family

March 6, 2014

Brian 2 – continued

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Brian 2 – continued

I wis a good kid. In primary I did well and enjoyed bein’ at school, but at the end of second year in the high school, I got bored. There was too much banter in class, disrespect and not what I was used tae, so I just left. Started bunking off a couple of days a week, but I would amuse myself, you know, go to the museums and that. I used to read all about everything, and I remembered a lot o’ it. That was interesting, not like being in class where the teacher threatened you all the time and the boys never sat still. Which was worse than doing nothing, really. I got used to making do for myself, and though I have no exams and that, I did well, learning to cook. It was just something I could do easily, after watching my ma cook for eleven of us all those years. It came naturally to me, and I enjoyed thinking what I could do with food. So I got a great job in one of the big hotels, really good money, got all the stuff, you know. I had the wife, the kids, the flash car and the great house. I used to think nothing of going for a drive with ma wife on my weekends off, somewhere to a nice restaurant for lunch, maybe. She would look at me as if I was mad, said she could easily cook us up something, but I liked treating her special when I got the chance. I always told her the money wasnae a problem and it wasn’t, not while I was working and bringing in maybe hundreds of pounds a week, especially with overtime and bonuses and all that. It was going well for me, and I was still young. When you’re young you feel like nothing can get to you.

The job was stressful. I recon I was sweating maybe ten hours a day, making meals over and over, and you just get to feel strong, a bit like a machine. Just plug it in and on we go. So when one of the lads started larking about with the white stuff, I took a hit and thought nothing of it. I could control what I was doing and anyway, that first time was a Saturday, after my shift. I remember it so clearly, now, that I didn’t even really think. I never had that feeling of, “What are you doing here, do you want to do this?” Nah, I just took what I was given and said, “Ta, mate” and “I’ll see you right” and all the things you say, when you think someone has done you a favour.

I got on with my life, with going home to the family and getting into work, but now I had two secrets. I had the drink, which was creeping up on me, and I had the new drug, which I didn’t take often, but then, you don’t need to, do you? It is never the same as the first time, though, and you have to keep taking more to get the same high. Just tiny bits more and more, so you hardly notice. No-one said anything to me, and my wife just thought it was the booze. A couple of times her face swam in and out of focus when I was driving, so she took the wheel, but she just let me cool off after. It crept up that slowly, by the time she noticed, I was far gone and didn’t care about anything much except earning enough to keep my habit going. As far as I knew, I was earning, so that was alright, and so long as I could do that, no-one could complain, could they?

Until the boss found me weaving about the kitchen, sweating and swearing and brandishing knives. Paranoia is not good in any kitchen. Straight away he knew what it was, and he warned me, said he would be within his rights to fire me on the spot. Can’t have chefs threatening to slice open the waiters, can we? But he gave me one more chance and, of course, I blew it. I was all mixed up, completely out of control most of the time. Charging around like a demented dog, it is no wonder I was run out of there very quickly after he found me threatening to slice a delivery man into pieces. That would have done nothing for the reputation of his hotel, would it? I can smile now, but actually, I feel ashamed that people have given me such good chances and I’ve let them down.

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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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