Rugs & Towels

Maybe it’s because I turned sixty this year. Maybe it’s because an ADHD diagnosis has afforded me greater realisation. Maybe it’s because I’ve discovered that the aches and pains I always put down to sleeping/sitting/ standing weirdly are actually undiagnosed Fibromyalgia – a comorbidity of ADHD and equally undiagnosed – for which I’ve self-medicated my entire life.

Maybe it’s because my current counsellor has said the same thing countless other therapists have told me over the years which is a variation of: “It does seem that the rug is pulled from under your feet quite a lot”.

Yes, that’s precisely how it seems. And maybe it’s just time to admit this. Time also, to admit that I don’t believe -don’t have the strength of mind or body to believe, actually – that this will ever change. Not now.

Maybe it’s a combination of all these things which has led me to a slow-burn belief that it’s time to start being kinder to myself and stop beating myself up. Because I beat myself up a lot. I was trained in the art of self-flagellation from an early age, so it’s instinctive. Something happens (bad) and immediately I know it’s my fault. Even if I’m nowhere near The Thing. Even if there’s no clear connection to me and The Thing. And if there isn’t a clear indication that I am to blame, then I will find a way to make it be my fault. Because it makes The Thing easier to handle.

A lot of people over the years have called me pessimistic; the original Debbie Downer. And I always countered that I’m not a Pessimist, I’m a Realist. These are two entirely different beasts. A Pessimist expects Bad Things to happen and sees negativity in any given situation, and a Realist knows Bad Things happen, so runs through every possible scenario in their head to ensure that when it does, it doesn’t impact too greatly on those they care about.

That’s the difference.

Before being diagnosed ADHD, I assumed this was one of my weird personality traits, something else that alienated me from people who thought positively and believed in Good Things happening. But now I know that my brain is simply wired to scramble (as in ‘action stations!’, not a mess of eggs) scenarios in the space of a few seconds to make sure every eventuality is considered, and ready for good or bad. It’s my Amygdala bracing itself in Fight or Flight, and has nothing to do with only seeing a negative. It’s my survival mode. It’s prehistoric. Instinctive.

Proving this point is the very real fact that I have, from a very young age, aspired to be a proper, published writer. From when the story I wrote about my best friend was accepted by the local newspaper as their story of the week and I had my photo taken and was paid £5.00 for it. I honestly believed this was the first step on the path of my life. How’s that for optimism?

A year or so before, I’d co-written a script for Fawlty Towers (still on its initial airing at the time) and sent it to the BBC, who returned it with a compliments slip suggesting I took a degree in English or an apprenticeship in scriptwriting, which wasn’t going to happen if I wasn’t allowed to go to art school. But I remained utterly convinced that writing was my future. Writing was my friend.

I’d kept a diary from the age of 13, recording daily events, and separately I’d write about things had happened at school which had affected me. I’d write about it without restriction and hide it away. Which was how I came to write the story that the newspaper published. It was a celebration of the friendship I’d had with my best friend, and the gaping hole that his absence since going to university had left me with. It released burning emotions and placed them in a recognisable black-and-white form.

With the success in the local newspaper, I sent the story to magazines, although I hadn’t considered their demographics. I’d naively assumed that all short stories were equal, so when the rejections came back – by royal mail in those days – I felt felt sorely disappointed.

Although one editor sent me something else, and I wish to this day that I’d held onto his letter, because it’s the One Thing my mind returns to when I consider my early days of believing things might happen. He wrote that although he’d enjoyed my story and could see humour and talent, it wasn’t the right ‘fit’ for his publication however…. however... because he liked my style, he said he’d like to chat about future commissions should I ever find myself in London EC4… he wrote his telephone extension number at the magazine.

I knew that this was an opportunity; it fizzed in my veins and filled me with unparalleled joy. But my parents didn’t see it the same way and refused to let me go. *sound of rug-pulling*. I was weeks away from leaving school, finishing my A-levels, and I’d already been told I couldn’t go to art college. *more rug-pulling*

Now they were telling me I couldn’t pursue another ambition. My mother, believing London was a den of iniquity, insisted that this editor was only after “one thing” (because that was all they thought I was good for), telling me “you’ll have plenty of opportunities to go gallivanting around London once you’ve grown up and left home.”

I don’t remember sending the editor a reply. What would I have said? My mum and dad won’t let me?

And I believed them. Why wouldn’t I? I did believe that more opportunities like this would come my way, so I carried on writing stories and sending them to magazines. I borrowed money to enrol on the London School of Writing correspondence course to further my writing education, and continued believing I was doing the right thing whilst working jobs that depressed me and exploited me, writing well into the night once I was home, to dispel the grubbiness I felt from my days.

I held onto this belief for another forty years, through shitty jobs, failed marriages (a successful stint at single-motherhood, however) and rubbish relationships, all the time self-medicating a brain disorder I never knew I had. I joined writing groups, submitted every novel I wrote to agents with a pause for two years when I came so close to representation that the eventual rejection physically hurt. A student loan gave me a BA(Hons), I threw divorce settlement finances at a writing mentor who promised things that didn’t materialize. I took out another loan out for a Masters where I gained a distinction and my manuscript tutor convinced me this novel was The One which reminded me of the way my last husband fed me superlatives, whipping my mind into a frenzy of sky-high beliefs which always came crashing down around my ears.

I feel I’ve done so, SO much to stay on the damned rug to realise this long-held dream of writing to be published, that I’m actually winded by it all.

I joined all the social media platforms, followed all the right accounts in a bid to make connections; entered every competition I could afford (some I’ve been ‘listed’ in), inveigled my way into conversations and signed up to writing group subscriptions hoping to further my path. When I stopped working I signed up to LinkedIn, hoping I might find a route to paid writing there, but every application I’ve made has been ghosted (that’s ‘ignored’, right?) and now I’m exhausted. Nearly as exhausted as I used to get waiting for my parents, employers, hell, anyone, to say something positive about me.

Every morning when I open my emails I find invitations to join writing groups, to read about another debut author’s path to publication and how tough it was getting twenty (yes, 20!) rejections before securing their dream agent. I get offers to take myself off on writing retreats where the magic will happen, which I can’t afford even if I did have the mental and physical ability to attend. Twitter announces proud publishers and agents advertising their latest signed author, the authors themselves unbridled with joy, and my already shattered soul breaks into ever-tinier pieces.

I now feel more removed from the world of writing than I ever have. I suppose from having tried so hard to get precisely nowhere. My age isn’t in my favour either, despite all the links I see about successful authors debuting in the twilight of their years. Holding onto hope now feels more like clutching at straws, and I’m done.

I’ve cancelled subscriptions, I’m unfollowing agents, publishers, editors, authors. Anything I see that that presses fingers into my bruised soul, I’m letting go. Because I think it’s about time I did let it go, and I can’t say I didn’t try. Which seems a fitting note to end on, because teachers always wrote: “Deborah really must try harder”, despite that undiagnosed kid trying so hard it left wounds.

“It’s a ‘No’ from me” (whoever I am)

I was delighted to see the return of the Discoveries Prize for women following the inaugural 2021 search and spent months honing my submission for entry. I ‘liked’ and ‘heart’ed all the Facebook and Twitter announcements, re-posted them and did a “YAY!” post when I’d submitted to further this great opportunity.

Typically of my ADHD character, I can be a Last-Minute-Lucy, so this year decided to err on the side of alacrity and prepare, not less submit, in a much timelier fashion.

I entered with months to spare (the deadline is January 2022) feeling gratified that I could cross this off my free-to-enter or subsidised for low-income-writer competitions list and let the judging process take its due diligence, knowing the announcement of the longlist was set for May 2022.

However, last night (a Saturday night; a weekend before December began; a time of kicking back and enjoying a Christmas film with the family) I was surprised to find an email notification sent from ‘Discoveries’ with the subject heading: Your Submission:

I had to re-read this a number of times to believe it could have come from a genuine (not to mention high-profile) organization, because there was nothing more than that one-line stock rejection; no platitudes—not even feigned ones.

I’d also never heard of the person who’d decided “not for me” – not for who? – and did a google to see how qualified this person might be. Perhaps they were an author I hadn’t heard of? Perhaps an assistant to one of the authors, or an assistant to one of the judges? My search heralded two accounts with no activity and so I questioned the legitimacy of the sender.

Who were they?  

If they were signing ‘on behalf of’ one of the judges, then why hadn’t they said as much?

This dismissive and incredibly unkind email contained none of the layout and professionalism of the Curtis Brown Discoveries pages, and for a long time, I stared into space (the Christmas movie now on pause) attempting to keep tears in check, heart hammering.

Could it be some kind of sick joke?

After all, it didn’t mention the process, or the fact they’d already received thousands of entries; that this email confirmed their ‘sad, and unfortunate, necessity’ to whittle through the early ones…. because this simply screamed :“WE DON’T HAVE TO WAIT FOR THE DEADLINE , WE ARE RIDDING OURSELVES OF THE SH*T ENTRIES NOW!”.

I messaged some writer friends who offered sympathy and support, but nothing made me feel any better about it. Last month I get a Distinction and now I get a Dismission? I even questioned the validity of the marking of the MA. Oh yes, I’m fully qualified in Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria as well, thank you ADHD.

I can’t tell you how deep my sadness at receiving this went, because people I know might read this and I don’t want them to think I’m teetering on the brink of oblivion, but it’s down there with the lowest of any of the lows I’ve experienced.

So whoever you are (or are not), dear person, please PLEASE pass on my concerns to whoever has trusted you with the doling out of these standard form rejections, and impress upon them the necessity to create a template far, FAR more encouraging than a one-line ‘I didn’t like it’ from whatever your job title is. Because nobody knows what somebody else might be going through at any given time. Your ‘Nah, didn’t like it’ might untimely arrive during a crash in someone’s confidence; during a time in their life when they’re questioning their future (in writing or otherwise); in the midst of something dreadful they already find disabling; you don’t know. And as you have no way of knowing what this person might be going through, for goodness’ sake, be kind.

As I couldn’t decide whether to email Curtis Brown directly or write a post here, I’ve done both. And I really, REALLY hope if they run this competition again, that they’ll at least format a nice template to send to the early losers of their ‘Prize’.

I’m sure they won’t be bothered or the least bit interested to know that I shan’t be wasting my valuable energies on them again, either as competition hosts or as prospective future agents.

Such a shame.

Why do it?

Since I started my MA in Creative Writing (Bath Spa Uni: Class of Covid) the status of being a full-time student has given me the ‘permission’ I’ve needed to write more. To take my writing seriously. Because during the previous forty five or so years that I wrote, I always had the sense that it didn’t matter much; it was a hobby. Something I did alongside reading or drawing; something that filled in the gaps between more important things like school/work/friends/family.

The fact that for the past twenty five years I’ve been approaching agents with books I’ve written–all roundly rejected–I took to mean they–therefore I–wasn’t good enough. That maybe I shouldn’t have approached them in the first place, because I wasn’t qualified to do so. I didn’t have the right background. I didn’t have a degree. I needed to take a course–or three. Join a group. Or two. Enrol on a BA(Hons). Give my savings to the most expensive mentor I could find rather than “throw it away” on an MA.

Then actually do an MA.

The last therapist I had asked me to view myself as I would a stranger–a simple thing to do, because I have no idea who I am most of the time–and tell her (my therapist) what I thought of this stranger (still me). I didn’t know where to begin. Did I start with her hair and work down? Did I start with the breech birth and grow up? Did I……? it was suggested I start with what I felt this stranger had achieved in her life.

Easy. She’d given birth to an amazing daughter who’d grown up to become a self-sufficient, clever, beautiful, wise and loving person who was achieving her dreams…. she was…

*record scratch* She hadn’t asked me to tell her what this strangers’ daughter was like.

Right. So this stranger *ahem, me* had survived parental mental and emotional neglect (we’d covered this before, so now I didn’t feel I was bad-mouthing my parents; it was simply a fact). She’d survived bullying, depression, anorexia, bereavement, self-harm, betrayal, car crashes, divorce. Twice. She’d survived…

*record scratch*

Survival, apparently isn’t an achievement. It’s more a testament of skill and endurance. (The stranger might disagree with this). The therapist suggested trying more ‘obvious’ achievements; things that this stranger *waves* had done which another person might look on and think they’d quite like to have achieved these things too…

*tumbleweed drifted across a deserted landscape*

‘Let’s start with this person’s writing,’ the therapist said. Okay. I could do that.

She wrote her first published story aged 18. She’s written four teenage books, four adult books, she’s had stories shortlisted, longlisted, been runner-up in a major literary prize, won short story competitions; had poems and stories published in anthologies, was about to graduate with a first class honour BA degree which she’d studied for six years…could I stop now please?

Stop why?

Because I knew what she was doing; this was a reverse-psychology thing; I wasn’t stupid.

And because I knew this stranger I’d been talking about was *really* me, it had suddenly felt like the worst kind of bragging I’ve never felt able to do. I hated it. It actually made me feel nauseous.

This isn’t called bragging, it turns out. And certainly shouldn’t be viewed negatively. It’s more a reinforcement of self-worth and other psychoanalytical Instagram-induced bollocks which I’ve never felt comfortable extolling. Therefore, plan thwarted, therapist lady!

Although this exercise did stay with me. Clearly. I’m posting about it right now. And I have to admit that if I came across someone who had achieved (not survived) these writerly things, I’d be as envious as heck of her. Probably of her stamina more than anything; in the face of endless rounds of submissions and rejections; in the face of never being in the right place at the right time, but still persisting with her dreams; in the face of knowing how easy it is just to throw in a towel then lie on it in a darkened corner and let the world carry on… in the face of watching daily as other real, published, successful writers delightedly announce the arrival of their next book; of their place in the charts; of their five-star reviews; of the fact they can’t believe that at the grand old age of *anything from 24 to 39* their debut is now in the world… that she continues… and continues… and continues…

… although why does she carry on in the face of such adversity?

I would joke that it’s masochism; self-flagellation. Or I’m aiming to be the best failed writer in the world (which might still come to pass) but, honestly?

I can’t not write. I simply can’t. I’ve said before that not writing is like not breathing; it’s always been the first thing I want to do, the last thing I want to do, and the thing I fill all the spaces with in between.

I will die with either a book or a pen in my hand (laptop optional, depending on the type of death).

Still Time

Still Time

If he waits long enough she’ll come.

Above him, seagulls whirl and screech on pockets of sea-blown air, their silver underbellies blindingly white. It’s warm. He’ll take his jacket off presently. Not yet though; not until the heat has softened the leather enough to release an odour of the petrified beast who gave its life to become his protection.

The wind’s picking up. She knows how it goes, but she’ll be here before then.

Because the breeze will then drop, the soft-sliding clouds will darken; they’ll slow and gather, pregnant with the promise of rainfall. The beach will empty itself of disgruntled guests who’ll panic, grab their possessions and brethren, before disappearing back to the place they briefly abandoned to be here. A place no better than here—just different—in the way people do; have always done. As though they have a singular right to assign their bodies to a stretch of sand at the water’s edge and not privilege at all.

No, there’s time. She’ll be here.

And when she does come, they’ll look up at the skies together; know without needing to speak that they’ve managed to escape this threatening wet: “just in time,” he’ll say—or rather he won’t—he won’t need to say just in time, because she’ll know. She’ll know with her eyes the way she always does. Time to get packed up and get back, her eyes will speak back. Time get this wooden armchair folded up, roll up the rug tucked round your legs; get a move on, gentle eyes will urge him. Let’s get home and make some tea, finish that crossword you left on the kitchen table.

A darkening moves in. The crossword can wait.

She promised she’d be back and she never broke a promise her whole life.

There’s still time.

Written in response to the Creative Writing Ink image prompt competition July 8th 2020

Stage Presence

Stage Presence

Amanda at eight is certain if she is called ‘Mandy’ then her fears and anxieties might fall away; that by dropping a syllable and starting her name with a different letter will automatically deliver her the power and popularity she’s seen shine through other Mandys in her class. Such a simple trick.

Teenaged Mandy imagines if she convinces her mother to buy her the ready-cut material from the magazine showing how happy and carefree the beautiful, blossom-strewn outfit makes the girl in the picture look once stitched together, that this might be all that’s required to light the still-dark corners which remain. This dress is her answer.

Mandy perfects strategies in her twenties; in clothing, movement and sounds, which pacify and gratify the people in front of her: prospective employer, partner, parents and peers alike. Repeated so frequently and performing on autopilot, she feels neither review nor need for other choices. She fits; it’s how things are.

Mandy understands that given time, patience, and the gift to persevere which her parents achieved with ease, then the slippery, scratching feelings which slick insidiously beneath her skin whenever Matthew touches her, will dissipate and disappear like the newly-wed nerves she’s read so much about. Tamp them down, conceal them and they will surely fade.

She uses her full name again once their daughter is born. ‘Mandy’ is too frivolous, too childlike to belong to a mother. The strong, three-syllabled ‘Amanda’ will become her shield of solemnity, of wise adulthood, to fortify the fragility she feels when Ellie’s cries pierce the fabric of her existence. She read a book saying that if you fake it then you’ll make it.

There’s no place inside a grown woman for a child’s insecurities and so, when her own mother dies she makes the right sounds, takes the right measures. Amanda needs to be seen as capable, sure, steadfast, because others rely on her now that their world has changed. She wears the expression that, as a child, she recalls watching her mother paint on her own pale features, taking care to remove it at night so that her skin beneath can breathe.

Glancing around her room after the birthday cake with so many candles has been taken away, Amanda sees the faces of people she has known, looking back at her from within their frames. They all make the same face that she sees in her own bedside mirror when she presses her hair back into shape after another fitful sleep and visitors are due. She wonders—although she doesn’t really want to know—what will happen once she’s lost the ability to craft this expression; where do the masks go?

(written in response to the www.creativewritingink image prompt of 12th February, 2020)

One Way or Another

One Way or Another

He hadn’t expected this.

Where he’d last seen vistas of verdant hedgerows hung with fat berries fit to burst beneath the swell of a summer sun, he now found parched and tangled sticks. Where before fruit on trees had hung heavy and inviting, warmth opening the pores of their skins, he now saw a pink-brown sludge of untouched, unwanted flesh, fallen from wait, at the base of bereaved branches.

He’d expected a welcome befitting his pain; of something akin to a mother spreading her arms in refuge, reassuring him he’d made the right decision, that punishment was not justified. She will thank you, he imagined the trees’ unspoken translation to be, in time she will come to see this was for the best. You wait.

He walked, and with every step he took, he began to think less of her and more of himself. This was his comfort; he hadn’t needed blossoming fruits to sanction his being there after all.

The attraction had been the absence of communication but even so, on his return, he was surprised that no form of contact had been attempted. Exhausting e-mails and voice messages, finally he slipped a piece of card from the only envelope and read that her funeral would be held at the same time and place they’d planned for their wedding.

 

Written in response to the www.creativewritingink.co.uk image prompt 18th July 2019

The Let-Go

 

We’ve never held hands before. Not willingly. For the wedding photographs, of course, when a father is meant to hold his daughter’s hand: Father of the Bride and all that. But even during my childhood the only time I remember feeling your broad, warm hand was if I stepped too near the edge of a pavement and there were cars on the road. And in those instances it was fleeting: a grab, a squeeze, a tug, and then a swift let-go.

We were none of us tactile in our family. My brother and I became so after we moved into the same shared house in our twenties and came to realise that neither of us were actually the terrible disappointment you and mum had brought us up to believe. I remember once, towards the drunken end of one of our many house parties, I made an ill-judged dive at a window in order to open it and fell heavily against the radiator, bashing my head on it. As I’d surfaced (I managed to open the window), I’d suddenly felt two things: a steady stream of something warm running from my eyebrow to my lips, followed by my brother’s strong arm hauling me up from my scuppered position, manoeuvring me through the melee and into the bathroom where he daubed my cut skin with soaked toilet tissue. I can’t remember a time before—or after, come to that—when I’ve felt more cared for and looked after; loved, even.

I think it was the spontaneity of the whole thing. The immediate, knee-jerk reaction of scooping me up and whisking me to safety; the way lionesses do with their cubs. Natural.

When mum was lying in her hospital bed dying of the brain tumour she’d been growing (unbeknown to her. And us) for the past two or three years, I never had the urge to reach out and hold her hand. It would have been false. Of course I knew it might be the last time I’d get the opportunity but I think a part of me didn’t want her to leave this earth with any kind of misrepresentation of our relationship. Because you don’t suddenly start holding hands with someone you’ve never known just because they might be taking their last breath, do you? That’d be hypocritical. I’d grown up with hyper-criticism, so I wasn’t about to proclaim my previously undeclared love for a woman who’d never told me I mattered just because I’d been carved from her body a few decades before.

They’ve said you might still be able to hear voices; music, some sounds anyway, through the deep state of sleep you’re in. I didn’t manage to get here before the drugs took their effect and swept away your ability to keep your eyes open, your brain focused, your speech lucid. They’ve said to watch the heart monitor for signs of recognition and I’m used to searching for signs like these; you could say I’ve got a degree in hyper-awareness. That’s why I only ever slept ‘like a cat’; I think my brain was worried that if it relaxed too much then it might miss the moment somebody said something nice about me. Of course an increase in heart rhythm could also indicate a particularly energetic dream and not be caused my presence at all. Machines can only reveal so much.

I don’t mind, though. I think I always knew you were the more loving of the two. When it was just you and me (like those times I’d sit with you at the table making Airfix models of my own because that was what I noticed you liked doing) and something would make us laugh, or we’d make a comment and there’d be a spark. I don’t remember specifics, but I do remember the way your golden hazel eyes would light up, the glint of them, the laughter lines spreading from their corners like antennae, and I’d feel so connected. Like I actually belonged.

Did you know that once I was utterly convinced I was adopted? I used to watch so many (too many, you used to say) films and read books that’d put “ideas in my head” (you really meant “silly notions”). Well, along with those notions, they also helped me feel less alone; stories of lost children, abandoned children, children who weren’t given love, and somehow or another, before long, were finally noticed, recognised for who they were and wrapped in the love they’d always deserved. Those stories gave me hope. I never told you that. Perhaps I never needed to.

They’ve said you’re doing well to have lasted as long as you have; that when your major organs are shutting down, there isn’t always time for family to get here in time to say goodbye. I’d like to think you held on for me; that even though last night you virtually ordered me not to drive all this way to visit you because you hadn’t wanted me to see you in this condition, that in the end my heart overruled my promise. I knew I needed to hold your warm, broad hand one more time.

 

Written for the January 17th  https://creativewritingink.co.uk/resources/writing-prompts/ competition.

Illumination

She takes the sight of the dark clouds beginning to swell overhead; the soft murmur of an approaching storm, as a sign. As if she’s being applauded, rewarded for what’s about to happen.  The weather is with her; doing what it can to assist.

When she sees his truck appear on the horizon she picks up speed; Nova’s three-month-old weight in her arms reminding her of what they are about to lose, yet also about to gain.

It hasn’t been meticulous. Not like the time before when she’d forced herself to lose so much weight she was able to slip her whole body underneath their bed and lie safe in the shadows alongside the black suitcase which she’d filled with everything a pregnant woman needed to escape an abusive relationship.

But he’d found her. He’d caught her, threaded her back into his web of deceit, of false promises and threats of suicide if she ever tried to do the same thing again, and she’d had neither the strength of mind nor body to fight him. Perhaps he would change after the baby was born, as he’d promised. Perhaps all they needed was something tangible, something—a little of both of them—like glue, to repair the bond she’d been so sure he had broken forever. A chance. For him. For her. For all three of them, once Nova was born.

And he’d changed. He had. She’d seen him change, hadn’t she? He insisted he had. He had.  As he’d stood over her crumpled body, pressed into the corner of the kitchenette, he’d rubbed his bloodied fist angrily,  as though it had been her idea to slam her face against it, and demanded she could see how much he’d changed. The moulded plastic walls around them had trembled in the wake of his anger almost as much as she had. And Nova had seen; watched everything happening through the bars of his cot. His face had been hot, purple, sodden with tears. And that had been enough for her.

It wouldn’t be enough just  to escape this time, though, would it?  It wouldn’t be enough to hope he might not catch up or discover where she’s run to. No. He can’t be allowed to follow. Not now there’s another life to consider. And she doesn’t have a suitcase this time either. She’s taken nothing but her purse. Because she needs to be lighter; she has luggage of an altogether different kind to carry.

With one last look behind her, she stops to see if she can make out the hiss of the gas as it leaves the canisters she’s opened in and around the caravan. He won’t hear it; it’s too slight, too slow; too quiet to be heard above the sound of his bluster and rage. And it’s been seeping out for long enough now that it will do the job. She imagines him racing to the door, throwing it open, and, before noticing the smell or even thinking about drawing back the curtains, he’ll flick on the nearest light switch to better illuminate his prey.

The last thing he’ll ever do.

written in response to the Creative Writing Ink image prompt July 12th 2018.

Falling, Getting Back Up and Falling Again

She can recall the precise moment she fell in love with every man she’s ever fallen in love with – whatever that might mean to anyone and their own particular occasions. Which is a peculiar term for the action of finding oneself in a state of pure, heightened emotion: to fall – akin to a stumble; an accidental trip, a wrong-footing. Because it’s not even an action, is it?  Actions infer something physical: walking, running, swimming (falling) whereas love is more an internal, invisible, unexplainable concept which-as far as I’m aware-nobody has yet definitively described the concept of unless accompanied by chemical and electron movements inside a complicated human gland. But we digress. Back to the ‘she’ of our story.

Trevor Stanbrick had been lolling against the year eleven humanities block entrance doors. He’d been sucking on a long piece of grass and, because of the fashion at the time, a vast amount of dark, floppy fringe (coupled with the angle at which he stood) meant she’d seen only one startlingly-green eye studying her as she approached. The usual internal shenanigans commenced; her belly had flipped over and over like a flailing fish and she’d feared her school lunch of meat cobbler might make a re-appearance. She’d seen Trevor around, of course. Who hadn’t failed to notice Trevor’s dreamy similarity to Donny Osmond singing Puppy Love in the fields on Top of the Pops? Perhaps it had been the blade of grass between his fulsome lips that had done it, but anyway, whatever it was, at that moment, she’d known. Of course, if you’d asked her, she couldn’t have articulated it, but she had only been seventeen; you know what I mean.

Sometimes it’s the surrounding conditions which lend themselves to the falling rather than the desire to replace the blade of grass between a teenager’s promising lips as his eyes reduce a girl to the same kind of weakness which Superman finds with Kyrptonite.

Nick Bream had an insurmountable number of girls fawning over him; he’d been the captain of the school cricket team. At an eighteenth birthday party he’d asked her if she’d like to dance (smooches they were called) and she can still feel the tremors she felt as  she’d hoped she’d put her hands in the right places on his body-having never smooched in her life before then. They hadn’t spoken. He was taller than her, willowy and with a shock of baby-blond hair which (again) fell over one eye and which he’d intermittently tossed back from his face. Pressing his lips to hers at the end of the dance he’d whispered those immortal words: “will you go out with me?” and she hadn’t known how to respond. She didn’t even know him. Yet she’d felt as though she were in a kind of dream. Or a film. Or an advert for Cinzano (popular at the time) so “Yes” was her reply.  Here, then, it had been a mixture of mood (party spirits) ambience (flickering, dimmed lighting) and light-headedness (smooching being a one-way-only dance, resulting in dizzy spells) which had contributed to this particular falling.

With Frankie Martin, it had assaulted her with the force of a thousand breeze-blocks. She’d been twenty-one by this time and together they formed part of a group of twenty-somethings who congregated at one of their town’s nightclubs during the week. Frankie  often gave lifts home to the group (his girlfriend being dropped off last) and yet this particular evening the girlfriend had gone home by herself. So she’d been Frankie’s final drop-off (all that praying and bargaining with a god she didn’t believe in had paid off during the journey). The air inside the car had actually fizzed with something Mills ‘n’ Boon had thus far had the monopoly on, and she’d found herself dry-of-mouth and moist-of-other-regions (although it has to be said she’d had a fair few brandy and babychams by this time). Frankie pressed himself tight into his side of the car when she opened the passenger door and she assumed his disinterest. But then came the fall as he told her in earnest he had very strong feelings for her and, once he’d “sorted something out”, hoped they could be together. The kind of naeivety and sobriety and simple straightforwardness of this statement had meant a very unsteady walk to her front door, and, true to his word, Frankie had held back until he’d done the right thing, and then given her eighteen months of-what she now looks back on as-the purest love of her life.

She doesn’t like to remember the two interim falls which resulted in feelings of desolation, isolation and bewilderment because to dwell on their beginnings serves no useful purpose. Instead she prefers to look back with hindsight and fondness to the time she felt herself fall for the man she was to marry. They’d just returned from a pub lunch where they’d had a few dates and she’d been unsure as to whether he’d been gay or overly-gentlemanly because he’d never suggested they were anything other than friends who dined. And, feminism not having reached their part of town, she hadn’t made her own feelings known, unaware she had any ‘right’ to even own any.  He’d been paged en route (where a beep on a device indicated you had a phone call to make) and it was during the call in that she’d felt the fall. He’d been so authoratitive; so clear, instructive, powerful, understanding and commanding that she knew she wanted this man to protect her for the rest of her life. Or at least for the forseeable future.

And then, as a single mother, she’d met the last man she would ever fall for; the last man she would ever marry. The last one she would ever want to share her life with. Although  she may have stumbled twice which culminated in the eventual fall. The first occasion had been as she’d watched him roll a cigarette in the kitchen he’d been installing at her home. The intensity and concentration with which he performed this action had triggered reactions similar to those which the ball bearing of the Mousetrap game begins, without the yellow cage actually trapping the blue plastic mouse at the end. And then,  fast-forward a handful of dates (not the sticky, fruit variety) and a burst bathroom tap; the speed with which he had sped to her assistance, coupled with the discovery that he’d not only mended the tap but also secured the wobbly hinge on the side gate without being asked to, and she’d been well and truly tipped over the edge.

Reminiscing on this catalogue of falling, she is more sure today than she has ever been, that she will never – can never – hope to emulate the easy love that her mother and father shared. Because theirs was steadfast, flawed and true. And, for having to bear witness to this – their perfect love – she finds it hard to believe she will ever be able to forgive them.

***

As unrelated as it seems, this was written in response to the Creative Writing Ink image prompt June 1st 2018.

Long Hot Summer

Mum and dad had gone away for one of their caravanning weekends, remember? And—god—remember how we used to take the piss out of them, knowing what being holed up in that rattly, plasticcy old box on wheels was actually like from having been forced into it every year throughout our childhood? I think we missed the dog more than them whenever they went away, didn’t we?

Anyway, this year was The Year. They were allowing us to stay at home alone while they went. You’d have been sixteen, I was eighteen and since probably the Christmas before we’d gone from being spiky, spiteful siblings to nearly the best of mates. I think the festive booze had helped us bond, don’t you? We’d gone from ignoring one another, sliding suspicious eyes at one another and hating the bones of one another, to belonging to the same circle of friends and hanging out at the same pubs and clubs three—sometimes four—nights a week. I can honestly say with hand on eighties Wonderbra that I considered you to be as much fun and as much loved as the best of my friends in our little group that summer. Every summer actually, after that one.

You’d been seeing a cute little blonde girl called Trixie who’d once gone out with the brother of someone I’d been going out with, but they’d split and I’d always known you’d ask her out once that happened; you were obsessed with her. Well, she was adorable. Bubbly. Cheeky. Bosomy. And my god she could dance, couldn’t she?  The only fly in the ointment was Carl, remember him? Six foot six, eyes like that cartoon Droopy and floppy white-blond hair which he used to try and hide his blushes with whenever Trixie came into the same room as him. I felt so sorry for him. He asked me out after she’d already said no to him; I don’t think I was unkind to him; he was just too needy.

I’d been seeing that guy from London, remember?  We’d met at one of the nightclubs a few months before and he used to call me whenever he knew he’d be passing. They call them Booty Calls these days I think. But back then I actually thought we were having a kind of relaxed relationship; really imagined it might end up becoming something. Ah well, hindsight’s great isn’t it?

Mum and dad had waggled their fingers at us before they left; told us to behave, not to make a mess, not to have anyone round. They’d made marks on the bottles of whisky in the drinks cabinet; if they so much as noticed a hair out of place on the sheepskin rug they’d know; we wouldn’t hear the last of it if we put a foot wrong and they’d told the neighbours to ring them at the first sign of any nonsense.

But we’d already got crates of cans and bottles of booze stashed at other friends’ houses; friends who had garages which weren’t regularly policed by suspicious fathers who thought more about the family car than they did anything else. We’d made extensive plans to remove all valuables and breakables,  wrapping them up in the aforementioned rug and storing them in the garage; oh we’d had pretty much everything covered unbeknown to them. No one could accuse us of being reckless; we just wanted to have a bit of freedom at home for a change; invite our mates round, have a laugh in the garden, have a drink in the sun, have a dance in the kitchen and lounge about in the front room watching rubbish Betamax videos later on;  try out being grown-up in our own space and see if we were any good at it.

Everyone knew about it. We’d booked taxis for midnight; two hours before the clubs closed, so we wouldn’t be a crazy, messy noise for the neighbours in the early hours; soberly planned is what it was; meticulous.  One of our mates, Tim, remember him? He didn’t drink  much so everyone who was staying over had already loaded their overnight bags in the boot of his dad’s car which he was borrowing and a few of us were squeezing into whatever space was left after he’d stored the turntables, speakers and cases of singles and LPs he was bringing; he always wanted to be a DJ didn’t he? He’s working with sound systems in Spain now I think.

It  wasn’t so much the music; the dancing, the drinking, laughing, lying on the coal bunker and rolling spliffs under the white of the moon which made that weekend so memorable. Neither the Full English breakfast we made everyone the day after; the repetition of the dancing, drinking, laughing and smoking which followed and went on until the same time the following night which makes my heart and soul roll over so lazily, so happily and so readily whenever I hear the opening bars of The Style Council’s Long Hot Summer.

It was the relaxed, effortless way we’d been with each other; without vying for prime position, without trying to upstage one another: your friends were smarter than my friends, my partner was prettier than yours, I could drink more than you without slurring. It was simply the feeling of being. Of us both being. Being together. Together we’d planned it and together we’d pulled it off.

And do you remember how gently I’d pulled that bra off the lampshade in the living room when you’d spotted it as mum and dad settled down to watch Antiques Roadshow the night they got back? You’d nudged me with your foot across the sofa but we hadn’t panicked. You’d just raised your eyebrows and grinned, and I’d nearly wet myself with the love that I already had for our Best. Summer. Ever.

Written in response to the Creative Writing Ink image prompt competition 26th April 2018