Cross

Tonight I sat in a church, staring at a golden cross. I prayed because at this stage of the game, there’s nothing to lose. Maybe if there is a point to all this shuffling pain we endure, there is everything to gain. I sit amongst hundreds of smiling faces but I’ve never felt quite so alone. I float and drift as songs colour the days sights and interactions. I Am Kloot ricochet around the high vaulted ceiling, their sound lost in the cavernous space. Even stars die they say.

We all have our problems
Some big, some are small
Soon all of our problems
Will be taken by the cross

http://www.bebo.com/c/video?FlashBoxId=7655657299

My brain hurt like a warehouse, it had no room to spare

My car glinted in the sunshine at the side of the road looking brand new in the bright light. It was a glorious sunny day with smears of cloud streaking the sky. My companion walked towards me with a broad smile, her dress a floating translucent rose garden. Auburn hair flecked with light curled over her shoulders. ‘Can I drive?’ she asked. ‘If you like’ I purred, my eyes dancing over her rounded poise and conical beauty.

The car growled into life and we merged into a gentle stream of bumpers heading east. The streets were a golden glow shimmer, garlanded with rainbows of excited beach trippers. But soon we were in the countryside, cuddled by the green hues of bursting nature. Songbirds darted across the hedgerows like heralds to our passage and the scent of wild garlic drifted through the open windows. ‘How fast does she go?’

Inertia and the belt chained me as the car accelerated, spooning a corner; speed building as the road straightened out. ‘Careful’ I whispered but my concern gave rise to a giggle and a further spurt of speed. Rolling hills blurred into a flickering green tunnel, each bend throwing me right and left as the car almost left the ground. ‘Slow down’ I cried as the engine squealed with revolutions. In panic I reached out for the wheel but my pull had us veering toward the blurring channel. We bounced as the verge hit and I let go, cradling my head in my hands. ‘Please stop this’ I shouted over the roar but still our speed increased. I tried again and again but with each attempt a swerve would throw me back. There was nothing I could do but brace myself for the inevitable impact and explosion of limbs.

Suddenly she stopped the car and turned toward me, her face a warm pink cushion of softness; a smile breaking white and radiant like surf tips. ‘Don’t worry’ she said. I woke up with a start and reached for my phone. It was just after 5AM.

 

 

 

 

 

 

in·ter·ven·tion ( n t r-v n sh n)

Any measure whose purpose is to improve health or alter the course of disease.

There are no words to describe this new feeling which coils itself around every second of my day. Like a virus it beats down my defences to expose a raw helplessness. Every cell in my body braces for the impact of the inevitable. I can only wait for resolution and pray to any god that will listen to my pleas. Yesterday I broke down in a card shop at the thought of a Mother’s Day without a mum. It felt inconceivable and unimaginable. This year my own birthday coincides and I want nothing more than to be with her when she opens her card. What a gift that would be.

All of My Mother’s Names – David Sylvian

http://www.youtube.com/v/gKOt1OdkVmo&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

Excerpt from a memoir -

One day in 1978 I decided to escape the house where we’d moved six months before and walk the ten yards to the bus stop on Broadway. A plain street of neat red brick terraced houses that bore as little relation to its NYC cousin as I did to David Bowie. The only relief to the uniformity provided by the almost violent patterned swirls of fabric that were the fashion in curtains back then. With no bus in sight I used the time usefully, lighting one of the cigarettes lifted earlier from my mum’s opened pack of twenty, musing as I waited for the bus on the likelihood of my theft being discovered. Doreen wasn’t stupid, and sometimes counted her cigarettes. After many heists I’d deduced that the optimum number in a pack for theft to go unnoticed was sixteen. Today only eleven of the delicious cancer soldiers loitered in the pack and I knew that I was pushing my luck, especially by taking two, but I was broke and needs must. If rumbled, my normal strategy was to express shock and amazement that she could even think that her beloved son would steal from her.

In the old days, I’d blame dad which was one of his few uses. She embraced any excuse to chastise him. Sometimes I would spoon a little guilt into the mix by reminding her that she’d exposed me to cigarettes in the first place, hence my own drug addiction and stunted growth. Dropping the word drug into the conversation sent mum into panic; her conviction being that the merest whiff or sniff of anything illegal would transport me to the gutter where I’d be found by the police with syringes hanging from my emaciated body.

 

After what seemed like an eternity standing in the cold, smoking down to the filter and shuffling from foot to foot, the bus finally rattled and gasped its way into view, late as usual, but showing no remorse. I hopped on and settled on the top deck amongst the other smokers close to the stairs. It was around midday and the bus was fairly quiet so I was able to stretch out on the shiny red leather seats. I lit another cigarette as the bright lights of Broadway blurred into the distance.

The bus continued to chug along, unhindered by passengers having the cheek to flag it down until it reached the park known as the Racecourse. The next stop was in view, and a man leant forward waving with his arm outstretched. The stance was instantly familiar and anxiety engulfed me. I felt almost sick with trepidation as the man dressed neatly in his postman’s uniform was dad. He’d probably just finished his round and was heading home for lunch and a sleep. It was inevitable living in the same town that this would happen one day, but it had been too awful to even think about.

The man now climbing the stairs, like a demon shrouded in sulphur from the match he’d just struck to light a Woodbine, I despised and hated with every fibre and cell of my body. A hatred that burnt with an intensity that only shared blood and genes can engender.

Now in my view hate is an overused word, and one that few really understand. I’m as guilty as the next when it comes to its misuse, as I might say that I hate pork scratchings, but it’s not really hate. Merely a dislike of deep fried pig skin that no one’s had the good grace to shave before offering up as a bar snack. But in my father’s case it was hate. A deep gnawing loathing that consumed me like a disease. This was the man who had made me truly miserable and who I once plotted to kill. In my early teens when I wrestled with my anxieties and couldn’t sleep, I would often lie in the dark silence and plan increasingly elaborate ways to end his days. Popular TV shows like McMillan and Wife provided me with the inspiration but also a realisation that killers generally get caught and rarely receive a hero’s welcome. Knowing my luck, the local Columbo would get the case and not appreciate that the death of my father was a gift to the world. In the cold light of day my plans usually evaporated as I realised how hard it was to buy poison from Boots or ask the local mechanic to sever brake cables. As horrible as it sounds, had I been born with the intellect to devise a foolproof plan, dear daddy would have been six feet under.

I hadn’t seen him since Christmas when unable to handle my drink I’d vomited over him at the Navy Club and blind with rage he’d bundled me into his yellow Austin and driven me home. Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t asked me out again, but now here he was exhaling a long line of smoke as he selected his seat. He saw me instantly and I held the fierce glare that shot out from his narrowing eyes as the conductor’s ‘ting ting’ signalled our departure.

What I find most remarkable thinking back to that day is that we said nothing to each other. In the split second that our eyes met, years flashed across the few feet that separated us. All the conflict, love, passion, regret, fear, jealousy and loss in one line of light from eyeball to eyeball. After that flash of information, we were invisible to each other. Dad simply took a seat and continued his journey with his back to me. My heart was pumping like a piston as confused feelings exploded like fireworks in my head. There were just too many colours to capture, too many blurred and conflicting emotions. No amount of rehearsal or musing had prepared me for this meeting and I remained silent. All I could do was gaze in disbelief at the greasy balding brylcreemed head feet away which had given me life. As I sat and studied every hair, wrinkle and mark on that fleshy dome, pity and regret swept me away like a tsunami. There is indeed a thin line between love and hate and this was it. This is how it felt to be on that line but without the courage to do anything about it.

Time had stretched, but he broke the spell by rising from his seat. We’d obviously reached his stop and our full stop. This time our eyes didn’t meet as we both instinctively looked away. I sensed him and watched the black polished shoes as he walked past my seat and hurried down the stairs. My last view was his back as he disappeared into the throng of shoppers on Gold Street, once again shrouded by Woodbine smoke.

I often wonder what he was thinking on the bus that day. Was he experiencing the same confusion and regret? Did the same barbed wire battle of love and hate ricochet around his mind as memories jostled and jumbled? James Bond and ice cream at the ABC; swimming at the local baths; the axe inches from my face, the Navy Club humiliations. My defences were ruptured by a twisted notion of love, suffocating common sense; a ball of poison pushing aside facts and reality like skittles.

The weather's grim, ice on the cages
Me, I'm Robin Hood
and I puff on my cigarette
Panthers are steaming,
stalking, screaming

http://www.youtube.com/v/gKOt1OdkVmo&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

I see familiar patterns of grey; the eyes are mine. The belly now a source of pain once swelled to give me life and I won’t waste that when the sun goes out. She gave me my compass and a weakness for earthly pleasures. I thank her for imbuing me with a stubborn resolve and compassion, reinvention in adversity and a liking for nic nacs. The light may be dimmed, but it will never go out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pushing through the market square, so many mothers sighing...

The drive to Northampton was smooth and uninterrupted and I bathed in new music from Yo La Tengo, Matthew E. White and Rick Redbeard. In my fragile emotional state, tears fed the journey like a hospital drip; melodies and phrases igniting a sense of helplessness and love. Passing by Toddington Services on the M1 released a waterfall as recollections of numerous stops to pick up flowers for mum from M&S flooded through. She is not allowed flowers on the ward, but I hope to have the need to stop there again sometime soon.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/v/xE23Tp7-XVU&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJyjzHIgqr4

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/v/G_WcV5BSRRA&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

Wearing just my beard & a smile

I’ll be around, to make up your thought
Moving on like any other man should...

Friday was a very special evening. Mum was relaxed and content, propped upright on clouds of pillows, her newspaper spread open on the bed with the TV burbling in the background.

I realised as I sat by her side that this was the first time we’d been alone together for any length of time for over thirty five years. It reminded me of days long gone when we’d cosy up with the TV after dad left for a night shift. In these halcyon moments we would watch risqué historical dramas and crime shows to detach ourselves from the war for a short time. I squeezed mum’s hand, soaking up her softness as memories broke through the waves of emotion.

I Claudius

McMillan and Wife
Casanova
The Streets of San Francisco
The Naked Civil Servant
The Rockford Files

Ø  Excerpt from a memoir

 

Dad generally worked nights rather than days. For extra money and to avoid us I suspect. He would generally eat alone and mum would leave his dinner covered in the fridge ready to heat in the oven if required. Over the years the two had fashioned a symbiotic routine that allowed them to coexist without killing each other. Frequently the tension of this tightrope would snap and explode in raised voices and thrown objects, most dramatically in the kitchen with shrapnel from smashing plates.

I have no memory of the three of us sitting together with smiles on our faces. Had I walked into a room and found mum and dad laughing together I would have been unneverved. The Daleks expressed more warmth to one another than my parents did.

Life at home was like an episode of Coronation Street without the jokes or ad breaks. It was an unscripted drama as addictive to us as neat white lines are to flaring nostrils. The daily fix of tension somehow held us together in an emulsion of habit and need. We bore little resemblance to TV families like the Waltons who would burst into our living room dripping with wholesome shoofly pie goodness. Their insistent niceness and perfect white smiles designed to make me feel inadequate and somehow incomplete. However I had no yearning to emulate their joyful harmony, instead I harboured a desire to enter their bedrooms bristling with weapons to wipe the smiles off their faces. During the final minutes as they retired to bed replete with good deeds saying their goodnights, I would be lurking in the shadows with a shotgun at the ready. The morning light would illuminate a scene of holed dungarees, bloody gingham, body parts & bible pages fluttering like angels.

Relief from the circus would come with the growl of dad’s Austin Maxi reversing out of the drive. Shoulders would slide and our stress stream away like grime under a hot shower.

On Sunday morning dad would rise early to wash and polish his Austin with a loving care and soft touch that was alien to me. Our interaction had reduced to grunts and we maintained an uneasy truce of ambivalence and avoidance. Like breeding bull seals, we were hostile if either got too close but resigned to live side by side. After making love to his car, dad would spend the next hour or so preening like a cock before emerging sharply dressed like James Bond in a cloud of Old Spice. He’d then climb into his gleaming chariot ready to step back in time to the Navy club. It was here that he felt most at home, respected and admired by his sailor chums, reliving old times on HMS Eagle where he’d been a chief engineer. ‘Remember Suez Bob? Those were the days my friend.’

Whilst dad lounged at the club, supping pints of Watneys bitter, mum would be a hive of industry and put together the Sunday roast.

Batter beaten and rested

Soaked marrowfat peas simmering
Potatoes blanched and roasting
Steam, smells and sizzles
Yorkshire rising and browning
Gravy reduced and adjusted
Roast crackled and crisped.

As the clock struck two a Quatermass Yorkshire pudding would be hauled from the oven and doused with thick brown gravy. At the same moment exercising his naval precision, dad would walk through the kitchen door, carefully hang up his blazer and take his place at the head of the table. The glory of mum’s Yorkshire would take centre stage and be followed by plates piled with lamb, pork or beef, mushy peas, roast potatoes and waterfalls of brown gravy. We would eat in silence with just the scrape of stainless steel to fill the void until cutlery was laid and the ordeal ended. I would do my best not to meet my father’s eyes as we ate. With one glance he had the ability to catalogue my failure as a human being. Some fathers encourage their children and herald their achievements, but mine took every opportunity to remind me of my failures and inadequacies. I was a source of constant disappointment, never good enough and a ‘useless waste of space.’

One Sunday stands out in my memory. Two o’clock came and went and with the passing minutes the very little patience my mum possessed. She paced her kitchen like a captain rounding Cape Horn, eyes burning like the fires of Tierra del Fuego. The Yorkshire which had emerged triumphant now sank like a deflating rubber ring in a puddle of brown gravy. ‘The bastard’ mum said as she took her place with me at the table and lit a cigarette. My ‘can we start without him?’ was shot down with a scolding ‘don’t you bloody dare.’

Three cigarettes later, just after two thirty we heard the familiar sound of dad’s car on the drive. Mum exhaled a long line of smoke, violently stubbed out her cigarette and rose from her chair, standing with arms crossed. Dad walked in breezily as usual and proceeded to hang up his blazer. The air was heavy and thick with the threat of thunder.

Do you know what the time is?

I can tell the time
Dinner’s ruined. We’ve sat here for half an hour waiting for you
It was Roy’s birthday. The club laid on some sandwiches
You had sandwiches?
Yes. Cheese, tomato, ham, all sorts
What about your dinner?
I told you, I had sandwiches
But we’ve been waiting since two
It was Roy’s birthday
What a waste
You two can have it
It’s ruined
You should have started without me
Couldn’t you have called?
For Christ’s sake Doreen give it a rest will you. Remember who pays for the food in this house
And you remember who cooks it
I’m going back out.

Mum threw the plate loaded with food across the kitchen straight at dad as he reached for his blazer. It missed its target, but with a loud thudding crack smashed into the white tiled wall by the draining board. This acted as an ideal canvas for a Pollack of browns and vivid greens. I remember like yesterday the gravy spattering across the ceiling, potatoes bouncing across the floor like tennis balls and green mushy peas with grey sleighs of meat running down the wall like Martian glaciers.  Dad was clearly shocked and taking his jacket marched out shouting ‘stupid cow’ as he slammed the door. ‘Piss off and don’t come back’ was the loving retort.

 Open mouthed I looked at the carnage. Mum was sitting with her head in her hands mumbling ‘sorry’ as she sobbed. I kissed her gently on the forehead and took a cigarette out of the opened packet on the table which I lit and placed between her fingers. ‘Thanks love’ she said as I took my place and starving began to eat my cold but still delicious dinner. ‘It’s ruined. You can’t eat that’ she said. ‘I better not waste it; look what happens if you don’t eat the food around here.’ It was good to see mum laugh. The only other choice was to cry in our house. ‘Stupid bugger’ she said.

A war of silence followed and neither made any attempt to clear up the mess. It remained on the wall for about a week and life went on as usual around the crusting brown crater. When a whole new ecosystem started to develop I decided enough was enough. Armed with brillo pads, scrapers and brushes I spent an afternoon removing pea bullets, lines of gravy cracked and dried like parchment and shrivelled slithers of meat before washing down the surfaces with hot water and bleach. Brown streaks remained forever more on the ceiling as a reminder of my mother’s master class.

My mum and dad were married in 1946 at Northampton Town Hall despite dad's drunkenness. He had spent the morning in the Angel Hotel toasting with his friends and almost never made it. He had to run from Bridge Street and got there just in time and without falling over. The reception was held in some church rooms close to the Red Lion Pub where the tables groaned under the weight of food cooked by the respective families. Chalky White, my grandfather’s friend and poacher no doubt provided rabbits and a pheasant or two for the event. Crates of beer flowed freely thanks to Uncle Harry and his contacts at the local brewery. It was a happy day. Sometimes it helps to remember the good times and ride the bad ones.

http://www.youtube.com/v/wepShUclRmo&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

There was a man
a lonely man
who lost his love

through his indifference

A heart that cares
that went unshared
and slowly dies
within his silence

Now Solitaire's the only game in town
And every road that takes me, takes me down
While life goes on around me everywhere
I’m playing Solitaire

 

Floating in a most peculiar way

My dad was introduced to my mum by his sister Pat in 1946. Both girls were single mothers, ‘knocked up’ by the yanks that frequented the Black Boy and Criterion pubs in those days.  

 

At the time my mum worked as an usherette in the Exchange Cinema (later the Odeon).

 

 

I remember seeing a picture of her in uniform once, a coquettish vamp, holding her torch provocatively. Any man would have been putty in her hands. Rumour has it that my father burned this and many other photos when they parted company. When asked he neither admits nor denies the act because he doesn’t remember. This is strange and surprising since his recall of other events is detailed and cinematic. I suspect he is guilty as charged. Whatever happened, the loss of this time capsule causes me great sorrow, but I live in hope that some gems may have survived somewhere.

 

After a night of beer and darts dad would sneak into the Exchange and wait for mum on the back row. Their love bloomed like a showy hibiscus doomed to quickly drop.

http://www.youtube.com/v/bBp-ehfENsc&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

They married whilst dad was on leave and honeymooned the weekend in a prefab offered up by my dear Uncle Harry. I have wonderful memories of this sweet natured man who never failed to proffer an ice cream or a shiny coin whenever we met. He was always pleased to see me and generous with his time and love. I remember wishing that he was my dad and not my uncle.

It’s strange to think that my parents were once in love and happy. I have no memory of them even sitting together let alone embracing. My childhood was a Somme offensive; neither side ever gaining advantage but much blood spilt in the process.

I was born in March 1959 in the hospital near St Giles Street where my mother now clings to life. As I Love You by Shirley Bassey was #1 in the hit parade.

http://www.youtube.com/v/dpJ5DjM6Yo0&fs=1&source=uds&autoplay=1

The family lived in a prefab bungalow amongst a thriving but poor community on Bants Lane. Auntie Sheila lived in the prefab opposite and looked after my sisters whilst my mum was in labour. My dad rushed to the hospital when I was born and was so happy that he ran back shouting ‘it’s a boy, it’s a boy’ to anyone who’d listen. One can only speculate on why we ended up being such a disappointment to each other. Nowadays it’s too difficult to unpick or blame, so instead I try to influence the present and model a future.

 

In 1947 my dad was demobbed in Portsmouth and sent forth in his civilian suit. He would rejoin the navy soon after when the reality of post war Britain showed itself, but with money in his pocket he decided to visit Brighton for the weekend. The demobbed gang drank the pubs dry and decided to go for a swim, stripping down to their underpants before braving the waves. Two sentries were left to guard the clothes and wallets. When the wet warriors returned they found the sentries asleep and their belongings stolen. I wonder if dad visited the Spotted Dog for another drink and a change of clothes. I’m sure they made the sailors very welcome there.

Dad was in hospital in November and there were doubts he’d leave but now he’s home and well. When I visit mum and enter from St Giles Street I pass by dad’s old ward and remember this fact. I hope and pray for the same outcome for dear Doreen Alice.

 

 

Share Bright Failing Star

The train journeys have provided a framework to each day which I welcome. They have become my hospital bed giving structure to a void and a means to fill the space between visits. The ritual also validates a feeling that I should somehow suffer alongside mum. I am reassured by my weariness and the routine which feels appropriate in the circumstances. It helps somehow.

The Man Who Sold the World (David Bowie and the 1970s) has been my companion alongside my iPod and its library. The 400 plus pages of Bowie minutiae proves a welcome and fascinating distraction. I read as I listen, soaking up every detail and nuance of the music. The track Subterraneans appears in my headphones and its melody and refrain perfectly compliment my mood pitched somewhere between fear and optimism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yke-c1z8_9Q

Although the world of David Bowie never ceases to amaze and enthral, I was not expecting to find a comparison to mum but there it was on page 219.

It was now impossible to describe Bowie without mentioning his emaciated appearance, his skull clearly visible under the skin, like one of Egon Schieles’s distorted portraits of sickness. His bodyguard during the Ziggy tours, Stuey George, talked as if he were a wilful destructive child; ‘You’d give him something to eat and he’d say he’d have it in a minute. Many times he would go for days without eating, and then he couldn’t get any food down. We had to fix Complan and make him eat.’

Getting food into mum remains the major challenge.