February 11, 2014

In Defence of Escapism

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In defence of escapism.

Darcy sat gazing out of the window, marvelling at the frosted snowflakes gently blowing out of the sky. Outside, the world was wrapped in a fresh mantle of clean, cold snow. Ensconced in the warmth of the café, gently cradling a piping hot mocha, she could dream of Jamie, savouring the taste of her double chocolate, almond and cranberry muffin with frosted pink rose scented glaze…..

I have read a lot of chic lit – that brand of rather uniquely sexist literature that fascionistas decry because they say it only appeals to the lazy instincts of womankind. Woman meets man, loses man, finds him again; or woman loses man, finds herself, finds a better man; we are prone to scoffing at such easy, soft options for reading, as if by not reading Proust, or the latest discoveries unearthed within the pages of ‘Archaeology Now’, we are letting down the side, betraying the freedoms for which our older sisters and mothers fought so hard.

But what if the lot of women is already hard? What if the first thing woman does when she rises at seven, is to put away the laundry, open the curtains and make the beds? What if, when she reaches the kitchen and is within hailing distance of her breakfast, the first thing she sees is the pile of unwashed dishes in the sink? There is not much room there, for escapism, and precious little to look forward to, unless, of course, she is that delightful fiction of mankind, the woman who enjoys cleaning and clearing, and finds daily menus a delightful challenge. Sometimes, I would like to feel like that, but mostly, I fail miserably.

There are times when our daily worries and preoccupations become a bit heavy, like a bit of homemade wholemeal (try saying that in a hurry) bread that stubbornly refuses to rise. There are times when futility stands her ground and mocks. And there are times when sheer loneliness can become a bit overpowering. Held down by such feelings, chic lit, gentle escapism, and happy fluffy dreams are a vital escape, allowing the mind to lift, and then find solutions, strength and new resolve. If Alice in her cupcake shop can tell the CEO of a large multi-national corporation that she is not interested in promotion, then I can find the steely resolve I need, too, to withstand long periods of soul destroying silence, failures in communication and the demands that everyone makes on my time.

And if I am thinking nice thoughts about cuddly people, there is just a chance that, in that gentle breathing space, creative solutions will have a chance to find me. Yes, I deserve to be creative, to dream and to have fun. If the best place for that is between the pages of a too-big book, then so be it.

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February 5, 2014

Working From Home

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Working from home

She’s hounding me again. The phone has rung five times in the last six hours so I just don’t answer when it rings. It could be anyone, couldn’t it? Mum, or my sister saying, “How are you?” It could be my agent saying, “Cheerio, I’m off to the States for two years, see you soon” or my husband reminding me not to cook this evening as it is his birthday and we are supposed to be going out for something to eat later. But I don’t answer, because I know I didn’t promise to visit the hospital this afternoon. Between three and five she gets no visitors and would like me to pop in to see her, hardly able to breathe, on the second floor of the high dependency respiratory ward. Her bed takes about twenty-five minutes to locate within the north wing of the hospital, after spending maybe forty minutes finding a parking space outside on the vast tarmac complex and actually getting to the main entrance of the building. It’s about forty minutes driving from here to our new, spankingly expensive citizens’ hospital on the outskirts of the city, all white and faceless like a starchy apron daring anyone to disapprove. With metered parking that costs so much, I bet the hospital uses that income stream to service interest payments. Impressive queues of people wait patiently at the pay boxes jingling change in their hands to slot in before they can leave, trapped into shelling out money for jam, as Mum would say.

Anyway, there is nothing I can do. I can hardly hear Ellie on the phone, with her thick vowels, trapped inside a bad reception space with no privacy, no telly and no-one else to talk to. I have to be at home by three-thirty most afternoons, which is why I know I didn’t promise to visit Ellie at the hospital. I can’t be in two places at once, can I? Though God knows, that would be a handy trick. As it is, I have spent most of this morning passing over my plastic card for presents for my daughter’s school friends – it is party season – or looking for “thank you” cards and stamps to stick on letters to Australia.

I really have to get down to some more writing, or else my agent is going to seriously question the wisdom of taking me on as a client. What kind of writer manages only three short books in three years? I have a host of smaller pieces that could do with being finished. I like my work and so, I count myself lucky. At long last, I have reached a compromise with working that works for me. I work from home, I can please myself. Of course, everyone imagines I am available to do the weekly shopping, to organise the social calendar, to cook and clean and to run thither and hither collecting, sorting, washing and tidying everything I can get my hands on. I wish that there was room to just write. If anyone else expects me to do anything else, I shall run screaming along the High Street. Or I would, if it weren’t so cold. Fancy being a stay at home mum with a career? Take my advice and get an office so that you are out. Out all day. It’s the only way. People take you seriously when you are out all day. Best way to be.

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February 4, 2014

Changing Times Part 4

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Changing times part 4

Edith straightened her back and pulled her hair off her forehead, aware that time was passing so fast. She had come to the garden just minutes ago, and now, look, it was going to be dark soon. Glancing up at the lowering skies, she grimaced, collected her tools and basket and carefully went indoors. Her knees and fingers were stiffening and her feet ached. Good.

She slammed the back door and locked it, twice, checking to see that the window was bolted shut and the light extinguished in the kitchen before retiring to her room. Her supper had been meagre: an end of bread, some mangled meat substitute from a tin and the dregs of tea that she had reheated over the small stove and put into a flask. But she had a few beans, some parsley, a handful or two of blackcurrants and a few dandelion stems for a bit of freshness, and these she ate slowly and with great pleasure. The scent of blackberries evoked the freshness of her youth. The earth still had a scent, which lingered on her clothes and in the sweat on her skin.

Late at night, with the curtains drawn and the small desk light for company, she wrote a reply to the authorities: Dear Sirs, thank you for your communication of 5th instant. I am pleased to accept your kind invitation to move into the Ninth Quarter. Please expect my arrival at the end of this month. Sincerely…Though she had no intention of moving, she felt better having written, addressed and stamped the letter. Now, she just had to work out what to do about the deadline.

She slept over on her arm, which, as it slipped off the desk, jolted her awake. The light was flickering, signalling the end of evening power, so she let it go out and waited, summoning the strength to reach her bed. Pushing herself upright, she stiffly inched sideways until the comforting feel of soft, cool covers brushed her legs and she fell, collapsing sideways. Scarcely able to unbutton her cardigan, she shuffled off her slippers and in a flurry of energy which left her exhausted, folded herself beneath the covers and slept.

The following morning she roused herself late, unusually drowsy and unwilling to move. Had the poison caught her system at last? The dandelion leaves, the beans that might not have boiled for long enough before the gas died? So many things seemed to be finishing, running out. What about me? Edith thought, with unaccustomed self-pity. Could I just run out there? She might be able to run…She sat bolt upright in bed, though her head sang with dizziness and her eyes were unfocussed. A light shone over the corner desk, the curtains had not been drawn and she was fully dressed, warm in her twisted, buttoned clothes.

Moving out into the cooler air of the landing, she felt her way gingerly downstairs and through to the back. The key was not in the door. She had locked it, but where was the key? Had she put it down? She felt for it, walked to the window and found it lying there, on the shelf. Strange, she had never done that before…her mug half-filled with cold water and the small pan were still waiting from the night before. But Edith was not hungry, not this morning. With an effort she opened the door and pulled it ajar, almost falling over herself to get outside. Out, into the breeze, the air which blew damply around her, filled with dripping coolness which she breathed in, hungry for refreshment. To breathe deeply was consoling, no matter what she shut her eyes against.

She considered what she would do.

“There are few things that cannot be tackled after a bath” Her mother’s words startled Edith.

“Mum? Are you there?”

“Of course! Go and get yourself tidied up, girl.”

Pleased to be told what to do, Edith retraced her steps, pausing as she reached the half way mark up the stair, gladly removing her clothes which caught round her neck and made her sweat uncomfortably. Hair could do with a wash, too. She left the bathroom ajar as she stripped and helped herself over the sill of the bath by leaning heavily on the sink. The old, faithful taps she gripped and turned had never let her down, never dripped, never wasted a drop.

Grey water was clean enough, un-rationed and plentiful, since Edith took few showers lately, forgetting them, more interested in drinking tea and thinking about the past. She must stop doing that, she reflected, as she washed away dryness, the hardness that clung over her face. Must make the most of what I have. A daughter who loves me – a grandson. What was his name? She flushed with shame to have forgotten that. There was little purpose now in rationing her soaps, so she fished the almost empty plastic bottle out of the cabinet, filled it with water and used that for a body wash and shampoo. The last time she would smell lavender brought tears to her eyes. She wept and washed beneath the water, cleaning away months of thoughts, combing through her hair and watching everything swirl down the drain.

The authorities would take her house, but she wouldn’t have to clear it. They would salvage what they could, recycle the building materials they might need, and leave the rest, or powder it for bricks. All she has to do was pack a couple of suitcases and a bag of food while she waited for permission to move. Their reply would not be long in arriving. They would be happy to have won a victory. She, on the other hand, knew that she was surrendering little. She would see more of her daughter, now that their conflict was ending, and more of her grandson, since she was about to turn respectable. She would have more to eat, and company.

She could choose to listen to Bach and Chopin on her personal radio. Personal programing allowed that, in between the announcements. She would have help with making supper and changing light bulbs. As she wept for her losses, Edith knew that she would manage. She would make her daughter happy again.

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February 3, 2014

Changing Times Part 3

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Changing times part 3

One calm day in August, a letter from the Relocation Ministry landed in her box stating that she “was requested to move into the modern, safer environment of the Ninth Quarter Dome.” She sighed, dropped the communiqué onto the carpet and went to the back door to look out into her beloved small garden. A few blackcurrant bushes, an elderberry and a hazel bush all clung on around the boundary fence, while dandelions populated a small piece of border. She also grew nasturtiums and poppies, which liked the space and seemed to take neglect in their stride. When the shrinking band of her neighbours shook their heads at her pointless pottering, she could smile and say that, well, blackcurrant bushes  yielded good tea and jam, the nasturtiums brightened her salads, as did the spring dandelion leaves. Dandelion roots were delicious roasted and used for coffee and the hazel and elderberry bushes were useful…a large tub which Edith kept filled with moist earth, always contained something salad-like. Aidan dragged it indoors when necessary, to stand under the glass porch.

“I suppose I should write to them and decline their kind offer…” she muttered crossly, as she picked up the letter and read it over again. It was typical, written by some young zealot straight out of the government training school, peppered with spelling mistakes and errors in syntax…and unambiguous. She was required to relocate within the month and at the latest before 1st October, so that provisions could be allocated for her needs over the Closed Season (which meant November to February). Any failure to comply would result in a scheme of forfeits implemented over a six month period with a view to securing compliance. After this, Town Hall reserved the right to use other methods.

“It can wait.” She spoke aloud into the silence with unusual defiance. “It can all wait for a colder day than today. Now I am going to put on my old clothes and do the garden.”

A cool start, with pains in the bending and an unusual, breathless huff when she turned her shoulder away from the breeze, just so. Maybe, she hoped, the time was coming when she would be finished with all this. But just in case there would be another winter to live through, she pulled, swept and tidied, clearing away what had grown taller, denser or pricklier in the last few weeks. Weeding didn’t much concern her, but bramble stems pulling at her skirt and tripping her up did, so she gladly pulled on her warped gardening gloves, found her sharp knife and set to work, gradually snipping and pruning back their greedily stretching tendrils, but leaving blossoms and greening buds of fruit. There would be more than just and handful this year, which she would eat fresh heedless of all the scaremongering. Why should she not? It made no difference to her now.

She was utterly freed, she realised, to think and do and say what younger, more respectable citizens held back from. If she spoke the truth, people would assume she was rambling, offensive because of an illness of age. Few people now lived as long as she had, despite all the promises of longevity that she had grown used to hearing. Who wanted to live to a hundred, anyway? What would be so wrong about finally reaching heaven and seeing Harold again? Dear Harold, with his balding crown, his crooked spectacles perched on his beaky nose, his wise smile.

Suddenly, an ache leapt up from her heart and blocked her throat. Edith missed her husband and the pain kept her rooted to the spot, her knife held in mid-air. She had been alone for decades, quietly keeping her counsel. Around her as the scenery changed gradually, the colour leached away. People increasingly told her what to do, as she kept her own mind, quietly resisting. She slipped away from them and they had no heart to run after her. But evasiveness was tiresome. What Edith most longed for was friendship from those who understood her, could read the meanings in her face and did not continually try to subvert her decisions. When had disagreeing become an anti-social element?

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January 31, 2014

Changing Times Part 2

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Changing Times Part 2

Edith’s daughter, with husband and single child, came to visit each weekend, regular as clockwork. Dorothy was always begging Edith, with her particularly earnest expression, all wrinkles and furrowed brow, that guaranteed Edith would retort “No!” Poor child, reflected Edith. If she knew how much I hate that face she makes. If she would only smile, I would do anything for her. But Dorothy rarely smiled, and so mother and daughter seldom agreed on anything.

Dorothy and Aidan had been assigned an apartment (if you could call it that…Edith screwed up her face in distaste) in the new Fourth Quarter Dome. Edith suspected that there had been undertakings given to move the old woman out, which had secured a favourable deal for what was, after all, a very ordinary family. They were always arriving on little missions to try and persuade Edith how wonderful, easy, cheap and safe it was to live in a dome. Any dome, they said, as long as she was safe, away from the rain that stung the skin, the clouds that wept ice, the debris collapsing out of the sky – people had died, didn’t she know.

Edith didn’t really care for safety. She was well aware that she had few friends remaining in the world – the sensible ones had all died years ago and she had no dependents, not at her age. On the contrary, everyone else seemed so quietly determined to point out her growing dependency.  She ate only a little food and knew her carbon footprint was very faint. A dozen commendations sat in the drawer of the kitchen table. No, what Edith cherished most, what lay in her deepest thoughts, was freedom to do as she pleased: the choice to lie late in bed, wearing what she liked and eating when she wanted, the luxury to suit herself, pottering harmlessly about the house, humming and singing tunelessly.

Domed life was increasingly sophisticated. As was intended, you could almost believe it was the real thing. Weather machines were old hat. There was piped music for walking to and sleeping to, there were birds in the roofs, countless indoor gardens, terraces and spaces for contemplation and rest. There was even an inbuilt roughness to the weather, so that occupiers could feel a shimmer of the old gratitude for creature comforts. However, making a dome was very difficult and exceedingly costly, both in terms of finding suitable materials and re-populating domed spaces with flowers, trees and shrubs, some undoubtedly filched from nature, against all the Protocols. Of course, computers controlled the Dome’s air conditioning, sky and bad weather.

Given the costs, Edith wondered when it was that technocrats had gained the upper hand, creating snow by machine, sending meteor busters into space, populating food and land banks with synthetic plants. They were building domes everywhere now, and beginning to use compulsion to make people settle inside them. The authorities exercising their civil duties could be very persuasive. Ordinary citizens were expected to be thankful, falling over each other to oblige. Edith remained obdurately old-fashioned, hanging back and praying daily to be quietly ignored. She clung to the old ways of thinking.

Edith was grateful for all the love implicit in her daughter’s repeated attempts to “rescue” her from a solitary life. There would have been something terribly frightening in a daughter who never came to visit or who only wanted to get her hands on mum’s carbon account. Edith had heard of many children of other ageing parents, offspring who suddenly flapped around in February like vultures – just before the annual allocation was re-calibrated – hoping to mop up surpluses on their parents’ accounts. Some districts were so poor that being alive on 30th February was a dangerous business.

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January 29, 2014

Changing Times Part 1

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Changing Times part 1

Here was only soft, muffled silence. Elsewhere, a million miles away, she knew a shining sun hung suspended in a vast, clear sky of shifting blues. She hoped faithfully to see the stars again, the Plough, Andromeda and Great Cygnus. Meanwhile, Earth waited, wrapped in deep grey, protective cloud beyond which playful starlight hung back out of sight with the myths. Naturally, it would clear, but we had no idea when.

Months ago all the strangeness started: large moths in July that clung on everywhere silently filling and occupying all the spaces from the ground up, so that playful schemes for summer were overlooked: the mock fishing parties, the state-sponsored harvests, the tree planting jamborees. Since all-in-one pellets had been lab-perfected, people had not worried so much at the soil, had not forced food from it. Communal gardens wilted in the grey heat, un-watered and thoughtlessly trodden over.

Many of the old, slow, ways were bypassed in an age when constant technical advancements seemed to promise so much. The earth couldn’t help being old-fashioned, though our few impatient efforts yielded little. There was small patience and no faith whatsoever, in the halls of our technocrats. The white coats clung ferociously to their ascendancy, but for how much longer?

As she slowly and patiently got out of bed that morning, Edith puffed a little, straightened her back and grimaced as she felt the itchy blanket of small aches and pains begin their accustomed jig over her joints. Must ease up on the late nights, be a good girl, she thought carelessly, as she cranked up her day. Creeping downstairs in shabby gown and slippers, clutching a deliberate fondness for those plodding, careful things of her youth which she understood marked her as eccentric, Edith used a fifth of her daily allowance of drinking water to make a pot of tea, partnering the nondescript china with a stained tea cosy. Though plain and small, the small brown piece was her favourite, one of the few pleasing and useful items she had inherited from her mother. The gentle roundness cradled exactly in her hand, like a warm, live thing.

This morning, as every morning, there was a calm slowness in the small rituals of breakfasting. The early air breathed balm through her kitchen windows. Many times she had been urged to leave the shabby, peeling old house, which was very gently falling apart, sliding peaceful into decay. But Edith would have missed the sweeps of wind under the grey sky, the blowing clouds that welcomed her each morning at the kitchen window. She had remained in this house for over sixty years, had moved back in permanently after her mother had gone over to the other side in 2071, and in the midst of the everyday tasks of cooking, cleaning, washing and baking, she would glance up and grin at the changes outside, the colours that clung on within the seeping seasons which, despite the grey, slipped innocently forward with a faith that Edith always found moving.

When her husband and only son had still been alive, the small family had kept together here. Before Harold had passed on (they had said it was “cumulative toxicity” a diagnosis she thought was surprisingly honest) he had worked all across Europe. He was lucky, since his work carried with it options to travel on business all over, from Paris to Moscow, and Edith had sometimes travelled with him. She cherished vivid, child-like memories of the grand, old government charter planes, which were equipped to take those able to pay (or who called in favours) away from The Protectorates. Harold, with his responsibility for seeing through the effective administration of fuel coupons, was able to secure occasional holiday flights to Madagascar or Tunis, where the sky had then still shown through as glimmers of patchy blue and shards of yellow.

That had been when Edith was in the first flush of her married life, a fresh and beautiful wife of twenty-six. Now she had walked so far into her dotage, there was great comfort in knowing that her happy days were safely in her past, for her to recall as she wished. With quiet gleaming pride, she was aware that she was almost entirely beyond the reach of the authorities, simply because she was “pushing” ninety. An image of herself dressed in a combat outfit, brandishing her broom (the nearest thing she possessed to an “offensive weapon” and therefore liable to be confiscated by the Civilian Authority) came to mind and she chortled, a deep, happy chuckle. Although this broom of hers was so ancient that the bristles were ragged, falling out, and the shaft was pulling away at its moorings, Edith would not be persuaded to part with it even for one of the “nice new ones” being offered down at the Exchange. No doubt some covetous busybody was anxious to get their hands on the wonderful wooden handle and top, but they weren’t having it, not yet. In her faded slippers Edith stepped silently about, dancing a small dance of freedom.

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January 28, 2014

Life With Arial

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Life with Arial

I see life clearly in Arial twelve point, when I am typing. My mother says it is too basic a font, unrefined and rather ambiguous. But I see it as straightforward, smooth and undemanding, generously allowing me get on with what I want to write, rather than having to work through the sweep of clever lines and blocking corners. Times New Roman, for example, feels quite alien to me and rather overblown. Since everyone chooses to use it, it seems to have become rather full of itself.

Perhaps my preference for the Arial typeface merely reflects the differences between my mother and me. While I enjoy a challenge, at times I can find myself too easily unbalanced and overthrown; I need to be able to see where I am plotting my path, well in advance and with no nasty surprises. Keeping going can be a rather tedious, short sighted sort of preoccupation, so that the last thing I need is life with extra knobs on. My mother, on the other hand, seems to be able to dismiss complexity easily. “Darling, it’s nothing I haven’t seen before.” It makes me smile, broadly, but I keep my loyalty to Arial. Besides, Arial sounds like its brother, the Archangel Ariel, whereas Times New Roman sounds like an oppressive, imperialist stride.

Before long, I’m going to start narrating for the audio copy of my first book, which is being published on 4th March. I’ve never done anything like that before, but it will get me out of the house, make me work, and focus my mind on producing a good sound. When I write, I like to talk through my work anyway, which I hope has been good practice for what happens next. In a sound-proof booth I shall be speaking into a mike, a sound engineer working with me just beyond the glass. Hopefully, just me and her. (I was going to say “him” but I threw that in there just as a little surprise.)

I’ve been busy preparing an audio script, double spaced, lots of room to remind me to slow down, and in twelve point Arial, which will feel familiar and soothing. I like the thought of an angel with me, when I am speaking aloud the most intimate details I have ever shared – an unusually emotional challenge. It is easy to write confessional material late at night in the privacy of home. But speaking it aloud, how will that feel?

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January 27, 2014

Innocence is Precious

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Innocence is precious.

“Hundreds of Benefits Claimants are fined every day” is the headline in a recent paper, revealing a dramatic increase in the number of sanctions issued to those who fail to turn up for DWP interviews or to attend to the other requirements of finding a job. You had no money to phone the jobcentre because your mobile phone ran out of credit because you were sanctioned last week? Too bad, here is another sanction to reward you for your efforts….. Sanctions appear to be levied for the strangest reasons, including, not being able to attend two appointments at the same time, and waiting to start a new job.

The current belief that underpins the increase in sanctions and the general tightening of belts is one that screams, “Scroungers, wasters, the lot of them” and so, with that assumption firmly in place, automatically the collective mind charged with administering benefits goes on the lookout for evidence to support that belief. Subconsciously, evidence is found which bolsters that assumption, as well as a whole raft of other assumptions, which are naturally filtered and selective.

The same process happens when we go around saying to ourselves, “I feel sick”. We look for any evidence that vindicates our belief; and the difficulty or discomfort we create in passing is thus not seen as regrettable, but as inevitable.

In that sense, the fact that there has been a huge increase in the number of sanctions being levied against the poorest and most desperate merely bolsters the underlying belief that there are lots of chancers out there, who will do anything to fiddle the system. This is just the tip of the ice-berg, we are just beginning to uncover the scale of the deception…. The presumption of innocence is very precious, yet seems to be under attack in all quarters. The Scottish Parliament seems bent on abolishing the doctrine of corroboration in Scotland too, so that more guilty people will get the justice they deserve.

Innocent people deserve a break too.

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January 22, 2014

I have a dream

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I have a dream

A dream I had recently seems set to plague me. I am slumped over on a roundabout, in the middle of five lanes of cars all moving extremely fast, fluidly and confidently along the motorway of their lives. I am crouching down, just barely seated on a concrete traffic island in the middle of this, and there is no-where to go. My face is bashed and bruised, and my spectacles are crooked, broken. To have fallen, that would explain the bruises.

Beside me there are two older men, dressed in torn rags, drinkers, I suspect, from the look of their faces. They would have been loved once, when they were younger, fitter and less broken by the ravages of their street lives. Now, they are hardened street bums, and over us all stands a policeman in a smart blue uniform, eyeing us warily.

The cop thinks I am like them. He thinks I am a waster, a loser. Because I cannot get up and walk, because I would stagger and fall into the traffic with fatal consequences, I cannot move. Meantime, another one of me is in a cool, quiet hotel lobby, explaining to a reporter….

“I just got a life, and now they have taken it away from me. While everyone else seems to be going places, here I am stuck on the roundabout, because now, I cannot leave the house. I had such a small life before I had my car, and now, what little freedom I managed to discover has been taken away, as if I am unworthy to be part of the stream of life that others just accept as their due.”

Instead of asking people if they can walk, those who dole out financial assistance and monitor its value in the lives of disabled users, should be looking at the difference it makes. Without a car, for example, I would be stranded at home, staring out of the windows. It is difficult, expensive and rather dangerous for me to venture outside. Without the freedom to drive a small way each day, venturing outdoors becomes exhausting and ruinously expensive. Most of us who currently have the use of a car will, if it taken away from us as a result of the latest welfare reforms, find ourselves cornered at home, having no wish to get run over, or to bankrupt ourselves or the family.

While the government talks about austerity cuts, they forget that most people who currently benefit from free vehicles depend on them utterly, to participate in life and make living meaningful and active, despite disability.  Without a car, my life choices shrivel and I become morose, depressed and exhausted. Austerity may be necessary, but taking away vital tools from those who depend on them, is like cutting off a limb or two. No-one, in this latest round of cost saving, is forcing the able-bodied to surrender their freedom. Yet without a car, there is precious little choice left to the rest of us between having a life and a living death.

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January 21, 2014

The Soundbox and the String

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The Soundbox and the String

Ahmed hefted his satchel higher. His shoulder winced with the rigidity of a long-held pain. Wiping his left hand across his forehead, eyes shielded behind his palm, he could just see the particular dip in the dunes that meant he was walking the right way home: over to his right, the clouds, knowing that water was closer, kept nearer the ground, and he could navigate from here on a good day, using his sense of smell and the sounds that drifted to him like the notes from an ancient, sacred text. Drifts of music, bellows and bells, sang to him in the desert breezes and gave him as much direction as he needed.

He would have liked a drink, though. He had only enough left in his water bag for a couple of careful mouthfuls. He would keep that awhile and swallow its warmth with the remains of his food for his evening meal.  As the heat of the day became intense, even his sandals were scorched. It would be time to rest soon.

Not much further to go.

Starting awake from his walking stupor, he noticed a small, dark snake sliding towards him, smelling water. Or perhaps just slipping from one hole to another…. He watched, and the snake was gone, leaving him feeling alone. Uneasy in the drifting sand, he moved more carefully. Out here, it would be too easy to fall asleep and bake oneself dry. Best to keep moving.

Time passed in a slipstream painted blue. Perhaps he had gone wrong, after all, when suddenly he heard shards of music. His feet took possession of his body and turned towards it easily. Up ahead, as if it had crawled there and stood itself upright, was a tent. A boy was concealed within shadows to the side, where a thin, ageing camel was tethered uneasily. His face carefully expressionless, Ahmed approached slowly, carefully noting the strange tilt of this bivouac, the ropes pegged at unusual angles. From the usual polite distance he dipped his head and signalled his approach while the other boy, hunched over a tall stick of some polished wood, watched warily, flapping his hand in a movement that suggested he should move on.

Ahmed tilted his head: all visitors had the right to ask for rest and a drink, for shade at the height of day, and the boy’s posture made him curious. Why should he not hope to wait here through the heat of day? It was either a woman, or some other private business he had chanced upon: trade in rifles, an argument over a water hole or negotiations for marriage…whatever it was, he assumed he was being invited to move on. He flashed anger at the boy, who smiled sheepishly. Looking again, Ahmed saw the guardian’s face blank, his eyes still and unseeing. But, held propped up in the sand, the polished wood staff vibrated, sending a sound like breathing music into the air beyond. Arrested by something he had never seen before, Ahmed now waited, politely standing back. The instrument, whatever it was, had been fashioned as a crude sound box strapped with leather strips to a staff, a bridge and strings fastened above with wire or something like plastic string. It had taken a long time to make, but out here, that would not be a problem.

Low notes and trills reached his ears as he stood still, rooted to his place, watching the boy’s fingers dancing over the wires, then heard a slower, broader melody coaxed with a bow. Audience of one, Ahmed waited, listened and hoped he had not missed most of it.

There was a sensation round his ankles. He looked down to see a small cat winding itself around his legs, looking up at him with a peaceful, hopeful face. Uncorking his water bottle he dipped his fingers in and allowed the cat to lick them dry, its rough tongue rasping greedily.

“You like my music?” the boy called.

“Very – very much.” He groped for words to describe musical breezes. “It is very beautiful.”

“I will play some more, if you like.”

Ahmed approached slowly, saw a grin and reached down to clasp the boy’s big hands in greeting. Beneath the long tunic which only partly covered his neck and shoulders, Ahmed saw crossed legs and worn slippers. From the eyes there was no glimpse of recognition, just a smile that shone.

“Thank you.”

“My father is away searching for firewood. He will be back after dark. If you like, there is a little food in the tent. You are welcome to have some, and to fill your water bottle from the large gourd.” He went on playing as Ahmed lifted the flap, crouched and went behind his host into the tent. A small cushion, old and frayed with use, lay towards the rear, with a scrap of blue carpet beneath. Poverty was not masked by the large gun, an old flintlock, which hung at the back of the tent, well-oiled.

Beneath the canvas, the light was diffused, as if by shining, the sun painted the cloth a deep pale yellow. There was a small pot resting up against the cushion, which presumably contained the boy’s meal. Ahmed knew that he could not eat that, but he gratefully filled his gourd with water and took a few extra mouthfuls, letting a small trickle of water run down his neck. The urge to sleep was overpowering, but he shook it aside, crossly. I must not fall asleep now he thought, I have only a kilometre or two before I am home, and then Fatima will be waiting for me, with some warm milk and a piece of flatbread. I must press on.

“Where are we?” he asked the other boy lazily, as much to make conversation as to know the answer.

“Not far from the water, is my guess. About a day’s travel at the most, I should say. Can you not smell it?”

“No, not that. I smell other things, of course. Camel dung, smoking fires, even tobacco, but not the sea.” Ahmed chuckled.

“Well, it is not far. My father is there, and will be coming back today. He said he would….”

“I am sure he will. Peace be upon him.”

Ahmed sat companionably, listening to the plaintive music rising up from the bow that the boy was sawing gently. Resting, he waited until the sun was dipping at the horizon and turning the sand a flaming red before continuing on his journey. Of the boy’s father there was no sign; the playing continued until Ahmed was out of earshot and the sky was quite dark.

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