An Unnecessary List

An Unnecessary List

By Graham

I need to bring you in halfway through I’m afraid. I didn’t really have the old ‘recorder’ on before then. You know how it is; you must have the same problem yourself. And in my case, well, the memory is a bit flakey at the best of times, let alone when I’m not really listening.

But from halfway through, well, I am as a reliable as a solid-state chip. Spot on. No question.

It was in the lounge. I think. No, no, let me take that back. It was the kitchen. I know it was the kitchen because it was bolognaise night, and we weren’t having bolognaise. That’s what stuck a chord you see. I mean, if we’d had bolognaise on a bolognaise night, or for that matter not had bolognaise on a non-bolognaise night, I probably couldn’t be so sure. But it was, and we weren’t – and it has stuck in my mind.

        

So there we were, in the kitchen, sitting at the table. The cooker, I mean the cooker. Standing by the cooker. Waiting for the pizza to ping. Pizza in lieu of… you know.

        

‘Fifth, or sixth, possibly seventh.’ 

Audrey. That was Audrey. That’s what she said: possibly seventh. I mean, possibly seventh? Jesus. That hit home. That stuck in my mind. That switched the recorder on all right; I remember every word, syllable by syllable after that. I listened after that all right.

‘Ah.’ That was me. Not in a shocked way you understand, not even with a tiny little exhalation of surprise. No, I was proud of myself, proud of my control, the containment. Just a soft, gentle, almost disinterested little, ‘Ah.’

The timer gave its ding cum ping. The bolognaise surrogate was ready for extraction. I handed Audrey the glove and went in search of the cutter. I would carve. It was the least I could do, being responsible for the missing mince. The bolognaise mince.

We ate. Quietly. Not in silence, that would indicate tension. There was no tension; I was not tense. Audrey may have been, I don’t know, but I certainly was not. If she was content not to talk, so was I.

But I counted. In my head of course, but I counted. I couldn’t help it.

Her mother. Her mother must come into it, obviously. I mean they always do don’t they, girls and their mothers; at some point or other. And her father, he must be a candidate. There was the car on her twenty-first, and when he told her he would pay for university; he was always pretty generous. Still is. But does that count. I suppose it does. Well, right, that’s two then. Two. I had accounted for two.

Grandparents. Obviously, you must think. Not so. Granny Mavis, I’ll give you that, she is a kindly old stick. Nutty as a fruitcake ever since I’ve known her, but I bet she was a right lovely gran when Audrey was growing up. But that’s it there you see, because her old man has always been a grumpy sod. Even Audrey says that, as far back as she can remember. So that was him out of the count, as were the paternal pair. They both got killed in a freak crown-green bowling accident before Audrey hardly had her eyes open.

So. Three. Up to that point I just had three. No brothers or sisters, no favourite cousins that I knew about. Although there was her Auntie Vi. Yes, Aunt Vi. She took her somewhere. Disneyland? Paris? Somewhere or other, yes, I was pretty sure that could be one. Four.

But that was it. That was the best I could do. No, of course, Angela. There was Angela, her best friend. Nothing like that you understand, but they were close. Must have been. I mean, there were the camps, the sleepovers; lots, there must be lots. Not that I was particularly pleased about that you understand. After all, it’s still a hierarchical thing. But well, better that than…

That was when I realised. That was when it set in. Hard. Fast. Piercing. Oh shit. It was, I knew it. It had to be. I mean, five. I got to five. At best five. So that would leave… sixth. But only if I had the five. Only if the five were, well, legitimate. But what about the ‘possibly seventh’? Eh, what about that then? In that case, sixth means diddly squat. The fact that I had five, if that even, meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So, it all came blurting out. My resolve fell apart. All the Mum, and Dad, and Gran.  All that stuff came rolling out. Was this it? Had I got them all? Was it sixth, or was it… was it… was it seventh? I wanted to know. I just wanted to know. At all costs, I wanted to know.

And from then, as I said, I remember her every word. Every single word from that point on.

‘You,’ she said, ‘You, to be brutally honest.’ (I remember the brutally honest bit most of all) ‘You, barely make me happy at all. You may have made me happy once; but at best, at the very best, you were seventh. Out of all the people that have ever made me happy you were seventh.’

I had to ask. I just had to ask. Stupid.

‘But, who was the sixth. I only had five, who was the sixth?’

‘Five? You don’t have five.’

This was when she drove in the blade. This was when my little recorder in my head really kicked in. Oh for a delete key. How sweet would that be.

‘John, Rodger, Roger, Gerald, David, Richard.’

There was the briefest pause. The cat leapt up on to my lap, grabbed my last piece of pizza and ran off.

‘Actually, my mistake, I forgot Nigel. You rank eighth

The Permanent Snowfall

Although it had been forecast for some time the winter, when it came, took me by surprise.  It eclipsed a light that had shone upon my life for some time.  Slowly, that it is.  Slowly the view of what had been there for decades changed.  Just as snowfall changes familiar scenes. 

 

I was on the factory floor talking to Jake Parker, one of the team leaders, when the call came through.  The caller display told me it was Maple Lodge.  

“Mr Williams?”

“Yes”

“I’m afraid that she’s gone for a wander again”.

“In this weather?”

An emotion I would struggle to accurately label filled me.  Yes, there was sadness.  Yes, there was embarrassment that this part of my life had come into my workplace and there was anger too.  I think helplessness would be the most accurate description though.  It overwhelmed me.  It was an emotion too great for me to contain.  This wasn’t the place for emotions though.  I gathered myself instantly and began to step away from Jake.   

“Is that Eilleen?”

“Yes, Mr Williams, err Matthew.  It’s Eilleen Reeve.  She had lunch with everyone as usual so can’t have been gone for any more than an hour”.

I wanted to shout.  I wanted to know how difficult it could be just to do the job these people were being paid to.  But I couldn’t shout at Eilleen.  She was absolutely one of the nicest, most caring, selfless and patient people I’d ever encountered.  Until my first visit to Maple Lodge I’d never known that such people existed.

“We do our best to keep an eye on everyone Matthew but this isn’t a secure unit......”.  I cut her off mid-sentence. 

“It’s fine, Eilleen.  Does she have her hat, coat and gloves?”  

“Yes”

“I’ll go and get her”

“The usual place?”

“Almost definitely” 

And, just twenty five minutes later, there she was, sitting on the garden wall of 74 Pound Drive.  She was wearing her coat but her hat and gloves were on the wall next to her.  Like a statue she had allowed snow to gather on her head and shoulders and lap. 

I straddled the small wall and sat next to her. 

“Hello” she said.  She recognised me.  That is, she recognised me in the way that a tune can come into your head and you know it but can’t recall the name of the song or the singer and you’ll whistle it and try to remember the name of it, try to force it out of your memory, whistle it to other people in the hope that they’ll recognise it.  In that way, my mum knew me. 

“Hello.  What are you up to?”, I asked.

“I’m waiting for dad”

“My dad or your dad?”.  I might as well have asked “What’s 49 x 58?”.  I’d confused her.  She smiled.  It was the awkward smile she adopted several years ago when she knew her degeneration was becoming apparent to others.  It was always like she’d been caught out doing something she shouldn’t be.  Around that time she became increasingly quiet also.  What logic was left in her brain had decided that the less she spoke the less opportunity there was for error and embarrassment and worried looks from people and awkward conversations.  Each memory was a guest of the evening silently slipping away at the end of the party.

“I’m waiting for my dad to get home from the shop”.  This was a little unlikely.  He’d retired in 1975, moved away from this house in Pound Drive and died in 1988.  In 1980 Alzheimer’s began to erase his memory and personality and a new one emerged and then nothing that could be described as personality replaced it.  ‘He’ had died long before his body chose to.  Then, at my Grandfather’s funeral my mother asked me if I’d be good enough to shoot her if she should end up like him.  I’ve failed to act on this request consistently over recent years.  It causes me a great deal of sorrow.  I never thought she’d leave until she went.

“It’s cold Liz.  Let’s go and see where he is.  We can go in my car”.  Even though she wasn’t sure who I was she recognised that I knew her and was reassured that I knew her name.  I faced her as she stood and comically brushed some snow off her shoulders and head and we headed to the car.  As if she was a child being promised a trip to the funfair I said “C’mon, we’ll stop at my house.  There’s someone there you know.”      

Ten minutes later she and my dad were at the kitchen table in my house.  He reminisced about a snowy holiday in Llandudno in the mid-60’s. My mum held my dad’s hand but as always lately I thought she was holding on more than holding.  She was silent but attentive to his every word, letting the past kiss the future goodbye.



Patrick

Coalescence

And he sat there on a bamboo veranda, watching the warm ocean roll in and out, below the bowing palm trees that sighed gently in warm wind. And he reflected quietly on his life and his place in the various machinations of the world that he moved within, and in which and of which he played a part.

And to what degree were his actions consequential? As each wave rolled up the ruffled sand, he saw how each decision he'd taken had made change. Not only in his own life but in the lives of others. And his actions echoed down through the world. He had a place.

As the cicadas sang, and the sea hushed its complicated language over the shifting sands, he saw how his life played a part. Just a little part. And as he sighed his last, and his vision blurred, and the sea melded with the sky, he knew that his life wasn't without consequence. As his children laughed and played in the growing distance.

And even as the cicadas continued relentless, he understood that the difference between snow and warm sea is that one is set and decided and crystallised, whilst the other is warm and fluid and undecided. And he knew that being alive was warm water, and that it took death to crystallise one's view such that it held a perspective. Prior to that, only warm and tangled currents could define any view. Confusion. Something yet to form. Yet to crystallise. And only some frozen form that came from the cessation of fluid indecision could ever define him. So he came to know that his death coalesced his life into something recognisable.

d

Restless

I'd rather be restless.

Unable to congeal.

More able to feel

Whether sad or glad.

I'd rather sing my own song loud

And fuck everyone else.

And may the resulting

Dissonance

Discordant ring through

Everyone's life.

Then I'll feel the strife

And constant reflection

On the value of my life

Will have yielded some result.

No more a fool made of me.

You will listen.

Because we all listen to the voice

Of the dead.

No more failure my achievement.

We'll all feel together

The vibrating gap

Between the life we live

And the life we want.

As crystals of snow

Melt and join

To form warm water

And make an ocean.

d

Amy

Oh arching song that grabs my heart

And drags it weeping through some

Rainbow of myriad colours.

She's dead now is Amy.

And her songs said

How she felt.

But the celebrity world was too stupid

To see. Professing understanding

By way of smart arsed critics

As all failed to see

The broken heart of a young woman

Who couldn't find a place to be.

d

Can I ask you about the snow, and where did it go?

It disappeared because the wind did blow?

I’m not complaining, but it did seem very slow,

will it come back again? I really don’t know,

(but I really, really hope it isn't so)

But some parts of this country it will be so,

Jack Frost will make an appearance, but according to the weather reports for my town, hooray, no snow!

Some younger people were sad to see it go,

other people don’t mind, they are just so so.

But most will think, NO!!!

What is there to show, where’s to go?

I want the sun to glow, that time seems even more slow,

it seems to make an appearance, then away it does go,

then people will be happier, and they will shine and glow,

but before we think of those better, sunny times again,

we all have to get ready for the massive amounts of....
.................................................................. rain?

April showers, again, rain, rain, rain, and again, more rain,

and judging on what happens with this crazy weather lately,  

that will be April showers in April, May, June and July!

What an effing pain! 

Chris.