Author: jim clayton

lucky, buddy & me

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Lucky’s a hard man.

You can tell immediately – not so much from the ruin of his body, his arms and shoulders the texture of old stilton, veined and nicked and scabbed from years of drug abuse; not from his ill-fitting false teeth, his gold chains or his blurry tattoos – hula hula girl, flaming skull, Ace of Spades; nor from the casually terrible things he says, stories of violence, vendettas, feuds, armed robberies and the like. And it’s not something you’d simply extrapolate from the block-cap note in the front of his folder: DOUBLE-UP VISITS IN THE PRESENCE OF SUPPORT WORKERS ONLY. No. Without any of these things you’d still be able to tell. He carries it deep in his eyes – an unsettling, milky blue, as if the poison of all that hostility rose up over the years and tainted the purer colour. I can imagine him turning those eyes on the face of enemy, warden or wall with the same languorously hostile expression. For now, though, he seems to have accepted my role in this particular scenario, and offers out his paw for the SATS probe with the weighty insouciance of a tiger, claws retracted.

‘The doctor? Nah mate! They don’t send doctors out to me no more. The last one, he said Your old man’s very ill. Oh yes? I said. What the fack’s wrong with the ol’ cant now? I’m afraid he’s got cancer he said. He’s not got long to live much longer. Is that right? I said. So I knocked him out…’

‘The hardest thing about doing time’s the first week. Once you done that it’s easy. Piece of piss. You get in the routine, know what I mean? I’ve done plenty. Most of my life I’ve been one place or the other. You name it, I’ll tell you the crack. I could write a book. Anyway, where I come from, half of us end up inside. Walking round the block was like walking round the old manor…’

‘I think the worst thing they ever did was cut down on the heroin. They jes’ went an made a whole lot of work for themselves. No-one’s going to make any trouble smacked out of their heads, are they? Now they got all this other gear going in, fake stuff that winds you up and makes you punchy. You don’t want that when you’re all banged up, d’you? Stands to reason. But they don’t think like that, do they?’

‘I been in trouble since I was a kid. I got sent to borstal for stabbing-up me eldest brother. I was ready to go and stab him up good n’proper when I got out, ‘cept I was on a bank job and got sent down for a stretch before I got the chance. I haven’t forgotten him though. Once these legs are better I’ll be payin’ the cant a little visit…’

– o O o –

Back in the support workers’ office for the debrief, a mad looking labradoodle is wandering round with a green and yellow plastic turtle. He goes from person to person, squeaking the toy a couple of times, dropping it at our feet, and then backing away with his mouth open and his tail wagging, looking up at our faces and then back down at the toy , as if he can’t believe we’re not as mad for it as he is.

Buddy! Don’t be such a pain!’ says one of the support workers, but she throws the toy for him anyway, and he races after it. After a while he brings it over to me, watching me with an insane expression as I pick it up and turn it over and over in my hands.

I have an image of Buddy behind bars, lights out, squeaking the turtle mournfully, like a harmonica.

I’m glad he’s here, though. Buddy’s like me. I don’t think he’d cope all that well in prison, turtle or otherwise.

‘There you go, Buddy!’ I say, lobbing his toy back over the other side of the office.

We laugh as he crashes after it.

charlie

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

I’ve never been one for eating
Charlie was though
he had big appetites
we went out for the day
Charlie had a disgusting hunk of huss
I had fish cake
couldn’t finish it
Charlie cleaned up
as per usual
I lost an earring
eighteen carat, beautiful
nobody seen it
not what they said anyways
went to the jewellers
I didn’t like it
I could see guns
Charlie said it was okay
treat myself to some danglies
a hundred and twenty pound the pair
and that was then
we’ll claim the tax back at the border
Charlie said
we never did
don’t know why

fugue shopping

~ jim clayton ~ 2 Comments

Hello. My name’s Jim, I’m a writer, and I’m easily distracted.

Phew. Feels good to get it out there. Although – I’m guessing it’s not too much of a shock. I can’t imagine you choked on your flat white when you read that (Digression #1: Why am I so obsessed with flat whites? Is it because I fundamentally don’t know what they are?).

(Digression #2: I suspect there’ll be a lot more digressions in this post, so it might be quicker, cleaner and probably kinder just to give them a letter. So this is actually D#2).

Of course, the cure for a digressive personality is just to get the hell on with it. (Is digressive a word? I’ll have to look it up….. yes, it is.  Adjective // characterized by digression; tending to depart from the subject. And no, that wasn’t a digression, that was a pause for research. I’m not about to start labeling them. I’d be here all day). And I suppose it’s in that infinitesimal gap between The Digression and The Getting The Hell On With It that all the pain resides.

Good news is, I’m cured. For the last three days I’ve managed to be disciplined. Up early / dog walk / 1000 words on the novel. Only then have I allowed myself to think about Tweeting, or writing a poem, or a blog post. And that feels great. Because as I’ve learned in the past, 1000 words isn’t so hard to achieve, and soon stacks up in a satisfying way. The editing phase will almost certainly be a source of pain, too, but it’s cleaner and more virtuous. You’ve overcome the tyranny of the blank screen. You’ve established the characters, the story, The Big Idea. You’ve got material to shape (scalpel, chainsaw, whatever). So an altogether more constructive phase, then – although, having said that, half of it usually ends up on the cutting room floor, and I weep for the days of work it represents.

Sometimes you can salvage a short story from the sweepings, or worst case scenario, a poem about a funny-looking dog.

(D#3: I made that up about the funny-looking dog. I don’t think I’ve ever edited something like that out of one of my books. Why would I? It almost guarantees a sale. However, there was a funny-looking dog over the woods this morning. A small, light brown terrier with glowing eyes, immaculate despite all the mud. How? Thinking back on it, it was very floaty, so it may actually have been a ghost. There’s a shrine to a dog tied round one of the trees near the stream. It’s probably him.)

(D#4: There aren’t that many stories about ghostly animals. Is that a religious thing? I just had to Google it, and found this on a Catholic website:

Animals and plants can’t do anything which transcends the limitations of matter. Although some animals seem clever, they don’t actually possess conceptional intelligence. They can’t, for instance, conceive of the abstract notion of justice.

Well. They’ve never seen Lola use the power of her mind to literally force me into giving her a duck stick. I mean – she’s positively Obi-Wan Kenola. Which sounds more like a delicious Italian pastry than a Jedi knight.)

(D#5: Sorry. That last digression had another digression tagged on the end, which is unnecessarily complicated, but I can’t help it – it’s the nature of the beast. I suppose technically speaking I should have listed it as a D#4+1 – but that sounds too much like coding, and I can hear you sighing from here, so – moving on).

Anyway – I only sat down to write about something I saw in Sainsbury’s today.

(D#6+1, possibly 2: I knew someone had to go to Sainsbury’s today, and I didn’t mind. So long as I got the dog walk out of the way [tick], wrote my 1000 words [tick], Tweeted some pics [tick] took Kath to the station and had lunch with the girls [tick][tick], I’d be fine to do the supermarket run. The other thing was I thought it might help me straighten out a few plot points. I could mull over the predicament the main character was in, and figure out what he’d do next. Chores are supposed to be good for that. Like hoovering, or ironing. So I can only assume that Ernest Hemingway must’ve been some kind of domestic goddess.)

The thing was, I didn’t get any thinking done in Sainsbury’s – at least, not anything related to the novel. The thing that gripped me was: Who is that guy? and Is he real?

Background information: I think today was OAP day. Just guessing. It felt as if there’d been some kind of public broadcast on the radio, and everyone over seventy had shuffled en masse to Sainsbury’s. Negotiating the trolley through the aisles was like paddling a canoe round a slalom. (D#7: My search history today would look good – Do dogs make ghosts? Obi-Wan Kenobi & canoe slalom).

But what really freaked me out was this guy I kept coming across. He was quite extraordinary-looking, like a giant, gloomy frog in tweeds and brogues, clutching on to the handle of his trolley and standing there, utterly motionless. I half-expected him to fill his trolley by snapping his tongue out and whipping the cans off the shelves. And there he was in Dairy. And again, in Eggs. And there he was, completely still, in Crisps and Snacks, his head pointing up, his wide mouth curving down, waiting. The only thing I could think was that a team of model-makers were sniggering and carrying him from point to point whenever I passed. (D#8: Dangerous territory, I know, to think that the world is being manipulated just to make you feel uneasy. But honestly – is it?)

So I didn’t get any thinking done about that tricky plot point. And no doubt when I sit down to write my next 1000 words, I’ll end up with my hands as frozen on the keyboard as that man’s hands on his trolley in Sainsbury’s. But then – I bet he’s a writer. Maybe that’s how it’s done. You stand there thinking just as hard and as long as you need to, and everyone simply has to reach round you for their bananas.

Which is probably why he’s such a successful writer, and can afford such fancy clothes.

But I digress.

sig

schatz katze

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

The key safe is hanging open so I ring the bell instead. I step back and look up at the house whilst I’m waiting – a substantial Regency building, a little down-at-heel and cracking up, perhaps, but still impressive, with a wildly overgrown garden whose depths of shadow hint at stone baths and iron cold frames and other features utterly consumed with ivy.

The door opens and a bright, middle-aged woman in a carer’s uniform steps out onto the cracked mozaic tiles.
‘I’m so glad you’re here!’ she says, showing me in. ‘I think this is one for social services as much as anyone. I’m Karen, by the way!’

I stand with her in the hallway so she can tell me what she’s found so far. Helga is a ninety-five year old with no package of care and generally ‘bumping along the bottom.’ A neighbour looks in now and again. Found her on the floor, called the ambulance, hospital declined, referrals made. Karen points out a sheet of paper sellotaped to the mirror: In Emergency written in shaky green caps at the top, and below it, a handful of names and numbers, the nearest being Munich, the furthest, Hobart, Tasmania.

‘I feel so bad for her, says Karen. ‘There’s hardly any food in the house. Can I leave her with you whilst I nip round the corner and get the basics?’

Helga is lying in bed, stroking a black cat that’s sprawled on top of her, purring so loudly it fills the entire house. In an odd kind of way, it makes the place seem emptier.
I introduce myself, and explain why I’ve come. When Helga reaches out to shake my hand, her hand is so weak and light in mine it’s like the memory of a handshake that happened sometime just after the war.

I start to talk to her about the situation. How she’s feeling, how she’s been coping and so on, gently trying to tease out the facts. Helga doesn’t want to engage, though.
‘Ah! Too tired!’ she says, transferring her attention back to the cat with a philosophical pursing of the lips.
‘Was ist los?’ she says, feebly waggling her fingers under its chin. ‘Was ist los, shatz? Was ist los?’

un oeuf

~ jim clayton ~ 4 Comments

If Mariella was a Tarot card, she’d be Queen of Radiators. You could happily take a photograph of her now and use it for the illustration – a pale, slack-faced woman sitting in an armchair, staring straight ahead, wearing flannel pyjammas, two fleece jackets, a thick, towelling dressing gown, thermal socks and a pair of sheepskin booties. Her throne is flanked – not by cheetahs – but by two large, oil-filled radiators, both on full. Of course, the flat thermostat is set higher than a smelting works. All the windows are shut. All the curtains are drawn.
The heat is intense, a physical thing. It brings you up short, like you just walked in to a room filled with super-heated plasma. Blinking brings you out in a sweat. I cannot believe Mariella hasn’t expired from heat stroke long ago, but as things stand, she says she’s just about coping with the cold.
‘Shut the door,’ she says. ‘Where were you born? A barn?’

I work through the examination as quickly as possible, leaving just the bloods to take before I can go. Reluctantly she frees her left arm from the dressing gown and I start preparing, forcing myself to be even more meticulous than usual because I can feel myself puddling-out at the shoes. If I miss the vein they’ll have to send firefighters in with respirators. Maybe a drone first, just to scope the situation. They’re not stupid.
‘Hurry up,’ says Mariella. ‘I’m catching my death.’
The tube starts to fill with blood. Slowly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see steam.
‘I like the new flat,’ I say.
‘It’s okay,’ says Mariella. ‘I’ve got most of what I need.’
‘Must be a nice view’ I say, nodding at the curtains.
‘If you like staring at people staring back,’ she says. ‘Which I don’t.’
The blood is not coming out as fast as I’d like. I reposition the needle. Makes no difference.
‘Bigger than the last place’ I say, feeling the sweat standing out on my forehead. ‘Plenty of room to move.’
‘What are you? A dancer?’
‘I wouldn’t mind learning.’
‘What sort of dancing?’
‘I don’t know. Ballroom?’
I only say that because I imagine an immense ballroom with tall windows. All of them open.
‘I used to go dancing,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah? What sort?’
‘Just the normal.’
‘Oh.’

I have to say – this new flat is quite a bit cleaner than the last. That had been an old building, years past its best, and the crazy temperatures Mariella pursued didn’t help. The place had smelled ripe, cooking in the heat. It was like visiting a patient who’d set up home in a giant cheese. And even though this flat is just as hot – actually more so, as the heating and insulation are higher spec – at least Mariella’s things are more spread out, and it feels less suffocating.
‘Almost done’ I say.
‘How much are you taking?’
‘Enough.’
An old phrase comes to me. Something about French eggs. Un oeuf is enough. I’m actually going to faint. To keep myself together, I glance towards the door, imagining the delicious breezes in the hallway, the blue sky beyond the balcony, the crystalline freshness of the world.
‘Almost done,’ singing it now.
‘Yes,’ says Mariella. ‘You said that already.’

ants in my head

~ jim clayton ~ 5 Comments

Frankly? I was distractedThem
looking up Them!
a 1950s sci-fi film about gigantic irradiated ants
One thing that bugged me
the exclamation mark doesn’t appear on the poster
WHY?!
Imdb’s pretty quiet about that
although it has plenty of other stuff,
Plot Holes for example:
If food is scarce in the desert, then why did an ant merely kill Gramps Johnson and leave his body in the store, instead of taking it back to the colony to be eaten as had been the other three killed up to that point?
or:
During the first ant encounter, Dr Harold Medford tells the policemen to aim for its antennae, saying, “He’s helpless without them!” Later, he (correctly) explains that most ants are female, the rare males dying shortly after fertilizing the queen when a new nest is established.

so
anyway

I went from that to googling
some amazing facts about ants
here are 10 of the headlines:

  1. ANTS – An Underground Movement originating from Ibiza
  2. Ants: Fun Facts about Ants
  3. OMG! My Fire Ants Are Planning an Escape
  4. 10 Interesting Facts About Ants You Need To Know
  5. 10 cool facts about ants!
  6. Amazing Ant Facts for kids and adults to learn about ants
  7. 25 Awesome Facts About Ants You Probably Didn’t Know
  8. Really Gripping Facts about Ants
  9. Top Interesting And Exceptional Facts About Ants
  10. How to get rid of ants

Now
Where was I?

 

 

(with thanks to IMDb!)

shattered

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

There are three goldfish swimming in a round plastic washing-up bowl on the floor.
‘He took the tank down with him when he went’ says Janice. ‘I had to scoop them off the carpet.’

It explains why John’s so wet, the coloured gravel in his pants.
‘Did you hurt yourself?’ I ask him.
‘Only my side where I hit the tank’ he says. ‘It’s nothing really.’
Janice is sitting on the sofa, holding a remote control with such a sense of purpose it looks like she thinks it’ll do more than just turn up the golf.

‘Good job the tank didn’t shatter’ I say, towelling John dry.
It’s sitting on the floor by the washing up bowl, three of the glass sides slid out from the uprights and resting against the furthest arm of the sofa. There’s a greasy-looking deep sea diver exposed in the middle of it, looking a little slumped over, like he’s depressed no-one’s come to take his helmet off.
‘They don’t these days,’ says Janice, staring at the TV. ‘Shatter, I mean.’

Neither of them seem bothered. In fact, to look at them you’d think one or other of them spent most days crashing to the floor covered in fish. It’s really not that big of a deal.

Once John is presentable I run through his obs and make sure everything’s as it should be. He’s due to go to a rehab bed, and really it can’t come soon enough. That’s certainly the impression Janice gives, flicking slack-faced from the golf to a sci-fi film where a man and a woman are being attacked by a giant ant. And then back again.

‘Are you going to be alright?’ I ask him.
He shrugs, starts rolling a cigarette.
‘Have you got one of those personal alarms?’
‘No.’
‘But Janice is here, isn’t she? She’ll be able to call the ambulance?’
I smile at her encouragingly.
‘I’m not well myself,’ she says. ‘I can’t do anything.’
‘Yes, but you could call for an ambulance?’
‘I go to bed early.’
‘Wouldn’t you hear him call out?’
‘I’m a heavy sleeper. Anyway – he’s got his mobile.’
I look back to John, who nods, then starts running his tongue along the edge of the cigarette.

The goldfish continue to swim round and round the washing bowl. I wonder when they’ll get transferred to something better. If they ever will.

dumpster

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

what am I doing
scrabbling around the old bottle dump?
why is it so compelling
to spike at the ashen ground with a rusted bolt
disinterring face cream pots
brandy bottles, pan yan pickle jars
a proprietary mix for the bloody lung
half a china cat; a valve
and how am I to stop
now the ash blood is up
there’s a cemetery nearby
will I drag my bolt over there
start tearing at the ground
tossing out femurs, metatarsals, elder roots
what’s this? and this?
Hmm?
who were they?
who the hell were they?

no admittance

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I’ve think I’ve only cried twice at the theatre. It’s not a boast – really just an observation. I’ve cried countless times at the pictures, but not because films are inherently more powerful. It’s statistical. I go to the pictures more often.

For the record, the last time I cried at the pictures was when I saw The Red Turtle. The movie equivalent of a gruelling therapy session, without the benefit of a box of tissues or a professional hand on the shoulder.

The weird thing is, both times I’ve cried at the theatre I’ve been sitting next to someone who was completely unmoved. It’s an odd feeling, having your heart put through a mangle, only to find your neighbour not only dry-eyed, but utterly dismissive.

For example: La Boheme at the Colisseum. Admittedly my first time at the opera, so you could say I was a tear duct ripe for the squeezing. But it was an overwhelming performance, and by the time Mimi was flopping back on the ottoman and Rodolfo was holding on to her, howling her name, I was howling too – so loudly even the timpanist was looking up.

‘Well that was a load of old bollocks’ the woman to my right said as the lights came on. She glanced sideways at me as I towelled myself down, like I was a particularly loathsome specimen of Les Naives, and this was why tickets prices had to be doubled to stop anything like this happening again.

Yesterday we went to a matinee of Amadeus at the National. A fantastic performance, swooping from terrifying, back-lit mise-en-scène to the most intimate shared conversation. I was so transfixed by the horror and the madness and the magnificence of it all, by the time Constanze was holding Mozart in her arms…. well, we’ve been here before. The company swept forwards for the curtain call, and I was standing up, clapping loudly, tears shining. Eventually the stage cleared, and I collapsed back into my seat to breathe.

‘Well. Someone obviously enjoyed that,’ the woman to my right said, in the flat tones of someone well-practised in saying one thing and meaning another.
Yes, I said. I said how well I thought they’d staged the whole thing. How fluently and naturally. I said it was a killer combination – fantastic script and wonderful music. How great the performances were, the lighting – that bit where Mozart’s father finally appears as Don Giovanni, or when Salieri looks over the Requiem whilst Mozart writhes on the floor and the orchestra plays and the singers sing and the stage advances…
‘I saw it in seventy-nine when it first came out,’ she said. ‘No-one had heard of Shaffer then, of course. And there was none of this live music. The words didn’t fight the action. Now that was a great production.’
My daughter Martha was sitting to my left. She was standing up and putting on her coat.
‘And what did you think?’ said the woman, leaning round me.
‘Yeah! I thought it was great! The singing was amazing! And the great thing is – we’re going to see Marriage of Figaro next week!’
‘Are you a singer?’
‘I am actually, yeah!’
‘What are you? Soprano, I suppose.’
‘I am. Yes.’
‘High or low?’
‘High. I think.’
‘You think?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘Can you sing all the arias?’
‘I don’t know about all of them.’
‘Or some of them, at least?’
‘Some of them, yes.’
‘I’m a singer and I can sing all of them.’
‘Wow. That’s – impressive!’

I stand up and start to put my jacket on, too.

‘Lovely to talk to you’ I say to the woman, who doesn’t seem to be making any effort to leave, even though most of the rest of the row have gone, including the two young guys who I remembered had turned up to sit with her just exactly as the lights dimmed. She’d turned to them and instead of saying Hello! or Thank god you made it! instead said very icily: Strictly speaking there should be no admittance once the performance has started. ‘We know!’ they’d said. ‘Sorry. The train was late.’

Looking back, I wonder if that was strictly true.

sig

a well-travelled bear

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

Greenacres Residential Care Home has had a revamp since I was last here. Now there’s a smart porch on the front of the house, glass and white aluminium. It reminds me of those airlocks in space films; I expect to hear a hissing of vapour and see flashing lights as the pressure’s equalised and I’m decontaminated, but in lieu of all that, I suppose, there’s simply a wall-mounted bottle of hand cleanser. The visitor’s book has been replaced with a touch-screen pad, the home page a tastefully blurred picture of the home overlaid with two buttons: Check In and Check Out. I touch the Check In button. It takes me to the next page: Visiting. When I touch the Name field, I’m presented with a series of text boxes, First name, Last name & Company. I enter those things. The next page says Welcome Jim! visiting Rapid Response Team. I think maybe I’ve misunderstood or done something wrong, so I use the back button. It asks me whether I’m sure. I tap yes. I go through the same procedure, end up visiting myself again.

I give up and ring the bell.

And after a while, I ring again.

Eventually, through the frosted glass, I see a moving splash of green. I knock on the door. The splash pauses, gets bigger, a hand – and the door opens. A carer in the Greenacres uniform, with a badge pinned to her lapel saying Hello! My name’s Julie! stands in front of me, frowning.
‘Did you ring the bell?’ she says.
‘A couple of times.’
‘Well I didn’t hear it. Did you hear it?’
‘No. I thought maybe it was one of those discrete bells that only rings in the office.’
‘No, it’s not. It’s a proper bell.’
‘Oh.’
Her eyes drift down to my badge. I tell her who I am and where I’m from.
‘I’ve come to see June’ I say. ‘I tried signing in on the pad but…’
‘June?’ she says. ‘Alright. Follow me.’

I think it’s just the porch and the pad that have been upgraded. The rest seems pretty much as it was – a disorientating warren of bedrooms, lounges, kitchen and dining rooms, threaded by a narrow, luridly carpeted hallway that creaks and sags so alarmingly in places I’m worried about the joists. Just when I wonder whether Julie’s actually forgotten she’s being followed and is hurrying back to the heart of the burrow, she stops outside a door with a plaque decorated with a bear and the words I live here!, knocks and we both go in.
June is sitting in an armchair just inside the door. She’s immaculately dressed in a silk blouse, pearl necklace, pressed linen skirt and red plush, slip-on shoes. Immediately opposite June is an ancient teddy bear, sitting on a tiny Windsor chair. It’s so striking, the way they’re sitting, quietly staring at each other, it wouldn’t have surprised me to see the bear dressed in exactly the same way, but instead it’s wearing a crocheted outfit of pink waistcoat, blue trousers and white bootees.
‘June?’ says Julie. ‘You’ve got a visitor, darling. Someone from the hospital.’
‘The hospital? Whatever for?’
I introduce myself, shake her hand, explain why I’ve come.
‘Well!’ says June. ‘My husband will be home from the factory, soon and he’ll want to know the ins and the outs. He tends to get a bit frustrated with this sort of thing.’
Julie catches my eye, gives a terse shake of the head.
‘Well I can’t wait to meet him!’ I say. ‘Meanwhile, would you mind if I took your blood pressure and so on? I won’t keep you long.’
‘How exciting!’ says June. ‘All this attention!’
I unpack my kit and cast an eye over her notes. Julie sits down on the bed.
‘Your bear looks very comfortable’ I say, as I clip a SATS probe to June’s finger.
‘You must say hello properly!’ she says.
I go over, shake his paw, tickle him behind an ear.
‘He likes that’ she says.
‘Where’s he from?’
‘Aberdeen,’ says June. ‘Oh yes. He’s a well-travelled bear.’