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excerpts
from
issue#11... She
spoke, and this is where it gets ugly, because she wasn’t
slouched, or frightened, or trying to be somewhere else like anyone
normal. That little girl sat up and, when she spoke, her authority and
poise was that of a queen. She spoke, and what her lovely little mouth
said was: “I will eat your soul tonight.” And then
she
smiled. Upright, focused - in control. By now, I was staring openly at
her, and when she shut her mouth, in that perfect statue’s
smile,
she looked around the carriage and her brown-green eyes fell upon each
of us. I felt a flush of warmth and something else I’m not
even
going to think about, because this girl looked at me and my mouth dried
up - I felt like I’d looked the essence of love, and desire,
right in the face. And I’m not that way inclined, you know?
“But
this is all utterly ludicrous,” I remember Sister Siena
suddenly
wailing, as she stood out in front of our class with a packet of
Sunblest and a box of Findus 100% cod fish fingers trying to reconcile
The Parable of the Loaves and Fishes with the Law of Conservation of
Matter, “it couldn’t possibly have
happened!”
She
would look beautiful at those Avon Parties. All the women made an
effort, but Mum, she shone. Rapturous in Rapture,
Avon’s
best-selling cologne. On the rails of the cheap factory outlets in
town, the clothes she’d bought had hung limp and lifeless,
but at
those parties she transformed them into haute couture; it was if Coco
Chanel herself had stayed up all night sewing a special outfit by
candlelight before dropping it round in the morning for a woman to wear
for her friends.
My
own grandmother, a good Bethnal Green girl, caused much consternation
by stepping out with a young man from Bermondsey, for such things were just not done
- Bermondsey was Over The Water. And people from Over The Water had
vestigial tails, thick webbed toes (you’ll be reassured to
know
that I’ve inherited neither), and thumbs that had evolved
specially to fit into belt-hooks. They had no written language, but
thirty-seven different words for lock-up. It was not even generally
accepted that transmarine mating was possible, or certainly not that it
was safe - surely, people argued, the unholy union of a Bethnal Green
girl and a Bermondsey boy was likely to produce some sterile mule-like
creature, useful only as a beast of burden or underworld goon (again,
you’ll be pleased to know that my mother is neither)?
The
Lord Auckland carried on quite happily without me, I’m sure. But
if I
hear, say, Edison Lighthouse or Chairmen of The Board, I’m
sent
back to Battersea, with her Rays and her Maureens, her Daves and her
Cathys, and those hot summers, Carlton Long Size and Weston’s
Cider, Number Six and Afghan coats. Black and white had yielded to
cheap, heavy colour, amphetamines to Party Sevens; hair and sideburns
had grown, bottle perms were no longer a laughable deviation. I tell
you, that was when the sun never set on that town in South London. For
a brief, menthol-odour-tainted period, it never set.
The train to
Windsor climbs the curve
onto the railway bridge at Richmond. A swan is preening in the four
foot. Another is standing on one foot on the iron railing. Although
Bill has seen swans on the line before, he always finds the whiteness
of their feathers startling. They are bigger than he thinks is
reasonable for a bird. He draws the power brake smoothly back, bringing
the train to a stand before the swans. He knows it is illegal to touch
swans. They belong to the Queen. If they continue to block the line,
Bill will request a power cut and assistance from the Royal Warden of
Swans office.
Hanway
himself is long dead, buried in an elaborate tomb in the church of St
Mary, Hanwell, crowned with a magnificent stone umbrella and containing
room for his extra-long coffin (he insisted on being buried with his
stilts on - much like a cowboy, but taller). His umbrellas live on,
however, annoying some - most notably my girlfriend, who is driven mad
by people using golf umbrellas on High Holborn - but keeping us dry. A
little roof on a stick, protecting us from London’s weeping
skies.
The
graveyard also contains one of the most fascinating and intriguing
epitaphs I’ve ever seen: on the substantial chest tomb of
Dame
Mary Page, who departed
this life on March 4th 1728 in the 56th year of her age,
it states that in
67 months she was tap’d 66 times had taken away 240 gallons
of
water without ever repining at her case or ever fearing the operation.
I
cross a stretch of grass dotted with daisies. Only one pigeon flies
away as I get closer. I walk along the narrow pathway bordering the
rows of old, dark wooden ribs, the remains of the slipway on which the
Great Eastern was launched in 1858. The cost of the ship bankrupted
Brunel and he died a couple of days before its maiden voyage. The Great
Eastern itself was broken up in 1886. All that work, for twenty-eight
years of use.
I
used to say that, when I died, I wanted to be cremated, and have my
ashes scattered over my ex-girlfriend’s mother. But obviously
this only really made sense before the girlfriend became an ex; once
she had done, it began to seem slightly petty, and perhaps not entirely
fair. It would also have involved someone taking the urn all the way to
Bristol just on the off chance her mother was in. Having them scattered
over the penalty area in front of the South Stand at Brisbane Road was
another option, but someone said the club wouldn’t allow
that;
there was too big a risk that Jabo Ibehre would trip over them and
scuff his shot. In the end, I decided that setting fire to myself was
ecologically unsound anyway, and that I’d rather leave my
body to
science. Perhaps on some sort of low plinth in the foyer of the Natural
History Museum.
Little
did I know then, though, that - after dark - the entertainment took on
an altogether bluer hue. In the lurid late-night show, underwater
exotic dancers called Aquamaids cavorted in the tank, while the
dolphins - who’d been trained to react to specific commands -
attempted to remove certain items of their clothing. To encourage the
dolphins to perform this feat with ardour, the dancers had small
portions of wet fish concealed in their swimwear; to prevent the male
dolphins showing too much
ardour and making passionate advances to the mermaid showgirls, the
beasts were dosed with anti-androgens. So
I wore this jacket and when I finished work I never wanted to go home,
so I’d wander down the Charing Cross Road and look at the
books
in Foyles. You had to queue in three different places to pay, and that
was after you’d found the thing in the first place. The
shelving
system was by publisher, so if you looked for something you
couldn’t find it, and the books stacked in the aisles swayed
like
trees in the wind as people edged past them. Half the people in there
looked lost and confused, and that’s just the sales staff. If
she didn’t have her bag with her she’d dance.
She’d
definitely dance; that would kill some time. But you can’t
dance
round your handbag at a punk gig. No-no-no-no-no. Which is annoying
because punk is about anarchy. And anarchy is about freedom and taking
responsibility for your life. So, logically, if you want to, you should
feel free to dance round your handbag at a punk gig. That’s
the
way she sees it and, if she were bolder, that’s what
she’d
do. And if the people here really were free-thinkers, they’d
have
open minds and see that what she was doing was actually really cool.
I
last said “goodness me” when I was twelve and it
was a line
in a school play. But Magda and I were unable to swear at that moment,
even in honest self-defence; we were on the psychic threshold of our
Room of Ritual and, like practitioners of a martial art, were in the
grip of a temporary prudity - a heightened and sacred sensibility. Hey,
let’s be honest - the World of Salsa may be trash, splash
culture, more World of Leather than World of Zen, but the codes of
conduct are clear: women are ladies and ladies don’t never
cuss.
No, not never.
I
have left the warm, strangely rubbery embrace of my Horniman walrus
forever. I believe now, looking back, that our love was not meant to
thrive in such an exotic location. That’s not to say I
hadn’t had plans. Indeed, I’d had hopes of a
meaningful
communion with the animal kingdom that lingered down beyond
London’s long silvery river - a brief chat with a Crystal
Palace
dinosaur, perhaps, or a quick squawk with a Greenwich parakeet. But,
alas, like a chameleon or a particularly complex sort of lemur, I have
always been a fickle sort of creature.
plus lots of other things that
don't lend
themselves to being butchered or which just look better on a slightly
glossy A5 piece of paper... |