bibi the bird

May 18, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Melvin is as landed and unfortunate in his armchair as a hippo in the dry season. An affable hippo, though, in a taut, custard yellow, California Dreamin’ t-shirt and grey jogging bottoms, his enormous hands restlessly picking at the padding of the arm rests, as if he’s gauging the right moment to tear them off and throw them.
‘What were you saying?’ he says. ‘I lost the thread.’
He laughs, exposing a few raw and stumpy teeth. If I had a head of cabbage I’d chuck it, watch him crunch it down, waggle his ears.
‘He does that a lot,’ says Bibi, Melvin’s wife. ‘Lose the thread, I mean.’
If Melvin is the hippo in this relationship, Bibi is the little bird that rides on his head. A trim, quick figure, she’s constantly up and down, repositioning cushions, fetching beakers of juice, a towel, a diary, a snack, another beaker of juice. She smiles at me and surreptitiously touches the side of her head, turning the gesture into an innocent scratch of her eyebrow when Melvin unexpectedly glances her way.
‘So what’s the plan, chief?’ says Melvin. ‘What’re you going to do with me? Drag me off to the knackers yard, I ‘spect. I’d make a lot of glue. ’
‘Don’t say that!’ says Bibi, jumping up again to move the stool so he can reposition his feet.
‘Ahh!’ he booms. ‘Thanks Beebs.’

The situation has been a long time coming and it’s hard to know where to start. Diabetes, joint damage, skin infections, kidney and liver issues – the list neatly packaged-up in the phrase comorbidities. Things were difficult enough before his latest fall, but he’s been discharged from hospital with a bandaged foot and the results of an MRI confirming mixed dementia. There’s a lot to think about.
‘Today’s a good day,’ says Bibi. ‘Isn’t it darling?’
‘Every day’s a good day,’ says Melvin.
‘Well,’ says Bibi. ‘Mostly.’

She’s doing her best to cope, but it’s a struggle. She’s already told me about his mood swings, how he’ll be fine one minute and raging the next. There’s a shine to her eyes that’s so brittle I don’t know if she’s ready to sob, scream or laugh out loud.
‘But where are my manners?’ she says. ‘Can I get you anything?’
‘No, no! That’s kind of you but I’m fine, thanks.’
‘Just let me know. It’s no trouble.’

Melvin is sitting in front of a large white blind. The blind has been pulled down to shield him from the midday sun. Now and again the shadow of a seagull glides across the blind, so clearly you can even see the toes of its webbed feet and the way it flicks its head from side to side. Down in the street some workmen have finished lunch. They’re shouting and swearing, starting up the mixer, tapping off bricks for a new wall.
‘Hear that?’ says Melvin. ‘I expect that’s the seagull, building his nest.’
We all laugh.
He clasps his hands across his belly, waggles his ears.

incident at the nunnery

May 18, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Number one: Never open with weather.

Top of Elmore Leonard’s list of writing tips. But I’m sorry, Elmore – the weather is particularly strange this morning. It feels like I’m moving around in a photo that’s been put through a B-Movie filter, the light low and smudged, an oppressive weight to it that makes me scratchy and long for a little breeze. Even the bees look heavy, punting from flower to flower like exhausted gondoliers at the end of the season. And it’s only May.

The environment doesn’t help. An old nunnery converted into flats. On a sunny day it’s a beautiful spot, swallows screeching round the campanile, jasmine crashing like a fragrant green wave over the main porch. Today it’s more like the set of a horror movie.

Another car drives in and parks beside me, a long, beaten-up estate with a ladder on top. A grizzled guy steps out wreathed in so much vape smoke it’s like he’s a stepping out of a fire. I smile and nod at him.
‘Funny old weather,’ I say.
He stares at me with narrow, chlorinated blue eyes, and for a moment I wonder if I’ve inadvertently insulted his mother. But if I have, he decides to let it go – for now. He grimaces, flips a chamois over his shoulder, sticks a snub-nose squeegee in his belt, and slowly unscrews his ladders.

I move on.

Mary’s live-in carer meets me at the main door and leads me through the maze of corridors. She’s as tough as the cleaner – tougher, actually – as substantial as a tree, crudely sculpted into slacks and sweater with a chainsaw. No doubt if there’s a fight between them later, when the cleaner sneaks in to assassinate the patient, the cleaner will start out losing, because the carer has such a relentlessly crushing grip, but then he’ll squirt vape in her eye, put his bucket over her head and guide her to the window. And then notice me standing there, and grimace before he kicks her out into the quadrangle.

Mary is sitting in her armchair, tucked in beneath a heavy tartan rug despite the weather, happily watching a film from the seventies, something with jangly violins and Mia Farrow in a trenchcoat looking worried.

‘Hello Mary,’ I said, shaking her hand. ‘I’m Jim. From the hospital.’
‘He come to take blood’ says the carer, looming over me. ‘Not all of it.’
I kneel on the carpet beside Mary and start setting up.
‘Oh,’ I say, hunting through my bag. ‘Damn it. I meant to restock before I came up and I completely forgot. I don’t suppose you have any gloves, do you?’
‘Glove?’ says the carer. ‘Sure. We have plenty glove.’
She goes off to the bathroom to fetch me a couple.
‘What am I like!’ I say to Mary, sitting back on my heels.
She looks down at me, then leans forward and reaches out to rest a hand on my shoulder.
‘Have you been tested for Alzheimer’s, too?’ she whispers.

Welcome to Hemlock Hall

May 17, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I.
For centuries our college has prospered
and countless practitioners fostered
their footsteps all boom
through the cloisters & rooms
and they sleep underground in the orchard

II.
Our head is known in academia
for his teeth and pernicious anemia
he looks in his cape
like a bat at a wake
and his smile is a warm crematoria

III.
Flying is the root of all alchemy
defying the rules of anatomy
so at lauds and at vespers
in wailings & whispers
we flap from the floor to the balcony

IV.
Our staff are all fully immersed
in the arts of the damned & the cursed
our head of year eight
was burned at the stake
in the reign of Elizabeth the First

V.
The school is endorsed by a party
of nuns & illuminati
our crest is a crow
with its eyes aglow
and our motto is puer damnati

VI.
Ofsted condemns our achievements
in grudges and dark disagreements
but we’re top of the league
in moral fatigue
and score GOOD for our work in bereavement

VII.
Our charter is written on vellum
in imp’s blood diluted with venom
our porter’s a wolf
who lives on the roof
but he only comes down when I tell’um

VIII.
I’m always here to explain
any questions you might entertain
our fees are most reasonable
& the term times quite seasonable
Imbolg, Lammas, Samhain

the old woman & the crow

May 14, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the door was locked & the floor was swept
& the artist sighed on her pillow as she slept
& a mouse watched closely as the shadows crept
& a woodlouse hurried from the dusty ledge
as down from the casement two tiny figures stepped
the old woman & the crow
the old woman & the crow

there were daisies in her hair & ink on her sleeves
on her shoulder a satchel of feathers and reeds
& she set them on the table according to need
as the crow flapped up by her side to see
the delicate lines she carefully conceived
the old woman & the crow
the old woman & the crow

& the wind blew wild and the moon bowed low
& the dark waters sang in the deeps below
& no shade did she miss and no detail forego
as the night fell still & the world turned slow
till all was done and she readied to go
the old woman & the crow
the old woman & the crow

she smiled & held a hand to the side
& the crow dipped low with its black wings wide
& she leapt on its back & waved her goodbye
to the mouse peeking out from its hole close-by
the visitors caught in the prism of its eye
the old woman & the crow
the old woman & the crow

& the sun slid up, & the candle burned low
& the artist rose grumblingly aching and slow
& came downstairs to her studio
& stopped when she saw the strange tableau
a daisy on a picture, signed below
the old woman & the crow
the old woman & the crow

(dedicated to Bev Cooke)

hex recipe

May 14, 2019May 14, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

:::: of the sandy sediment slimed in the sump of an abandoned standard oil pennsylvanian pump on a driverless causeway at dawn:
one cup

:::: of the dander from a prize lowland gander kept six wet months at the marshy mouth of a river meander mostly heading south:
one half of one cup

:::: of the freely-running sweat of a newly-qualified vet attending to the stud-collared squealer of a gun-wielding dealer:
one teaspoon

:::: of the dew on the toe of a red shoe shed on the hop from gin bar to uber, marinaded in the syncopated serenade of a reborn, lovelorn, nine-to-five renegade:
one drop

:::: of the silvery meniscus on a trash can discus of unseasonal rain, ten seconds before the rat on the run from the rat-catching cat trips into it and slops it down the drain:
one flick of one tail

:::: stir rarely

:::: use sparely

:::: salt & pepper to taste

the drugs people

May 14, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

The houses of the Belle View housing estate certainly have a view. The main road was cut sometime in the fifties along the side of one of the chalk escarpments that overlook the town. I can imagine the construction photographs: heavy lorries passing backwards and forwards along a ribbon of dusty white hardcore, scaffolding like stilts along the plunging edge. Visiting these houses is a strangely disorienting experience. You park on the road, walk down two flights of steep concrete steps to the front door, into a house where the downstairs is the upstairs and the upstairs is underneath. It’s always bracing to look out of the window, like a suburban council house had been ripped up and slung under a giant balloon.

Lila is sitting in a riser recliner at the wide window, a rent controlled Captain Nemo on the bridge of her dirigible. Since her accident – a fall, naturally – she’s swapped her uniform for a sweltering, cable-knit dressing gown and felt, leopard-skin booties.
‘Did you have any trouble with the keysafe?’ she says, waggling the booties. ‘Some people find it a bit fiddly.’
‘No. It was fine. It’s one of the better ones.’
‘I worry about it,’ she says. ‘Being overlooked.’
‘What by? Seagulls?’
‘No,’ she says. ‘The house that side’s been empty for ages. Next door’s the drugs people.’
‘Oh?’ I say, pulling a concerned face. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh no!’ she says. ‘They’re lovely. They’ve helped me loads of times. They don’t take the drugs. They only deal.’
‘Is that the house with the big hedge?’
‘That’s it. The postman says it’s cannabis, but I think it’s juniper. They didn’t grow it, mind. It was there before they came. Fifteen years ago, now. It wasn’t that tall then, but I don’t think they’re gardeners. Anyway, it probably suits them to have a little bit of cover, if you get my drift. They’ve had the police round twice, you know.’
‘Have they? When was that?’
‘Once when they first moved in, and once a couple of years ago. Rita did a bit of time in the prison, but she’s so good they let her out pretty quick. I think they wanted to keep her longer ‘cos she was good for morale, but she’s got kids, so…’
Lila waggles her booties again.
‘Anyway! What’s on the menu today?’

tempted by the scissors

May 10, 2019May 10, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Jessie is having a graduated bob. I’d been off running some errands, but when I come back she’s nowhere near ready, so I sit down in a high-backed leather chair and flick through a lifestyle magazine, pictures of distressed dressers, chickens, fancy moustaches, antique mirrors, yawning, checking my phone.
‘Did you park alright?’ says the woman minding the front desk.
‘Yeah – it was fine. I found a space in the car park by the health centre. It wasn’t too bad. I know it gets tricky round here sometimes. What about you? What do you do?’
She’s just about to answer when the phone rings. She smiles, holds up an immaculately nailed finger, and answers in a different, professional kind of voice, rushing through the words so they blend into one long, smooth and sleepy sound.
‘Let me just check that for you,’ she says, licking her finger and scooching through a ledger. ‘Yes. We have a cancellation tomorrow, so I can fit you in then.’ She confirms the time and the date, says goodbye, hangs up, and writes the appointment down.
‘We’ve got a computer,’ she says, glancing over at me. ‘But we keep the book just in case.’

When she’s done and settled again, I ask her how she gets to work, and does she get the train in. (It’d make sense. You wouldn’t have to worry about parking, the train station is just down the road, and anyway, I’ve been thinking about trains lately – how it’s such a scandal you can fly to Greece cheaper than you can get a train to London, and how that just about sums up the whole climate emergency situation). But she mishears me.
‘Yes, I did do the training,’ she says. ‘And I quite enjoyed it. But for some reason I never really took it up. I don’t know why. I suppose I was never in the right place, mentally I mean. It does help on reception though. When people ring up I know what they’re talking about. But beyond that – I don’t get involved much. I cut my husband’s hair. Sometimes I’ll go to the old people’s home and do some of them if they want it. But nothing fancy, nothing too difficult. Maybe one day I’ll do a refresher and get back into it properly. It’s a lot of standing about though, isn’t it? You’ve got to want to do it. To be fair, it’s the kind of skill you can take anywhere, though. Like nursing. Or mechanics. What about you? Have you ever been tempted by the scissors?’
I tell her I’m always impressed by anybody with a skill. I like the easy way they kick the chair up and down, that kind of thing.
‘But men’s hair is boring by comparison. We always go for the same thing. Number one on the sides, longer on top. Or have a bit of a tidy-up – that’s always a good one. A bit of a tidy-up.’
‘True!’ she says. ‘And you never make appointments, do you? You just walk in and hope for the best.’
‘The other day I went for a haircut, and the barber was really tired. He didn’t want to talk, which was great, because I find those conversations quite difficult, stuck in front of a mirror like that. I feel really self-conscious. Anyway, at the end, when he went to hold the mirror behind my head – which seems a bit pointless, because you always end up saying the same thing – “Yeah! That’s great! Really great!”, regardless, even if you’re completely bald – but this guy, he was so tired, he picked up his iPad and held that behind me, instead.’

sig

a male tale

May 10, 2019May 10, 2019 ~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Odysseus had it in spades / watching silently back of the cave / as Polyphemus chawed on the head of a mariner / the latest test of his testosterone character