Author: jim clayton

doing porridge

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Goldilocks Theory applies to writing as much as to planets.

The thing is, I’m half way through two weeks annual leave, and no way at all through the work I had planned on my next book. Don’t worry though (yeah! – like you’d worry about someone on two weeks annual leave). I haven’t been wasting my time. I’ve been going on long dog walks, taking lots of pictures, posting them on Twitter – hell, even starting an Instagram account. So now I’ve got TWO social media mouths to feed. Oh – and I’ve been writing blog posts and poems. And if I start to get stressed about my lack of focus, I’ve been using the Headspace app to meditate my way back to balance. (What did I do before the internet? Float around in a tepid, amniotic liquor of cluelessness and disconnection? You bet.)

You see, part of the problem – no, scratch that – the entire problem, is that too much time can be worse than too little. No time at all is an out-and-out curse, of course, and no-one wants that. But too much, and you’re like Odysseus and the Lotus Eaters, although a much less noble version, where his quest is to write a book for young adults, but he gets distracted by endless RuPaul on Netflix. Because what happens is that you sit down to write the book, but it’s difficult, so you look up at the calendar, and you’re reassured by the succession of nothing much planned, and you think you’ve got PLENTY of time to get the work done, so you drift around eating lotus or whatever, kidding yourself you’re recharging your batteries, when in actual fact your batteries are not just flat but TAKEN OUT ENTIRELY.

So. Calm, calm. In through the nose, out through the mouth.

And ask yourself. What would Goldilocks recommend? (Other than a measure of self-discipline and a proper appreciation of the benefits of routine). Absolutely. Goldilocks would recommend an amount of free time that was just right. And then ten seconds later, she’d be tearing off her wig, like they do on RuPaul when they’re lip-synching for their lives. She’d be diving across the table, scattering porridge bowls everywhere, grabbing a handful of your funky, unwashed t-shirt, dragging you into her face and shouting: Just write!

I mean, she may be a character in a children’s fable, but she’s only human.

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playing it safe

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Aaron doesn’t believe me when I tell him he spent the night in hospital.
‘I’m not crazy,’ he says, folding his arms. A massive figure in khaki shirt and trousers, he occupies the entire sofa. Despite his size, his monkey boots seem disproportionately enormous – although they’re nearer to me, so it’s probably just a matter of perspective.
‘Where do you think you were, then?’ I ask him.
‘A holiday camp,’ he says. ‘I remember it distinctly. Everyone had their own chalet – except, we had to share the toilet, for some reason.’
His friend Marcus shifts uneasily on his chair.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, trying to reassure them both. ‘This sort of thing’s quite common with urinary tract infections.’
‘What – thinking a hospital’s a holiday camp?’
‘Getting confused about things, yes. Hallucinating, sometimes.’
‘But I can see it all so clearly. Everyone was deliriously happy. They were walking around in couples. And there were these beautiful people in shining white uniforms giving everyone delicious things to eat, beautiful things, off trays.’
‘Doesn’t sound like any hospital I know,’ says Marcus.
‘I’m not crazy,’ says Aaron.
‘No-one thinks you’re crazy,’ I tell him. ‘We just think you’ve got a bit of an infection and you’re not quite yourself.’
Aaron rubs his face a couple of times, making it seem even redder than it was.
‘It was just the toilet arrangements that struck me as odd,’ he said. ‘I certainly didn’t think I was in any kind of hospital.’
He takes a deep, sighing breath, then restlessly scratches his head – something he’s been doing off and on the whole time. His hair is matted and wild, like he worked in a fistful of gel and then hung upside down from a tree. I’m worried he might have a fever, but the temperature comes back normal.
‘So – what happened to me exactly?’ he says.
‘You went round to see some friends…’
‘…I wasn’t there,’ says Marcus, carefully, like if he had been, none of this would’ve happened.
‘How did I get there?’
‘You drove. Apparently.’
‘I drove?’
‘Someone standing outside A and E saw you pull up, open the door, and fall out.’
‘Did I?’
‘The car’s still there.’
‘I’m picking it up this afternoon,’ says Marcus. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I’m not worried about the bloody car,’ says Aaron. ‘I’m worried about my sanity’
‘Like I say – you’ve got a UTI. They can seriously throw you off your stride.’
‘So then what happened?’
‘So then this person got a wheelchair and took you inside. The doctors treated you. And you were sent home. They asked us to come in and keep an eye on things, to make sure the antibiotics kick in, but other than that, you should be okay.’
‘I’m staying tonight,’ says Marcus. ‘So that’s good.’
‘I don’t know,’ says Aaron, taking one more colossal breath, and then blowing it out again almost immediately, like a whale before it dives, nose down into those uncertain depths of ocean the sun struggles to reach.

-oOo-

I’m just back at the car getting ready for the next appointment when I get a phone call from Marcus. He has a few meandering questions about the treatment and so on, but I can tell he’s stringing it out, and there’s something else bothering him. Eventually he gets round to it.
‘You’re a man of the world,’ he says.
‘Oh? Okay! Maybe. How can I help?’
‘This thing is – this thing – Aaron has. This infection. If I lie with him tonight – can I catch it?’
‘Well – a UTI isn’t a sexually transmitted disease, so it doesn’t work in the same way. A condom’s not a bad idea, though, just to play it safe. You don’t want to get a UTI of your own. Bacteria that live in the bowel are one of the main culprits.’
‘Okay. Thanks. I’m just off to get his car back.’
‘That’s good of you.’
‘I know. So. D’you think it’ll be clamped?’
‘The car? I hope not. You know what those parking people are like.’
‘Yeah. Anyway. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be lucky. Maybe they’ll just put a massive condom on it. To play it safe.’

a rose by any other name

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I went on a dog walk this morning. For a change, we went to a nature reserve further west. There’s a stream that runs along the bottom of the valley there, dammed in places with branches and sticks and stuff, gnarly old trees with exposed roots along the bank, unexpected encampments in thickets of holly, shrines to dead pets, and – well – generally speaking, if you can’t get a picture there, you can’t get a picture anywhere.

It was whilst I was exploring the woods that I started to think what I might call them. I mean – they’ve got a name already, of course. Blunts Wood, no doubt because a while ago they were owned by someone called Blunt. Unless they were making some more general comment about the place. According to Webster’s, blunt means having an edge or point that is not sharp; being abrupt in speech or manner; straight to the point; slow or deficient in feeling; insensitive or obtuse – none of which particularly comes to mind when I’m watching Lola sprint ahead through the trees.

But whether it’s Blunt the family or Blunt the obtuse, (which sounds like an ancient and not particularly likeable ancestor), I think there might be better names out there.

IMG_7848Many of the trees have fallen over, lost to soil erosion, and the action of the stream that obviously floods quite regularly. And I think it’s that, along with the fantastically contorted root patterns, the thick ivy that flourishes in these dank conditions, the mud and the low light, that combine to give the place a spooky atmosphere, mossy and kind of magical. In fact, today it looks less like a nature reserve and more like a witch’s garden, exactly the secret and sacred place a tree might want to sneak off to when it felt a stirring in its sap. Maybe if I camped out long enough over there I’d see them by moonlight, slithering and rustling across the fields, then collapsing by the stream and throwing their roots into the water.

So thinking about all this, I thought I might call it the Wood of the Wayward Oak. Although there are other trees there, too, so that’s not fair. Maybe Forest of the Beguiled. Although that sounds like the trees were tempted there under false pretences – which may be the case, I don’t know. Lola certainly seems a little lost.

It’s a work in progress.

IMG_7816I have to admit, though – it was easier naming Broken Tree hill. The iconography was so much clearer: a hill with three pines on top – one of them fallen down, one of them standing up (but dead), one of them growing normally. Broken Tree hill seemed to fit straight away.

No doubt it’s already got a name. I mean, I know for a fact the land is owned by an actual farmer. He uses it as stand-by pasture for his cows in the summer, or a place to shift them over to safety when they shoot fireworks in the air in the grounds of the manor house on Bonfire Night. So I’m pretty sure it’ll already be officially catalogued in an office drawer somewhere: Farmer Whatever’s field.

It’s probably worth pointing out, though, that whether it’s Farmer Whatever’s field or Broken Tree hill, neither of them are actually true. Neither of them have anything to do with the thing itself.

For example, my parents christened me James. If you google ‘James’ you’ll find it comes from the Hebrew name Jacob, meaning supplanter or one who follows. Which is an odd couple of descriptions, by the way, because if you look up the definition of supplant in Webster’s, you get to supersede (another) especially by force or treachery. So I’d definitely be feeling anxious if the James of the First definition was doing some following of the Second.

To be fair, I think my parents called me James not because they thought I looked untrustworthy (or lost), it was more because they knew someone called James they liked, and it seemed to fit. (They gave me a middle name, too: Edward. Which together with James starts to look a little delusional, as if they had some supplanting ambitions of their own).

Anyway, truth is, I’m neither a James nor an Edward. In the same way that the parenchyma cells of the living pine, busily trying to stop it going the same way as its neighbours, would do just as good a job without a name at all, in the same way that the osteocytes maintaining my upright position at this desk couldn’t give a greater or lesser trochanter if the whole outfit ending up being called Derek. I’m a composite, an entity, a nameless thing – especially on days like today, when I’m patently using any old excuse to avoid working on the book.

So – to sum up. It’s not Broken Tree hill, it’s not The Wood of the Wayward Oak, I’m not Jim, and who the hell are you?

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fake poem

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

i’m a work in progress, i’m under construction
i’m a graduate of ‘98, class of alien abduction
i’m a slicker in silks, i’m rapturously frugal
i’m a sucker fish clamped to the tailpipe of google
i’m dermabrasion, mastopexy, augmentation, tuck
i’m the last of the great white rhinos run out of luck
i’m simon stylites raving on his pillar
i’m a discount david cast in polyfilla
i’m a bargain bucket of WTF, i’m trader joe’s, i’m walmart
i’m garfield the cat played by humphrey bogart
i’m a marshall for the boot parade, i’m gates & jobs, i’m sony
i’m optimus prime versus my little pony
i’m jack of all trades, master of nantucket
i’m the clack-handed crabs at the bottom of your bucket
i’m CIA and SIS, i’m wiretap and bug
i’m mr t gone to seed, i’m POTUS sans rug
i’m the con in confusion, i’m the platinum G in twenty
i’m the marionette on the barbecue who says he owes you plenty

anyways

who knows what the truth is
and who on earth’s to blame
just give me a shot of whatever you’ve got
and hell – i’ll do the same

daryl’s granddad

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A dozen concrete steps lead down through a front garden littered with bottles and cans and a scattering of fag butts, everything so methodically piled into discrete pyramids, it’s as if the house beyond had been excavated by badgers, blindly paddling the trash out behind them in three particular directions.

Wendy opens the front door.
‘Can you just go through to the sitting room?’ she says. ‘I’m helping Dad in the bathroom. I won’t be long.’

I carry on deeper into the house, down another dark set of stairs. The whole place has such a chambered, subterranean feel I wouldn’t be surprised to see a twisted network of tree roots instead of a ceiling, and a family of badger cubs curled up in some straw. Instead, I find a large young guy in a tiger onesie, lying on his tummy on the floor, nose to nose with an obese, brindle coloured staffie. The staffie struggles to its feet to investigate, but the guy doesn’t react, too engrossed in his phone to look up or even say hello.
As I’m looking around for somewhere to put my bags, Wendy appears in the doorway holding on to her father.
‘Daryl!’ she says. ‘Get off the floor! You should be getting ready for work.’
‘Keep your hair on. I’ve got plenty of time,’ he says, pushing himself up into a standing position just high enough and long enough to topple straight back onto the sofa, one leg onto the coffee table.
‘Daryl!’ says Wendy again.
‘Whaaaat?’ he says, getting back to his phone, which suddenly and unexpectedly rings.
Yeah mate! Yeah….so what happened? You never! So then what….
‘I’m sorry about Daryl,’ says Wendy, guiding her father to the far end of the sofa. ‘Teenagers, eh?’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
Meanwhile the staffie has managed to haul itself into something resembling a walking position. The poor thing is so fat it can only move by waddling from side to side, like a comedy boat made out of a beer barrel and four paw-ended oars.
‘I was out in Egypt,’ says her father, as if I was part of a conversation that had been going on for some time.
‘I’m sure the gentleman’s too busy to hear your war stories, dad,’ says Wendy, smiling and straightening his shirt.
‘I don’t mind’ I say. ‘What was that, then? Suez?’
‘I didn’t like it,’ he says, not looking at me, but rather addressing his words to a spot in the middle of the room. ‘I was bloody glad when it ended. And on the last day, d’you know what I did? I marched up to the desk where they was all sitting, and I saluted, all smartly like. I give ‘em my name, rank and serial number. And they handed me my wages, and I saluted again, turned about, and marched back the way I come in. I got as far as the door, and these other two fellers, sitting over there like, they said something or other, under their breath, laughing and making some clever comment like look at him, saluting and carrying on. So I turned around, marched straight up to them, saluted, and then I leant right in, and I said ‘Listen! Today’s the last day of me being in the army. I’ve done my duty alright, and that’s that. So now you can take your smart remarks, and you can blow them aht’ your fuckin’ arses. And then I saluted them again, turned smartly on the spot, and carried on out the door.’
‘That’s great!’ I say. ‘That showed them!’
Daryl glances up at us both, then groans and sinks lower into the sofa.
Nah…don’t worry mate! he says, putting one hand over the top of his head to grab the ear the phone is pressed to, like he’s trying manually to keep it open. It’s just granddad and his war stories. Yeah! A million times, mate. A million times. So what were ya sayin’…? Yeah, sweet, man, sweet.

the tea of self-transcendence

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

There’s never a shortage of things to feel guilty about.

For example, I always thought tea bags were the most perfectly compostable waste product ever. Today I found out the average tea bag is actually sealed along the top with a tiny strip of plastic. So all this time I’ve been slinging them in the compost bin, thinking the worms and slugs were jumping all over them and loving it, when in actual fact they’ve been rubbing their snouty faces up against those strips of plastic and – I don’t know – grimacing?

And if I’m not feeling guilty about tea bags, and the hundred other ways, innocently or otherwise, I’m contributing to the destruction of the planet, it’s more immediately personal stuff, like – why do I still feel so directionless and unfulfilled?

One consolation, though: I’m not alone.

I saw an advert for a personal development seminar today. A famous life coach is bringing his message of self-improvement to a conference centre near here. The promo picture shows him up on stage, head thrown back, arms wide, fingers spread, conducting great currents of change through the wires of his cheek mic. The crowd are up on their chairs, of course, arms in the air, too, clams at high tide, opening up, filter-feeding on the nutrients flowing so fruitfully, aisles A thru’ P.

The thing that struck me most about the picture wasn’t so much the guy’s messianic display of certainty, or even a sense of the complex organisation behind him – a New Model Army of staging techs, transportation managers, merchandising and catering providers, PAs, marketeers, legal teams and accountancy firms. No – the thing that struck me most was the point of it all, the reason they were all there in that conference centre together, which was to answer two simple questions: Why do I feel like I do, and what can I do to feel better?

I remember an English teacher trying to explain to me what metonymy was. ‘It’s like when you say ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’ she said. ‘You’re using pen to represent writing and intellectual pursuits, and sword to represent war. So what you’re saying is that negotiating and debate and all those things, these are more effective at resolving disputes than clubbing it out with tanks and guns. But you’re saying it more concisely, more poetically. So it’ll have more impact. Hopefully.’

I wish I was still in touch with that English teacher. I could ask her if it would be an example of metonymy to say this life coach is a poster boy for the disaffected, and in that way sidle-up to the extent of the problem.

Come to think of it, maybe that’s just a metaphor. The point is, though, if it’s true I feel a little guilty for continually passing-up all these opportunities – the life coaches, psychotherapists, self-help books, religious groups and gurus and so on, all these invitations to engage with the problem in a particular way and experience a particular brand of salvation – it’s also true that my guilt is eased somewhat by seeing that I’m in the middle of a great, lost and malcontent crowd, looking around, standing on chairs, wondering what’s going on, and trying to figure out what the hell’s to be done about it.

Another cup of tea, for starters.

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office castaway

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

the bully was back, it was a real fix
(friends in high places, politics)
no way would you just sit there
and be treated like the office chair
supine at the kick of a heel
or tossed out back with a dodgy wheel
it doesn’t matter how difficult the circumstances
it’s a world of opportunity & second chances
so – okay – here’s what you told me you’d do:
you’d axe a canoe
from a fallen tree
put to sea
collect rainwater in butts
live off turtle meat and fish guts
reach a sunny atoll
weave a rush parasol
find a cave, make it nice
grow beans, maize corn & wild rice
keep a charcoal calendar
and a parrot called Alexander
after Alexander Selkirk
a sailor who ALSO had petty disagreements at work
and was subsequently dumped in the South Pacific
– 420 miles off the coast of Chile, to be specific –
on a desert island called Más a Tierra
(thank you, Wikipedia)

mae and the mirror

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Ralph the Jack Russell trots round and round the room like a robotic dog gone haywire, his furry brown ears bouncing up and down.
‘Once he’s got his harness on, that’s it’ says Gina, Mae’s granddaughter. ‘We’ll just go for a quick one round the block. See you in a minute.’
Mae settles back in the sofa.
‘What a to-do!’ she says.

It all started three days ago when Mae fell in the kitchen.
‘My knees just gave out,’ she says. ‘I landed on my derriere. Got a real shocker of a bruise there, but nothing broken, the doctor reckons.’
‘So you didn’t go to hospital for an x-ray?’
‘They all wanted to cart me off but really – what’s the point? If I’d broken one of my sitting bones they’re hardly likely to put it all in a cast down there, are they?’
‘You’ve got a point.’
‘So I thought I’d brazen it out at home. Where it’s warm and I’m surrounded by all my things.’

Mae is ninety-six but looks twenty years younger.
‘What’s your secret?’ I ask her.
‘I made it a rule a long time ago. Only look in the mirror long enough to straighten your hat.’
‘I love it!’
‘Everything else might be packing up, but so long as I’m forty-eight up here,’ she says, tapping the side of her head, ‘I’ll be alright.’

I carry on with the assessment. Really, all things considered, Mae is doing remarkably well. Her family lives nearby, which helps, of course. A domestic comes in to clean the house once a week. Healthwise, she takes an aspirin a day, and that’s it.

‘I like the name Mae,’ I tell her. ‘You don’t see it that often. Where’s it from? Is it Welsh?’
‘There’s a story behind it,’ she says. My father was in the marines. He became good pals with a French colonel whose wife was Japanese. They had a daughter called Mai, which I think means brightness in Japanese. So when I was born they named me after her, although they changed the i to an e, because they thought there might be some confusion in the registry office.’
‘It suits you.’
‘Do you think? I’ve often thought what an odd business it is, naming people. I suppose you can grow into a name. Although sometimes you don’t. Everyone knew my husband as Stanley, but his real name was Jim.’
‘Same as me!’
‘Yes, but you look like a Jim. He was more of a Stanley. Although quite what the difference is, I couldn’t say.’

The back door opens and a second later Ralph trots back in, doing a lap of honour round the sitting room in his scarlet harness. Gina follows behind, bringing with her a swirl of freezing air.
‘How are you getting on?’ she says, tugging off her gloves and throwing them onto the radiator.
Ralph jumps up onto my lap and starts licking my face.
‘Ralph! No!’ shouts Gina, coming to haul him off.
‘It’s okay,’ I tell her. ‘I needed a wash.’

back into spit

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It’s a difficult situation. Everyone’s tried persuading Edward to go to hospital. The manager, another resident, the domestic – even Ray, the gardener, standing in the doorway with a lawn rake in his hand.
‘Why don’t you just do like the gentleman says? He knows what he’s talking about. I should hope. What’s to be gained, hanging on like this?’
‘I am NOT going back into spit and that’s that,’ says Edward.
Ray looks at me and shrugs.
‘It’s a free country,’ he says. ‘‘I’ll be outside if you need me.’

Edward was only discharged a few days ago following a spell in hospital with pneumonia. Now it seems as if the infection is back and more widespread. All the red flags associated with sepsis are fluttering loudly around his bed: temperature, tachycardia, low blood pressure, low SATS and so on. The trouble is, Edward hated it in hospital. He couldn’t get any sleep. The nurses were forever bothering him. The bed was uncomfortable. It was too bright.
‘Well – no-one would book a holiday there,’ I tell him.
‘They certainly would NOT.’
‘But sometimes hospital is the only place to be.’
‘No, no, NO.’
I can see I’m going to be here a while.
‘I can’t just leave you, Edward.’
‘Why not? I’ll be fine.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘What’s the worst that can happen?’
‘You could die, for starters.’
‘Nonsense! I’m fine. I’m a hardy old soldier, you know. I’m perfectly able to look after myself.’
‘When did you last get out of bed?’
‘A few days ago.’
‘So you haven’t been to the loo since you came back from hospital?’
‘Not really, no. But then I haven’t been drinking much, so there you are.’
‘Except a little wine, I see.’
‘Only a snifter. But one thing’s for damned sure, I am NOT going back into spit.’

I call Edward’s daughter, Jenny, using his ancient phone with the rotary dial. I explain the situation to her, then pass the handset over. He holds the phone slightly off to the side, staring at me as she speaks, shaking his head sadly.
‘It’s no good you keeping on,’ he says. ‘I’m not going back to that dreadful place and that’s that. I’d rather expire here in bed, in comfort.’
He hands the phone back to me. I try to reassure Jenny that I’ll do my best, and promise to call her again with an update.
‘Sorry’ she says, sounding tearful. ‘He’s never been what you might call easy. And to cap it all, our dog died this morning.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
She pauses to blow her nose.
‘Sorry,’ she says again. ‘But Dad’s got to understand – we can’t go on like this.’
The phone pings when I put it down.
‘Jenny says you’ve got to go.’
‘Does she?’
‘Yes. She told me she’s at breaking point.’
‘Breaking point!’ says Edward. ‘Women don’t break.’

Antoni the cook comes in, a huge figure in black and white check trousers, enormous rubber shoes and a blue plastic cap.
‘Oh – what now?’ says Edward.
‘My man!’ booms Antoni. ‘Mister Edward sir! What is this I am hearing? You are very very sick and you will not go to hospital? What is this nonsense?’
‘Why would I go back to hospital? I’ve only just come from there. They wouldn’t have let me out if they didn’t think I was well enough.’
I shake my head.
‘These things can happen quite quickly. You were okay then. You’re not now. That’s it.’
‘Can’t you just get the doctor out? I’m sure he could give me something?’
‘Yes he definitely can!’ says Antoni, putting two fingers to his temple and triggering his thumb. ‘This is what they do to stubborn old men who won’t do as they’re told. They shoot them like the sick horses.’
He looks at me and laughs.
‘I am not going back into spit and that is final,’ says Edward.
Antoni leans in to me and speaks in a lower voice.
‘What is this spit? To what is the meaning, please?’
‘I’m not sure. I think it’s an old army term for prison.’
‘Ah! I see! This is the brave soldier on the beach who carry his leg in his arms and he shoot with it.’
‘Something like that, yes.’
‘Well good luck to you sir!’
He pats me on the shoulder with a vast, floury hand, then taps the side of his nose a few times, and winks.
‘Come see me in the kitchen,’ he says.

cemetery scene

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Thing was – it snowed overnight. A heavy fall that thickened the line of everything and made the place look alien and new. I took Lola out early, both of us wrapped in our cold weather gear, saying good morning to the few people we passed in that self-conscious way people have when they’re out together in bad weather.

I was keen to get some arty snow shots over the fields and woods. I thought I’d go via the cemetery first, though. There’s a grave there with a large statue of Jesus standing over it, his left hand palm up to receive, his right pointing to heaven. (His weight is slung on his left hip, too, which in his long hair and robes give him a diffident, hippyish look). I figured he’d look great covered with snow, so that was my first port of call.

IMG_7558It’s quite a statement for any grave, to have a statue of Jesus standing at the head. Most of the others are marked with modest stones, engraved with dates and so one, beloved this and that, fallen asleep and so on. The occasional decorative flourish – a dove with a sprig of something in its beak, or a chalice and a few berries. One grave has an enormous block of granite landed on top, like the relatives thought it needed something substantial to weigh it all down. Another is overgrown with an azalea shrub that blossoms blood-red in the spring. One grave has a black granite stone with an enamelled picture of an old Morris Minor, and I can’t help wondering if the occupant is lying there in leather gloves and a flat cap. But a statue of Jesus? I suppose you have to think the occupant was a particularly Christian figure, to the extent that they wanted to lie with one of the key players over them, like a having a poster of your favourite singer in your bedroom. I did look online, though, and it seems that many Christians are buried with their feet to the East, on the understanding that God travels East to West, like the sun, and come The Resurrection, when you rise from your grave, you’ll be standing there looking straight at Him (in this case, with a statue of Jesus at your back, which – with the statue’s right hand in the air, would look a little like someone saying Hey! Over here!)

It’s a nice idea, but I can’t help wondering about the practicalities. I mean, if every grave had a statue of Jesus, what kind of cemetery would it be? Busy, like a January sale, or an auction house, with everyone on tiptoes, bidding at the same time. And then maybe to differentiate – or even in the spirit of customisation, and making the thing your own – you’d be tempted to start dressing the statues, with hats and garlands and bags (which actually doesn’t sound too bad). I suppose it just goes to show, you can’t escape social competitiveness, even when you’re dead. Which is why I want to be buried in a natural burial ground, under a tree, in a woven basket, with only the odd blackbird above me, beaking around for grubs.

I headed for the cemetery.

As I approached, I saw a guy standing in the lychgate lighting a cigarette in his cupped hands. He tipped his head back, blew out a great cloud of smoke, which billowed round his head in the frozen air, then took out his mobile to make a call, the cigarette in his lips whilst he dialled. That done, he took the cigarette out of his mouth again and holding it out to the side, used the phone to push up his woolly hat from his ear, and scrunched through the snow ahead of me into the cemetery.

Everything was so quiet, muffled by all the snow, and with hardly any traffic on the road, it was impossible not to hear him talking – especially as it quickly became apparent he was having a bitter argument. Luckily for me, Jesus was in the other direction, so Lola and I headed that way along another path. I heard him shout: Good! ‘Cos I don’t wanna be with you, neither!

I reached the Jesus grave and started taking pictures. I couldn’t help glancing over in the guy’s direction, though, and when I did, he saw me. I waved my phone in the air as if to say It’s okay, I’m not listening, I’m just taking pictures. But then it occurred to me he might think the exact opposite, that I’m waving the phone to say I can hear everything you say, and it’s very interesting. So I stopped. He didn’t react. He just stood there, blowing smoke, staring in my direction.

I bent down to take one more shot, then left through the gate on the other side, towards the woods.

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