Come Not When I Am Dead (8 page)

After we breakfasted I went to my
studio to try and paint.
 
But it is
too hot today.
 
I am a shuffling,
fidgeting bugger that can’t settle and I push back my chair and I hear it move
through the dust on the floor I note how warped the floorboards are, I see it
all without looking.
 
I push back my
messy pile of papers and they settle in to place.
 
I stand up and stretch up and see some
butterfly wings in a cobweb near the window, a window scratchy with years old
dirt, the paint has come off the frame and there’s a damp smell in here, a sort
of pale brown smell.
 
I don’t
know.
 
I don’t know.
 
I don’t quite know what I’m doing
really.
 
I’m painting, but I don’t
have passion today, yesterday.
 
I
want to kick down walls and make things crash and bash.
 
I’m spikey and squiggly and going round
and round in eccentric wheels of copper wire.
 
I want to lie about on the ground and
smoke cigars.
 
I want to dance
furiously.
 
I want to suck my thumb
and curl up at the base of a big tree.
  
I want yellow honey to flow and
get rid of the rubbish.
 
I want to
rest my head on Coningsby’s soft and warm fur.
 
I want to be loved and held and
cherished by everybody.
  
I
want to be adored by everybody and no words spoken.
 
But birds still sing.
 
I say “oh bugger” to myself and go
outside in this filthy and disgusting heat with my head down and my body
slipping through the stiflingness.

I am sitting on my bedroom floor now having
a cigar and in the sitting room I hear Joseph and his newest boyfriend
chattering and I know the boyfriend is stroking Coningsby because I hear Joseph
say “Aunty Gussie absolutely adores her, I hate to think what she’ll be like
when she dies.”
 
But I can’t think
about it, best not to think about it as marbles scurry across the floor and as
the fly lands in the river and finds no fish.
 
As I go under and you go over.
 
But nothing could replace her, nothing
could replace my silken-eyed wonder with her silken-soft footsteps.
 
I tiptoe across the room now and rest in
the feathers on my bed and rest my chin on my hand and I am silent.
And now, as they talk, as they gabble, my time stops and I rewind and my space
is quieter than theirs.
 
It is the
only thing worth understanding and what you say, whoever you are, means nothing
as I sit in silence by your side.
 
In my very beautiful silence, to be treasured and kept as a
treasure.
 
And I have a box of
treasures, a box of felted cat fur and cast off cat claw sheaths, of sunsets
and passing owls or a pheasants cry far off and getting further and further.

Later on, whilst
Jo is tidying the sitting room and I’m standing there watching her so I’m sort
of partaking in it too and looking as if I’m doing something,
 
Jo asks me what Joseph does for a
living.
 
“This and that” I say and
pretend to look under a chair
“but what is this and that? And will you stop just walking from spot to spot, I
know you’re just busy doing nothing”
“Well, he sort of looks after Japanese businessmen” I say and look away from
her, to hide my smile “looks after them?
 
What does that mean? That sounds a bit dodgy.”
And I throw over my shoulder “It’s not though” and I race out of the sitting
room, in to the kitchen so she doesn’t hear me laugh and hope she gets
distracted with cobwebs and dusty surfaces.

“Hello?” It is a woman’s voice, his
wife’s.
  
She has a ‘phone’
voice
“Is that Linda Snell?” I feel like saying, but instead I clear my throat and
say
“Oh, hi, ummm, Farquhar Stevens here, is, umm, is the vet there?” I don’t know
why I always do this voice.
“Can I ask what the problem is?”
“Oh yah, it’s umm, my donkey”
“and what’s the problem with your donkey?”
“Umm, just doesn’t look right, I know when he looks right and he just looks
wrong, very wrong, really need the vet out now” and I think that sounds pretty
good and I can hear that she’s impressed with me, she thinks I’m the ‘right
type’.
 
She is gracious to me and if
I’d ‘oo ah’ed’ like a farmer she would have been curt.
 
She should be ashamed of herself, and
Farquhar sounds such a twat.
“You’re one of us” people will say to me, or “she’s not one of us” they’ll say
about Jo and it disgusts me, it is excrement hurling from their mouths.
 
“Just hold the line and I’ll go and find
him” I can hear the false smile in her voice.
“Oh great, thanks, the children will be so pleased” .
 
Pleased?
 
Pleased?
 
I could have chosen a better word than
that but off she went, I heard her calling him “Charles!”
 
Charles!
 
His name’s fragging Charlie.
 
I heard little children playing on
wooden floors and some toys being bashed about, the sounds of his house.
 
I don’t want to hear his
domesticity.
 
And in my head I see
wide dark oak floorboards and dark coloured rugs, diamond leaded windows and
large oil paintings of animals on the walls.
 
I’ve no idea if it’s really like that,
but it is now.
 
I sing a little tune
to myself
 
‘to you, my heart cries
out perfidia…’and look at the book on the shelf by the phone and then I hear a
sigh that flutters through my bones, unsteadying me.
 
“Hello, what’s the problem with your
donkey then?”
 
His words seeped out
and lust seeped right through me, stealthily but surely.
 
I like hearing his voice on the phone,
it is a deep child’s, it sounds like I want to wrap my arms around it, pick it
up and hold it tight, press close to my cheek.
 
“Can you be a little more specific?”
“you’re my donkey problem”
 
I still
say as Farquhar
“I beg your pardon?”
“It’s me you spanner” and there is silence at the other end while he collects
himself, I shouldn’t have said that.
 
“Has your mobile broken or something?
 
Check it.
 
Just quickly though, I can’t do 6pm
tonight, make it 7pm, OK?”
“OK, I’ll be out after I’ve had something to eat, I shall see you at 7pm then,
thank you Mr Stevens.
 
Goodbye.”
Ooooh, it’s so exciting, it’s all so exciting and I sit down and laugh with the
devilment of it all.
 
I’m a rascal.
‘Joseph, Joseph, Joseph, I’M BAD’ I text him.

“Did I ever tell you” I say to Charlie
at about 7.40pm “that my grandpa built this fishing hut?”
“no, you didn’t, but that’s very nice”
“the others want to replace it with a new one.
 
They talked to me about it once, but I
must have looked so sad, they thought I was going to cry, so they’ve never
mentioned it again” and I smile, one hand burrowing in my pocket looking for a
lighter, the other holding a cigar.
 
“What are the others like?”
“nothing really, just boring.
 
I
mean look how beautiful it is here and they just never come” my arms are open
now, I know that I have very expressive hands and a very expressive face, it
makes me laugh if someone ever videos me, I look like a cartoon character but
luckily people find it endearing because I couldn’t do anything about it
anyway.
 
I think I look like a prat
though.
 

We are sitting on a very basic old wooden
bench, a plank on two stump logs.
 
The
river is black and the dead grass is white, there’s the far off cries of ewes
calling their lambs to them and Bill hooting to me, ever nearer, I am aware of
everything.
 
We’re surrounded by
dark shadows of trees and a faded pink in the sky.
 
“I’m glad they don’t come” and my head
turns around on my neck like a radar “I don’t want them to come, but it’s odd
isn’t it?
 
They all have access to
here, but I never see them.
 
Have
you ever seen anywhere as perfect?
 
Have you?
 
In all your
travels, have you ever seen anywhere as utterly perfect as here?” I am smiling
at the glory of this world, I’m so excited by it all “no I haven’t” but he is
looking at me and not out at the view
“you’re looking at me, look at the view!
 
So, have you?” I laugh and try to get him to appreciate what I see, but
he’s appreciating his view of me “I’m not talking to you anymore.”
 
I laugh and my face contorts without
control, I laugh with my face down, towards my lap because I’m embarrassed but
happy.
 
My heart swirls and claps
itself together because he was looking at me with appreciation, because he was
being romantic and loving and admiring.
 
“You’re very lovely” I say “thank you for your love.”
 
I feel blue birds could fly to me in a
little troupe and flutter around me, prinking my hair and clothes as they trill
a little tune.
 
I feel I am good, a
really good person.
 
The midges are
biting at my head and neck now and a deer leaps out from the undergrowth on the
other bank, it makes us jump and be even quieter.
 
And I drift into magical silence.
 

We were having a bit of a sit down
and a cup of drinking chocolate from his flask before we changed rods to fish
for sea trout.
 
We waded in together
just below the hut.
 
Tired, I was
glad of a sit down and to go into a daze.
 
Sometimes he doesn’t take to fishing so very easily, he forgets
everything and he is clumsy in the water “think about where you’re walking” I
say “you should always be having a little conversation with your feet whilst
you’re wading, you do have to be very aware of your feet Charlie, that’s the
difference between success and disaster, it’s so important.”
 
I feel like shaking him by the shoulders
to make it settle in his head.
 
It
bores me to be a bore, but I have to spell everything out for him sometimes
“look, now you’re standing on solid, unshifting bedrock and there’s no slime
beneath your feet to unsettle you, see?”
 
And I shuffle my feet as an
illustration
 
“Charlie,
concentrate!
 
And sometimes, like
back there, you’re wading through shifting shingle with those slimy slippery
boulders, they can be utterly treacherous, the mud is all oozy and grabs your
legs, did you feel it? You have to just be aware of your feet all the time.”
 
I don’t think he’s getting it.
 
It is getting dark now and we should be
quiet.
 
“Do be careful Charlie, I’ve
fallen in loads of times and it’s horrible as well as dangerous.”
 
I am softer now.
 
“I know you have” he says “I’ve seen you a few times”
“Don’t be such a bloody prat, it’s not funny, don’t make a joke of it.
 
Listen to me!
 
And always put the belt on your waders”
and I take it from his shoulder strap and put it around his waist, tightening
it up and adjusting it “Yes ma’am”
“It’s important, it will stop the water from getting straight to your feet if
you topple over” and I lean a little more forward, reach my hand up, high,
high, high and stroke down his left cheek I am taking pollen from a
flower.
 
And all my insides gushing
and waving frantically into disintegration.
 
The sky is black fudge and heavy and
sweet all around us and a sea trout lifts it’s body high in the air and flat
backs splash in the water “you’re showing off” I say “and your exuberance could
be the end of you, that joy could suddenly turn to dread, to hopelessness and
to flesh on my plate.”
 
I watch
Charlie in what light there is, I watch him in my grandpa’s waders, trying to
impress me, he wades towards me, trying to walk with dignity.
 
He has his rod in his left hand and
reaches out for my hand with his right and we walk side by side, I feel the
adult but look the child “I am looking forward to this” and he is, he wants to
learn how to fish, he wants to feel the same passion for it that I do, I would
love him to, but somehow think he won’t.
 
The river is pinching our legs through
the waders now, we feel the pressure in the faster flowing water try to carry
us off, kidnapping us for some boisterous and possibly lethal adventure, I tell
Charlie that sometimes, especially when fishing in a flood, debris can take you
from behind, and bang, before you know anything about it, you’re off your
feet.
 
I tell him how if you go over
in waders they fill up with water and then you’re buggered, or sometimes the
air can stay in the legs and feet of the waders and turn you upside down.
 
These are things I was taught when I was
little and I’m passing them on to him, but whereas with me, they screwed their
way deep down in my brain, they are bouncing off Charlie’s head like light off
a bald patch.
 
“Charlie” I love
saying his name “do you know a chap with a hair-do and a pink checked shirt
 
who drinks at ‘The Stag’?”
 
I hadn’t thought I would say this but I
hear the words coming from me, like the sweets I accidently eat when I feel
them falling into my mouth from my own hand.
 
“Can’t think, why?
 
Who’s that?” and he doesn’t look up from
his knot and I wondered whether I should say ‘oh nothing’ or tell him.
 
But I tell him everything, even when, especially
when it concerns him “your wife was with him the other night, when you were at
my house.”
“Oh, wonder who that was?” but he doesn’t seem worried, he doesn’t falter in
his knot, he seems only just politely interested “I didn’t know she was going
out, how tall was this bloke?” he really doesn’t seem bothered, I think this is
a good thing.
 
If he was interested
or animated I’d know he was lying to me about their relationship.
 
These conversations are like those ships in the night, sometimes words pass
without obstruction and sometimes they bash and bang and become starkly aware
of each other and I feel an argument that could have been, disintegrate before
it’s even formed.
 
I told him that Jo saw them, I didn’t say ‘cosying up’ but I said that they
were close to each other and looked as if they were having fun “funny if she
was having an affair too” and I smile a tentative smile as I look up at him “stupid
then to do it in a pub if she is” he says, and turns to look at me with what I
know is a fond smile, he leans a little forward,
 
I can see him toppling, toppling and
froosh!
 
He’s in the water, splashes
high and wide, white and silver and bubbled, shooting up, covering his face,
obscuring his face, I can see you.
 
I see the dark bulk of his body disappear backwards, disappearing and
he’s under.
 
Crash, and what a
splash that makes, water everywhere, in my face, up so high.
 
It’s funny, the expression on his face,
the look in his eyes, his whites too white.
 
The open of his mouth, stuck in time,
the waving of his arms, flap, flap, frantically flap against the river, ripping
paper, fireworks.
 
The torso gone
now and the legs remaining, it’s very funny and I feel myself laughing, I love
to laugh.
 
He has no control, boosh
and over again and I see it all so slowly.
 
Count the splashes and,
after all
that
I thought.
 
I wonder if his
legs have got air in them?
 
I am not
here.
 
I am not there.
 
And I bring myself back.
 
I wonder if I wasn’t here would he
drown? and I’m laughing so that it hurts, my eyes are tight and my mouth is
dribbling and I can’t move for laughing and then I hear him gulping, shouting,
drowning and I realise I am moving.
 
I am aware of everything, every splash, ever drop of water, all the
colours in the river, every changing expression on his face.
 
I part the water, pushing my chest
through, making a path, I am aware of the heaviness of it, it is suddenly very
heavy, and the stones are those slippery, slimy boulders I told Charlie about,
but I get to him, slower than I would like and he’s splashing me with his
flailing, surely he can’t really be drowning?
 
I am annoyed all of a sudden. I don’t
like water in my face.
 
I spit it
out and scrunch up my eyes in disgust.
 
“Hold on to me you spanner, grab my
hand.
 
Not that hard” and I pull it
away, I don’t want him to drag me in.
 
I am pulling and laughing, grabbing and laughing, thinking how very wet
he’s going to be and laughing.
 
I’ve
got him.
 
He’s safe, his waders full
of water, his legs weak, he’s a cheap aluminium stool toppling at the slightest
touch and I can’t stand straight for laughter “you poor old sausage, I don’t
want to say I told you so, but you are a prat Charlie.”
“That was a bit bloody dangerous, and you weren’t much help, laughing like a
bloody mad woman” and in an instant he is a weasel, trapped and dangerous, thin
faced and furious.
 
I am standing
over him with a stick, wondering what to do, my joy being ruined by distaste of
him.
 
“But I did help though didn’t
I?
 
Didn’t I?
 
If it wasn’t for me you might have died
there!”
 
I want his reassurance and
gratitude now and I heave him out of the water, help him lie, heavy and
cumbersome on the river bank on my newly strimmed grass and kiss his soft
butter lips whilst taking his waders off him, “you are a very wet creature” and
I’m still laughing “but so exciting.
 
Hey, aren’t you?
 
Very
exciting indeed” and I thought that he’d have to come back to my house tonight
and dry his clothes and I’d have more of his time.