. He hugged my sisters and my brother-in-law. He squeezed his grand children. I stood with my arms by my side, my scarf scratching against my neck. It was cold. I had a hat on, a red, woolly one. It muffled all the voices coming in through my ears.

The guard blew the whistle. Father rubbed the top of my head and kissed mother. She was crying. When tears came out of her eyes she would wipe her nose over and over. She had very blue eyes. They always looked watery. Her bottom eyelids were pink.

He picked me up and cuddled me. I felt like a board. I had to be all dead straight, because I did not want to upset him. He would be pleased with me if he thought I was brave. I was singing “Onward Christian Soldiers” in my head. He rocked me backwards and forwards but I did not bend. I was rigidly dry eyed. He put me down on the floor and I held out my hand to shake his. He laughed. I did not understand the joke.

As the train pulled away he stuck his head out of the door window. I remembered those black and white films that were on the television on Saturday afternoons. The women and children always ran down the platform, next to the train, sometimes waving, sometimes crying. I decided that I was going to wave. Mother shouted at me to come back, but I did not want to. All my energy was in my legs, especially my tearing energy, so my feet could go very fast.

I ran and ran, waving and shouting, laughing and crying all at once. Father hung out of the window. I could see he was crying but I told myself it was the wind in his eyes. He took off his glasses. I kept going, but I was running out of platform. I could see it sloping down at the end, into the big, dirty stones that were spread between the tracks.

He was shouting something to me. His words were getting stolen by movement, ripped off and away like a balloon in a hurricane. I stopped and cupped my hands around my mouth. “I can't hear you.”
Muffle, blow, clattery clatter, clattery clatter.
“I can't hear you,” I screamed. The train had nearly slithered entirely out of the station. Father's head was becoming a small dot and then it disappeared into the carriage. The metal snake had taken him, swallowed him up. Father was gone.

The Truth is Like The Sun

2006-11-04T13:39:00.000-08:00

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.

Stalin was a Time Bandit

2006-11-03T10:48:00.000-08:00

Stalin was a time bandit. In 1929 he introduced the five day, six week month, effectively abolishing Sundays. At that time Soviet workers were struggling to create an industrial economy and ‘le weekend’ was a foreign concept to them. However, the Sabbath was still very much ingrained into the collective consciousness, and they did not appreciate the revolutionary interference.

We live traditionally. We do not like to deviate. The USSR eventually conceded this point and, in 1940, the Gregorian Calendar was re-introduced.

Father stood frying eggs in the kitchen. Mother was in hospital. I knew something was wrong because he never usually cooked. The tiled floor was slate cold in winter, despite the cheery yellow squares. Fat spattered out of the pan. Little dots seared into my skin as they landed. I was only waist height.

Mother’s womb had gone bad. She blamed me. “I wish I’d had an abortion.” I did not know what an abortion was. I did not like the word. It sounded all stretched.

The hot eggs melted the butter on the bread and burnt oil soaked into the dough. Where the whites were not cooked properly trails of snot bled across the skiddy surface. The yolk oozed under pressure.

The kitchen was small, with just about enough room for a sink and cooker. Mother hated the kitchen and was always complaining about its size. We had an old fashioned pantry, shelved from floor to ceiling, where all the food was kept. Plates, cups, cutlery, etc, were stored in the sideboard that squatted in the dining room. The washing machine, a twin tub, was in the garage, along with an industrial mangle. I liked the mangle. Its rollers were very pale, because mother scrubbed them with bleach. The iron work, beautifully cast, was painted dark green. I helped her feed sheets, and the like, into its jaws and watch them emerge from the other side, flattened into submission.

It was also my job to set the table. I think Mother must have scrubbed everything with bleach, because that was also pale. It had the capacity to stretch out and seat around 20 people, although god knows why, because I don’t recall anyone ever coming to dinner. The tablecloth and napkins were very white. We each had our own designated napkin, as they were not washed after each meal and it was important that we got our own dirt back.

Mother was a competent cook, rarely swerving from the staple ‘meat and two veg’. We ate chops, stew, roasts and more chops. Father did not like “That foreign muck”. For breakfast, on Mondays, we had bread and dripping, made from the fat of Sunday’s beef. I liked it with salt and pepper. It was one of the few meals that I could never get enough of.

We tended not to have deserts, because father’s catchphrase was “I’ve been telling you for 30 years, woman, I’m a dinner man, not a pudding man”. Despite his protestations, occasionally rice pudding, or fruit with condensed cream, or a pie with custard, would be served. Once every so often a trifle made it onto the menu. I hated all of these. Milk, in whatever form, churns my stomach. I had a particular loathing of custard, especially cold and lurking by damp sponge, under a blanket of fresh cream. There is something incredibly disgusting about trifle, the way all the layers slide about against each other, like some giant, mushy, tectonic shift, lubricated by fat and slime.

After dinner I got ready for bed. I was told to ‘top and tail’ myself, which I assumed referred to my face and my arse. I was frightened of my arse. It had bitten my finger once. I did not like brushing my teeth. In common with her fear of everything “New fangled,” mother did not entirely trust the efficacy of toothpaste, preferring the ‘old fashioned’ method of using salt. I was always drawn to my father’s smoker’s toothpaste, with its pinky vim action. It made my teeth ache and squeak, the same as if I was chewing my jumper cuff.

I only had a bath once a week. It was a strange experience, because the hot water contrasted so violently with the cold enamelled cast iron. When I sat I felt the icy surface against my bottom. If I laid back my shoulder blades froze. It reminded me of how the colour of knives felt.

My father had a dagger that he kept on the windowsill of the top landing. It had a silver blade and a golden ornate handle, decorated with jewels. As I slid it in and out of its black, leather scabbard it made a noise like breathing. I showed it to some boys from school one day and they laughed. “That’s not a dagger, it’s a letter opener.” They were wrong, because father opened all his letters in the study, so why would he keep an opener that far away?

The toilet was separate from the bathroom. It was cold in there and unpleasant, mainly because the carpet felt a bit stiff and was fraying around the foot of the crapper. Father said it was alright to call it a crapper, in fact, that was technically correct, because it was “After all, the invention of Thomas Crapper”. Mother insisted that we call it “The lavatory”.

“Oh dear what can the matter be?
Three old ladies stuck in the lavatory.
They were there from Monday ‘til Saturday,
And nobody knew they were there.”

Rosie was full of funny rhymes.

“Higher up the mountain,
Greener grows the grass.
Down comes and elephant,
Sliding on its elbow.”

I was scared of getting stuck in the lavatory, even though I knew I would probably get rescued almost immediately. I could not possibly have remained hidden for nearly a week. Surely someone else would have cause to use the facility.

Ira, our cat, adopted the lavatory as her base. She had very long white hair and if I stroked her I would end up sneezing my head off. She felt like cotton wool. If you looked at her it was like she had this big fat body, but if you squashed all her fur down she was really quite skinny.

There was something wrong with her. She did not have the right amount of pads on her paws. Paulette had got her of someone. My sisters were always bringing cats into the house. Sometimes they had to hid them in their rooms.

I liked Rosie’s room best. It was purple, with a depth. I felt like I could slide into her walls, as if they were water. Toulouse Lautrec paintings hung everywhere. Cancan girls, with their red underskirts and red lips, kicked out a fire. They were easy in their laughter. And there was a man, smoking, wearing a smeary hat. His face was orange, patchy. He had blue eyes. He looked straight at me while I sat on the bed.

She had lots of perfume. Her favourite was in a white box with bright green stripes. “Do you know what ‘Rive Gauche’ means?” she asked. I shook my head. “Left bank.” I thought of frusty wood panelling and men in suits. “No, the left bank of the Seine, silly”. She sprayed some perfume into the air and walked through its mist. “Paris is so romantic,” she said. She had not been there, but the posters said so, and Henry Miller. She knotted a silk scarf around her neck, letting the tails fall against her shoulder. When she was out I hunted through her drawers, sniffing at her things. Paris must smell like my sister’s neck.

She had tights, all thin and gauzy, glittery legs dreams. I put them on, but they rumpled up at my ankles and reached to underneath my armpits. Her underwear felt like the cat, a big thinness, all silky soft to the touch. Her jewellery box was a treasure trove. There were lots of different coloured beads nestled together. Some were fat and chunky, very sure of themselves. Others were strings of tiny glitter. She wore lots of these at the same time, looped over and over. They lay against her chest. She looked like a delicate Christmas tree, or lights in the distance, at night, when you are in the car and wanting to go to sleep.

Paulette’s room was less inviting. She was scrupulously tidy and private. She did not like me going in there, for whatever reason. There was something sparse about Paulette. She had no interest in art or reading. Everything was very organised with her, right down to her rigid arrangements and agreements. But she was a good girl, not like Rosie. She never got into trouble or had fanciful ideas.

My parents’ room was brown. It smelled brown. Being right at the front of the house it was the largest room, with a big bay window and chimney breast. Father had installed two ‘wardrobes’ in the alcoves. They were meant to be ‘built in’. He was busy. He did not finish the job. Rough curtains hung were the doors should have been. Mother’s fur coat caught the sun and faded down one side. She was not best pleased.

Sometimes I lay in their bed. I could see the shadows of the headlights of the cars that were driving up our road. At first I heard the engines and a trickle of light would seep into the room. As it got nearer, and louder, the illumination grew brighter, sweeping down the walls and across the ceiling, taking the shadows from the curtains with it. If the moon was high and penetrating, the whole room was flooded all night.

In the morning mother went to get father’s cup of tea. He sat propped up, his knees making a tent out of the sheets and blankets. I was quiet as he smoked. It was not a good idea in our house to talk to anyone first thing, because they were all like jungle animals who had been woken up at the wrong time.

During the week father went to work, quite early. At the weekends he stayed at home and did things around the house. Even though we were quite well off, he still had to make most of the repairs himself. He let me help him. One Saturday he sent me crawling under the floorboards with electrical cable tied around my waist. It was very dark. I did not know where I was going, I just had to follow his banging. Another time we were both on the roof. I could see quite a lot from my vantage point. I particularly liked the look of the slate tiles. They were thin and a wonderful blue-grey colour. They were like rocky ice. Mother shouted at him. She didn’t think I ought to be on the roof. “What if she falls?”
“She won’t fall. It’s quite safe up here.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I’m up here and you’re down there. Stop your moaning, woman, let the child alone.”

Mother never really did though, let me alone that is. I bothered her. She had not expected to be looking after a young child at the age of 50. I was a ‘mistake’. The doctor had told her she had polyps. She did not even know she was pregnant with me until I was nearly ready to be born. Of course her periods had stopped, but she was 43 and “Going through the change,” or so she thought.

Father was as pleased as punch. Punching pleased him. I was the child of his dotage. He spoiled me. In many ways I was too small a vessel to contain all the love he wanted to lavish on me. Mother thought it was her turn though. She had brought up his other two children, and suffered the anguish of the two who had died. This was meant to be her time. She envisaged Spanish classes and Spanish holidays, not measles and wet knickers. She had waited for life to begin at 40, and when it had not, fervently held onto the belief that perhaps it had just been delayed for 10 years. I remember her looking at me once and saying “Do you know, by the time you’re 18 I’ll be nearly 60?” I was not entirely sure what she meant by that, except the number still seemed small to me, and very far away.

Today I Woke Up Dead

2006-11-02T15:32:00.000-08:00

Today I woke up dead, smoked a cigarette, drank coffee and then went to bathe. Lying flaccid in the water I thought about cubes, so much easier than spheres. I imagined walking from one surface, over the sharp edge, and onto another.

Our front door was unremarkable, apparently, because I cannot remember it. The hallway it led into was rectangular and large, decorated with 'antique' prints of the local area. Heraldic shields hung on the wall, quartered graphics with victorious images, backed by cheap varnished wood. My father liked to think he was somebody.

The first door on the left took me into his study. Two awful casts of boys holding rearing horses bookended his poverty stricken library. His desk was piled with respectably high stacks of papers. The bay window wore its net curtains like a bride who was shy of sex but not of nylon. I was not allowed in my father's study, nobody was. And I did not sneak in to look. On the rare occasions I was called for I found him, hunch-backed, elbows locked and leaning, smoking a cafe crème cigar. My father like to think he was somebody.

The lounge was not a lounge, “Only airports and hotels have lounges,” my mother would say. A corner sofa unit, brown with yellow-orange cushions, the fabric woven from slaughtered teddy bears, took up most of the space. I liked the sofa. When I was ill I was permitted to sleep on it, tidily, but with no pillow. Frequently I sat on it, in the crook of my father's arm, watching cartoons. Tom and Jerry was one of our favourites. He jiggled me in time to the manic jazz action, whistling an accompaniment.

On Saturdays we had family tea in the 'sitting room'. The trolley was wheeled into place, it's leaves erected, and mother served cucumber sandwiches. Although the crusts were not cut from the bread, she prepared the cucumber in an exacting manner. Its skin was peeled right off, rendering it white and naked, then it was soaked in malt vinegar. Every bite of this officious treat meant my cheeks were sucked in until they clung to my teeth. I suppose mother must have liked acid, or perhaps it was the peeling action of the naïve, penile fruit, indeed, it could have been the “Please help yourself to another cucumber sandwich,” entreaty, sooooooooo Buckingham Palace garden party. Bloody, tight lipped, riotously snobby cow that she was.

On Sundays music poured from the room, courtesy of the 'Dynatron' stereo system. My father was particularly proud of this acquisition. We had really arrived, because it was framed in teak and had its own cabinet underneath, that housed his paltry record collection of marching bands. Oh how mother chortled, on returning from church, to hear John Philip Sousa's 'Hands Across the Sea', perhaps it reminded her of their relationship.

Television was somewhat of a rarity at home. Mother thought that Satan had a hot line to us via technology. She studiously ensured I only watched BBC programmes. She had a natural aversion to advertisements. As soon as my father arrived home from work, I was ejected from the 'sitting room', not literally you understand, and The News would be piped into our consciousness. Occasionally, I was forced to watch reports from Africa. My father seemed to think that starving black children would galvanise his authority at the meal table. “Eat your dinner,” blah, blah, blah. I failed to see the connection between myself and these pathetic representations. Yes, I had enough food, but there again, I also lived in a big house and the park at the bottom of our garden looked nothing like the deserts or jungles these scraps survived in.

Leading off the lounge, whoops, sorry, 'the sitting room', was the sun lounge, that was referred to as “The logia” when visitors were entertained. I loved this place. It was a kind of early conservatory. Painted bright yellow, slightly chaotic and having massive windows that looked out over the garden, it seemed free of the constrictions of the rest of the house. This area had almost been entirely commandeered by Rosie, my middle sister. Here her drawing board was able to draw itself up to its full height. And she sat, hour after hour, doing stuff, designing things, sketching, etc. To be honest, I don't know what she was about, I was only knee high to a grass hoper and so spent most of my time looking at the underside of her drawing board and her calves and ankles while she was seated on her stool. She was happy though. It was nice to bask in the glory of someone else's joy.

Outside, the patio, which my father built, heated up in the summer. I liked to walk on the hot concrete slabs. They were all different colours; grey, dusty pink, tired yellow, and I wondered what they did with all the heat they absorbed. Their rough cast surface left marks on my bottom when I had been sitting for a while. In spring mother scrubbed the green mould off them with Jeyes Fluid. Ahhhhhhh, the smell of Jeyes Fluid, like nothing else on earth. It burns at your nostrils in a most peculiar way, delicious, except that you would not drink it. I was always disappointed to see those brave shoots, that forced their way through the cracks, cut down so assiduously. The poky grass reminded me of my own upthrustings, and to see it so curtailed and disciplined brought a sense of sinking sadness to my young mind.

The garden itself was lush. A lawned area at the front fell away to vegetable patches. I spent many fascinating hours staring at purple broccoli or pulling potatoes from the damp earth. Carrots amused me. They were so recalcitrant, refusing straightness. I thought that disinterring them was like sex backwards. And their fronds, silky, a green beyond green, they begged to be touched and adored. Carrot hair felt so much more luxuriant than my own.

We also had fruit trees, the pear in particular was generous with its abundance. There's an old saying, 'you grow pears for your heirs,' that refers to the amount of time it takes to rear a good tree. Ours was already mature and of the conference variety. Pears are not quite like apples, the fruits ripen at their own disparate ease. If you wait for them to fall you will end up with basketfuls of rotten, squidginess. It was my job to climb the tree and collect the pears. Imagine, something that only I could do, because the branches were dense and would perhaps strain under another few stone in weight of the full adult body. I scrambled up, feeling the bark pressing into my chest, stomach and scratching my arms. It smelled good. Mosses covered the roughness and delivered their moist perfume straight into my skin. I threw down the fruits, into hands that caught expertly, and everyone was laughing.

Best of all, though, was the silver birch tree. I thought she was an old woman, because she was peeling. Her whiteness fell away from her in shreds, leaving a black undergrowth. She stood rigid. abrasive, unapologetic. If I rubbed my hands over her trunk my palms would snag. I could pull at her, but still she would not release. Immutable, her feet planted firmly in the ground, her decay part of her majesty, she sang the silent songs of one who has been there before, seen there before.

It was to this tree that my swing was attached by big, thick ropes. I sat under her branches, in spring, summer and winter, forcing myself forwards, higher, onwards. She held me, never let me fall. Sometimes it was almost as if she was smiling down on me, in her cracked, old, wizened way.

I liked to look at her by moonlight, because then she really came alive, her silveriness glinting in the sharp light. I thought maybe she was absorbing all of it, that her and the moon were talking to each other, that perhaps a congress was occurring, woman to woman, bright to bright. Both had the same attributes, light and dark. I assumed they were in league with each other.

I shall not go to the bottom of the garden right now, I have no need to run away, but I am not steeled for its consequence.

On the other side of the house, other to the sun lounge/logia was the back porch. For some inexplicable reason my father had built this shelter, which ran the length of the kitchen, outside toilet and coal shed. Perhaps it was so my mother could perform the function of cooking, shitting and heating without the unnecessary invasion of the elements. We painted this entire area bright yellow. Why should a woman not have sunshine while she deliberates the nature defecation and demarkation? It had a plastic, corrugated roof, which someone would have to wash out every spring, as slime was not really my mother's thing. It's only purpose, as far as I can see, was to shelter us all from the harsh, cold realities of external outhouses. To this day, I still do not understand the logic. We had no coal fires and we did have a bathroom inside, so this additional piece of 'hardware' seemed somehow superfluous.

I spent hours in the coal shed, because that is where I thought God lived. The priest kept trying to explain the notion of infinity to me, but I somehow could not grasp it. How was a child meant to understand 'world without end'? Surely there had to be some sort of containment, or else everything would just seep. My mother had always worn a corset of sorts, since I can remember, and it held everything in. She called it her “Belt”. It looked nothing like a belt, as it extended from her bra straps to her thighs. It was embossed with patterns of roses. I saw it in the washing basket. The gusset was golden with her exertions. I did not leak myself, at that time.

In the coal shed lived God. He was a mighty old man. He kept infinity alive by writing down numbers, one after the other. A reel of paper disappeared into where ever. Each number that he wrote connected to the last one. I tired to talk to him once, but he would not be distracted. “Very important work,” he said, scribbling down a '2' or '3'.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Making sure the red ribbon doesn't break,” he replied. I knew about the red ribbon. It stretched around the universe. It was very thin. I did not know what happened after the red ribbon, but it was very dark. Without the red ribbon everything would somehow pass away. We would all be condemned to a discorporate death. The red ribbon was very important, and God was expanding it, so we were all inside it. I must not disturb him, although he did not mind me watching.

From time to time he would stop and scratch his beard. I wanted to ask what the number was that he was writing, but I thought there would not be any words to tell me how big it was. I tried billion, but that was too small. Maybe trillion, but then I heard sound effects from TV programmes. I thought about gzillion. Where do the lizards come from when you say that? God would not answer me.

When I was in church he did not answer me either. For a while I thought he could not hear me. Maybe the building was lead lined or something. Mother said it was because I had not confessed all my sins. I looked at the virgin, on her pedestal, with the rabbit at her feet. She smiled down but her lips curled at my dirtiness. “Hello,” I said. She sneered a bit. I gave her candles. It was wrong to ask for thing of myself. Father Boundy told me I had to believe. I did not know what he meant. Every time he said “Believe,” I saw butterflies, pinned hard against a cork board. I asked the number God and he was too busy. I asked mommy and she said it was because I was naughty. I tried to find the naughty me, but she kept hiding. I did not know how to make God come in or me come out. God seemed hard.

Catholic Cunt

2006-11-01T07:13:00.000-08:00

My mother had a very catholic cunt. Shall I qualify that for you? Which needs further clarification, ‘catholic’ or ‘cunt’?

“You see,” she said, as we walked home from school one day, “A man has a penis and a woman has a vagina,” I was six, “And the man puts his penis in the woman’s vagina,” my sister was pregnant, “The seed fertilises the egg and makes a baby.”
“Like those flowers mommy?”
“Which flowers?”
“The ones with the big pointy things that stick out from the middle.”
“No, sex isn’t like flowers.”

We had lilies growing in our garden. I liked the lush enthusiasm of them. They reminded me of the delicious rudeness of sticking your tongue out. I used to do that. When I was told off, for some imagined crime or other. I would hide behind the door, as I backed away from my spitting mother, and stick my tongue out. Oh, the rebelliousness of it. As I got older I learned other ways to subvert her discipline. Two fingers behind my back was a favourite. Once an adult I became even more sophisticated and enjoyed discrete sign language, that entreated her to ‘fuck off and die’, or ‘eat my shit’. Fortunately, she never saw or understood what I did.

When my nephew was born I hid, along with my brother-in-law, in the hospital grounds, so that I could see him as my sister held him up to the window. He looked like a small, blue dot. It was summer and everything was in bloom.

I don’t remember him as a baby, why would I? I was only six. But I do remember his sister being born, some four years later, vaguely.

“Will she be alright?”
“Yes, yes,” said mother.
“Why is Paulette in hospital?”
“Because she has placenta previa.”
“What’s that?”
“Well, the baby grows in the womb and, when it’s ready, it comes out through the cervix,”
“What’s that?”
“One thing at a time dear,” whenever my mother called me ‘dear’ it meant ‘shut the fuck up you snotty, little bitch’, but perhaps without that violence, except for when the violence was there and she rasped the word through her clenched teeth and pinched lips. “While the baby’s growing the placenta feeds it and gives it oxygen. Unfortunately, Paulette’s placenta is in the wrong place and the baby can’t be born.”
“How’s it going to get out then?”
“The doctors will cut open her tummy …” The conversation was cut short because, in my horror, I had neglected to notice my nephew’s hand was clutching the frame of the car, and I’d slammed the door on his fingers, nearly detaching one entirely.

Paulette and Jasmine arrived home in due course. Mother and baby both healthy, apart from crashing post natal depression. At this point I was pretty much usurped in everyone’s affections. There was 21 years between me and my eldest sister, fifteen between me and my middle sister. I had grown up used to being the baby of the family. When Christopher arrived he was like some magic child, the only boy born into a viper’s nest of females. My, how the puking infant was adored. Jasmine was also a sickly child, requiring my mother’s ever vigilant care and attention. I was put away, like an old doll. I did not mind though. The benign neglect enabled me to escape from their merciless consideration.

I liked my own company. Unlike the adults around me it made complete sense. We lived in a big house, a converted boarding school. There were miles of corridors, decorated in magnolia woodchip and carpeted with a mustard weave. I hid in the furthest corner of the house, my teddy bears ranged around me, serving tea and having the most pleasant conversations. I found that ‘Big Ted’ and ‘White Teddy’ rarely propositioned me with inane requests, or accused me of transgressions. Indeed, ‘White Teddy’ was a masturbatory favourite, and I did not feel much penitence, given as he always wore the same calm smile on his face, even after I removed him from between my thighs.

“What are you doing?” my mother asked, as she stumbled into my room with an armful of washing. I sat up. I did not know the word. She glided down onto my bed, like a kestrel moving in for the kill. I sat on my hands. My fingers smelt slightly of musk and fish.
“I’m playing,” I said, feeling the panic rising in my throat. She had that look on her face that she reserved for extreme news items.
“I don’t want you to play this game again,” she said flatly, rising and smoothing down her skirt. It was as if her whole body was sneering at me. “It’s DIZGGGusting”. The way she pronounced that word, like she was chewing shit. I said I was sorry. I was always sorry.

Christopher and Jasmine were growing up and throwing up respectively. He was an easy going child, she was a pain in the arse. Life rattled on around me. School was a trial, because I found it difficult to make friends. I was not exactly a pretty child and I was somewhat limited in my social skills. I was expelled from my first primary school for stealing modelling clay. I must admit, at the age of five, I did know it was wrong, but it was so seductive. Squeezing that soft, vanilla smelling, stuff through my fingers was a pleasure I had not felt before. I liked the way it stuck, submissively, to my palm. I enjoyed digging my fingers into it and then scraping the deposits out from underneath my nails. The teacher caught me while I was sitting, absorbed in my crime, on the reading mat. Mother was called and I was syllable slapped all the way home. “Don’t,” slap, “You ever,” slap slap, “Let me catch you,” slap slap slap slap, “Stealing anything again,” slap slap.

“Yes, well … she won’t be able to sit down for a week,” my mother explained to my father, her face twisted with the sincerity of her punishment. I looked down at my plate of something with gravy. I hated it when my father shouted at the meal table, because food fell from his mouth and lodged in his beard. He had these oddly wet lips, always glistening. I didn’t like them, especially when they were very close to me, and the smell of nicotine and alcohol escaped from between them.

I’m not sure I liked my father at all when I was little. He used to make me clean his shoes, every night, after dinner. I would sniff at the polish, in its perfectly rounded tin. I smeared it on with a duster, rubbing the matt glaze into the leather. The greasy colour appealed to me. It was so smooth. After a while I buffed each shoe to a shine. The brush had a brown wooden handle and black bristles. My hand was barely large enough to stretch across the back of the tool. The ridges from the wood dug into my small palm. Father inspected my work. If it was not up to scratch the job had to be repeated. I did not mind though. Sitting on the kitchen steps, away from the bustle of the household, huffing at the shoe polish, I was fairly happy. But it did bother me that he never said thank you.

I was expected to undertake a wide range of household duties, usually the boring ones. I seem to remember forever peeling potatoes, in the winter, or scrubbing them in the summer. I also podded peas, trimmed brussel sprouts, de-strung green beans, etc, etc. We had a large garden and father grew a lot of what we ate. I was active in the workshop as well, generally with screw and nail sorting. He believed that everything had a place and everything should be in its place. To this end, empty jam jars and the like were requisitioned, their lids stuck to the underside of shelves, and then they were filled with neatly ordered items.

The workshop was probably my very favourite place. It always smelled of linseed oil, because father allowed me small chunks of putty to play with. Putty is flesh coloured, and over a period of time I made a vast Chinese army of little people. I scattered them everywhere, all over the house. “Why are you doing this?” mother asked, at a loss to understand why a child needs to display and accentuate.
“They’re my friends. I made them myself.” I thought that is what ‘making friends’ meant. Given that I found it hard to form intimate relationships with children of my own age, I decided to literally ‘make’ my friends. She gathered them up and threw them away.

My ‘best friends’ I kept hidden. Eventually, I discovered that it was probably a good idea if I did not even let anyone else see them, so I stored them in my head. Frightened that they would be taken away from me, I refused to play with them in public. They did not like to come out during the day anyway, because they were so thin and papery, and the sun shone right through them, rendering them invisible and in considerable danger. At night, under the moonlight, their colour came alive and they glowed like silk worms. I would wait for them, with my head on my pillow, pretending to be asleep. I had to keep very still and very quiet.

Shhhhhhhh. Her she comes, always the same one, leading the others on. Her feet felt like fingers against my legs, little tickling touches, because she was half flying and half running. The others followed her in bright sparks of reds and electric blues. I had to keep my eyes shut though, ever so lightly. If I opened my eyes something bad would happen, maybe they would disappear or I might hurt them in a way I could not understand.

“Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh,” they were always telling me to be silent. They moved my bedclothes around and clambered over my skin. Sometimes their feet were wet and once every so often it felt like they were wearing ice skates, because they scratched me. The main faerie, I think they were faeries, would come up to my head and play in my hair, wafting it around with her wings, parting it and flattening it. That felt nice. It relaxed me as I fell into sleep.

My dreams were a hammock. It took a lot of faeries to lift me. I think they must have done some spell or something, because when they were flying with me it was as if I was floating in water. I swung above my bed, all light and feathery, leaving heavy me down there, with the heavy breathing.

Whoooooooosh and I was through the door. Nothing could stop me when I was away with the faeries. We glided gently down the stairs, touching the occasional step, but gravity could not pull me back down to earth, then out and into the garden. They would deposit me in the branches of the pear tree, or sometimes I sat on my swing that hung from the silver birch. All night long they scurried about and I watched them.

The little faerie boys wore beech nut helmets and pushed barrows made from leaves with berries for wheels. They always seemed very happy, laughing and joking. They were a bit naughty though, and the bigger faeries, who were always girls, had to tell them off from time to time. The faerie girls were beautiful. Their gowns were made from spiders’ webs, dyed by rainbows. The ones in charge rode about on the backs of big dragon flies. One, who I thought might be the queen of the faeries, had six massive bumble bees that pulled her chariot. She sat on her gilded rose, tapping the bees with a crop made out of a single star beam that fell to earth a thousand years ago.

Just before dawn, when the faeries would be invisible again, they gave me a special drink of silver apple juice. It tasted like the syrup that mother would drain from tinned fruit and put in a glass for father. I was not really meant to drink that, but occasionally I took a sip. The faerie juice made me go all sleepy and next thing I knew I would be in bed, with mother at my door, wiping her hands on a tea towel, all flustered because she was trying to cook bacon and eggs and get everybody off to where we had to go. Father was already at the breakfast table when I came down, wiping egg from his beard and slurping tea. When he kissed me it reminded me of the faeries wet shoes.

hello

2006-10-30T14:53:00.000-08:00

Nanowrimo beginning November 2006 ... please start here. I should be posting every day.