Author: jim clayton

daryl’s granddad

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

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

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

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

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

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

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

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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App-ocalypse

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

you stopped me
on the promenade
politely asked me
for a picture
of you both
in front of
the observation tower
back to back!
umbrellas like weapons!
comedy hero pose!
there! great! done!
thanks so much!
excitedly taking back
your spongebob iphone
and waving it
in the air
marking the change
perhaps, from digital
truth to fiction,
happy tourists to
last couple standing
sword and spear
at the ready
behind you, the
red rippled sea
above, a vast
murmuration of dragons
wheeling on the
tower’s ruined spindle
calling and falling
in co-operative patterns
no-one could possibly
fake. Could they?

the sarcophagus in the room

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I knew I’d seen him before. He’s the father of someone I used to work with in the ambulance.
‘How’s Gracia? It’s a shame we lost touch.’
‘Fine,’ he says. ‘Same as ever.’
‘Tell her I said hi.’
‘I will.’
So how’s her daughter, Lily?’
‘D’you mean Sofia?’
‘That’s it. Sofia. How’s Sofia?’
‘She’s fifteen now.’
‘Is she? Fifteen! Where does the time go?’
‘If I knew I’d go there, too.’
‘Is Gracia still in the ambulance?’
‘Nah. She works in a surgery. She’s a practice nurse.’
‘A practice nurse! That’s great!’
‘She likes it.’
I close the yellow folder, put it to one side, then pause a moment to chew the fat, hooking my hands around my knee, rocking forwards and back.
‘That must’ve been when I met you for the first time. Fifteen years ago, at Sofia’s first birthday party.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘In a function room over a swimming pool.’
‘I think it was at the Buddhist centre.’
‘Was it?’
‘I think so.’
‘Maybe I’m thinking of someone else.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Didn’t Gracia’s husband work in the fashion trade? Wasn’t he a buyer or something like that?’
‘He’s a dentist.’
‘A dentist?’
‘But they’re not together any more.’
‘Oh. Sorry to hear that.’
He sighs and pulls his cardigan more tightly around him, even though the room is stiflingly hot.
‘I’m glad I’m on the mend,’ he says. ‘I’ve got a cruise coming up in a couple of months.’
‘Have you? How lovely! Where’re you going? Somewhere warm?’
‘Egypt.’
‘Great! I’d love to go to Egypt. The Valley of the Kings and all that.’
‘I’ve always been fascinated by the Ancient Egyptians. As you probably guessed when you walked in the door.’
I glance round the room – mostly at a well-stocked bookcase to his left, crammed with Egyptian art and history books, each shelf lined with a selection of soapstone figurines, cats and bulls and miniature obelisks, and on the very top shelf, either end of a row of smaller books with golden and black hieroglyphs on the spines, two pharaoh head bookends cast in resin.
‘I see what you mean!’
‘Not that,’ he says, ‘That!’ and nods to my right.
And for the first time I see it – a life-size replica of King Tutankhamen’s sarcophagus, standing floor to ceiling, brilliantly lit by four spots.
‘Oh!’ I say. ‘Wow! I totally missed it!
‘He takes a deep breath, sighs and shakes his head.
‘Well. Hidden in plain sight, then,’ he says. and folds his arms. ‘All done?’

commuter

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

I saw you on the drive to work
a buzzard on a fallen tree
perched on the raw stump of it
the cut where the chainsaw bit
and the tree crashed off to the side
you seemed so settled and sure
I thought maybe it was you
who’d felled the oak
and were resting from your labour

in that flashing second
I wondered if you saw me
perhaps before I reached the end of the road
you’d be shaking the rage from your metalled wings
leaping up, reaching out, flying again
hooked beak
burning eye
heading for the city

head to head

~ jim clayton ~ Leave a comment

‘Shall I take my shoes off?’
‘No! Why? Why would you take your shoes off?’
‘I don’t know. It’s what I’d do at home…’
‘Are you at home?’
‘No.’
‘Is it raining outside?’
‘No.’
‘Then leave your shoes on and stop making such a fuss.’
‘Okay.’
Masha turns round in the narrow hallway and shuffles ahead of me down the hallway. I feel uneasy, like I’m being led into a cave by a ferocious old bear I’ve accidentally woken from hibernation.
‘Where shall I sit?’ I ask her, stepping into a bright and clinically tidy room.
‘Not in my chair!’ she says. ‘The sofa – perhaps.’
I put my bags down, take my jacket off.
‘There!’ I say. ‘That’s better!’
Masha sits on the edge of her armchair. She’d be an extraordinary figure in any circumstance – her hair dyed a rich, autumnal red and swept back off her head into something like a horn; her face slack and mournful – but illuminated as she is by the sunlight sparkling in through the window behind her, she seems hardly real at all, more like a brilliant, cartoon illustration from an article about a lonely clown. She reaches for a box of tissues, takes one out and starts folding it on her lap, over and over and over, into a tight little pad. I half expect her to reach for a pair of scissors, make a few adept snips, and unfold it to reveal a chain-word. грустный, perhaps. несчастье
‘How are you today?’ I say, throwing my hands wide, smiling as warmly as I can.
‘How do you think I am?’ she says. ‘Terrible. I am terrible.’
‘Oh! I’m very sorry to hear that.’
‘You’re sorry. Everyone is sorry. But no-one does a thing to help. So I am left here on my own, with nowhere to go, and nothing to do.’
And now I learn what the pad is for. She starts to cry – not an open sobbing so much as a discreet overflow of tears, oozing out through the myriad folds of her face, like her sadness was a water table of misfortune, high after a particularly long and inclement season.

Masha has a chronic condition that surgery hasn’t helped. She’s been in and out of hospital over the past few years, enduring several interventions that haven’t worked. This would be hard enough in itself, but the way Masha describes her experiences, it’s difficult to resist the feeling that her rather blunt way of talking has only made things worse.

‘…. an Asian consultant, he appeared at the bottom of the bed with a nurse, and he talked and talked without looking at me once, and at the end of all this nonsense he said Does that answer your question? So I said no it does not answer my question. I did not understand a single word you said. And I looked at the nurse, and she just clamped her mouth shut, like this… and shook her head from side to side, like this… and then they both went away. Later on I could hear them all talking about me in the office, because my bed was at the end of the ward. When the nurse passed my bed again I called her over. I told her I heard everything she said, and how she was a disgrace to her profession, and if I was in charge she could be sure I would throw her out, and good riddance. And she cried then, and everyone made a big fuss about it, but I’m not afraid of saying when something is wrong. Like yesterday, when I telephoned the hospital to find out why I had been forgotten, and the woman who answered the phone, she asked me what my problem was, and I told her I would not talk to her about it because what was she? A doctor? No – she was a silly little taker of messages who had no business asking intimate questions about someone’s health. And please would she fetch a manager, because I would not be spoken to in such a manner….’

And all the while Masha talks, she punctuates her sentences with a little dab of the tissue to the end of her nose.

She talks at great length. Her tone is curiously unsettling – self-assertive to the point of hostile, but with the occasional upward inflection that’s pitiful, almost childlike. She lists all the dreadful things that have happened to her, from rude reception staff and patronising community nurses to incompetent paramedics.

‘My sister said to me before I came to this country, she said Masha? You will find yourself in trouble over there. But I have never been afraid to speak the truth. I will not dress a thing up just so that people can feel okay.’

Masha pulls a fresh tissue from the box, and I take advantage of the pause to ask if she has any family nearby. She nods to a framed photo on the sideboard. It’s a photo of a young woman, forehead to forehead with a horse. On the left of the picture is the enormous eye of the horse; on the right, the young woman, her eyes closed, her left hand pressed affectionately to the angle of the horse’s jaw.

‘My niece, perhaps,’ says Masha, smoothing out the tissue on her lap and starting to fold it as meticulously as the first. ‘But she is busy.’