Mira is using her zimmer frame for the first time, hobbling slowly and painfully to the hallway from the front room where she’s been sleeping these past few weeks.
‘Excellent! Good work!’ says Bethan, the physio. ‘We’ll soon have you back to normal.’
Mira stops in front of a picture on the wall, a lurid pastel portrait of a crying child in a knitted bonnet.
‘Do you know who this is?’ she says, letting go of the zimmer to straighten the frame.
‘Careful!’ says Bethan.
‘This is my husband,’ says Mira, ‘as a small child’
‘They gathered that,’ says John, her son, holding on to the door, his arm making an arch for her to pass under. ‘Come on, mum. Keep it moving. Keep it moving.’
‘Would you like to know why he was crying like this?’
‘Oh god. You’re going to get the guided tour now,’ says John.
‘It was Vidovdan, feast day. My husband’s Baka had made a wonderful torte, beautifully spread with segments of apple and pear, glistening with the most marvelous jelly and topped with fresh whipped cream. And he just couldn’t resist it. So he dragged his finger across the top, and then he stuck his finger in his mouth. Of course, when his Baka came in she was furious, and she smacked him – like this – on his hand. What you do this for? she said to him. Who will want to eat my lovely torte now you’ve wiped your dirty paws all over it? And he cried and he cried and he cried – just like the picture. And his Baka said to him, she said Why are you crying so much? I did not think I hit you as hard as all that. No he said I’m crying because I made you sad. And that was why they had this picture made of him.’
‘Yeah. And I bet they had to pinch him a few times to keep him going.’
‘John!’ says Mira. ‘Don’t listen to him. He misses Papa as much as I do.’
We continue walking towards the hallway.
They’re an odd couple, Mira and John. She is so small and frail, and her son so huge, it’s difficult to imagine her ever giving birth to him.
‘It might be quicker if I just put you over my shoulder,’ he says, checking his watch. ‘Mind you, I’m not sure I could these days. I carried a heavy machine gun and a radio when I was in the army. Well – it was a few years ago. I was twenty-six, the big man. Seemed like a good idea at the time.’
Author: jim clayton
glad & buttons
‘The physio should be here soon,’ I say, finishing off my notes and putting them in the folder.
‘She’ll have trouble parking,’ says Moira. ‘It’s absolutely terrible round here.’
‘My grandson’s got a car that parks itself,’ says Glad.
Glad is Moira’s domestic help. It’s a funny arrangement. Glad is as elderly as Moira, but she gamely drags herself around the place with a duster and a bin bag. ‘You pull up, push a button and off it goes. Don’t ask me how it works. I wouldn’t have a clue. I can’t even work the radio.’
‘Yes. It’s incredible how these things have come on,’ says Moira, sitting in her riser-recliner, her hands placidly folded in her lap.
‘I expect in the future we’ll all be flying around in silver balloons,’ says Glad. ‘You’ll probably park on the roof and come down the chimney. I won’t be around to see it though, thank God. Here – what d’you want doing with these?’
She holds out a bunch of magazines, the top one Good Housekeeping, Mary Berry on the front. Moira looks a lot like Mary Berry, making allowances for the nightie, dressing gown and absence of make-up. They share the same haughty benevolence.
‘Oh I don’t know,’ says Moira. ‘Perhaps the hairdressers might want it. Or just recycle.’
‘Righto,’ says Glad, hobbling with her gammy hip to the side table by the door where she drops the magazines and then opens a cupboard to fetch out the hoover.
‘Look at this beauty!’ she says, pulling out a brand new, highly technical-looking Bosch. ‘Light as a feather. And the suck on it. Not too noisy, neither. And see this button? You press that when you’re done, and it puts itself back in the cupboard.’
She turns the thing on and starts pushing it backwards and forwards.
‘I’m lying about the button,’ she says. ‘Lift your feet, love.’
liza of lambeth
nah! I’m a proper Londoner, me
Lambeth Walk – heard of it?
‘Course you ‘av!
Doin’ the Lambeth Walk – Oi!
Charlie Chaplin, he was round the corner
Genius, he was. Genius.
They didn’t none of ‘em understand him
They thought he was a Commonist
So he married that Pickford gel
and they run orf to Sweden or someink
I don’t mind telling you
I get a bit blue now and again
– don’t you go writing that down!
stands to reason, though, dunnit?
I’ve got a lot on me plate
what with me feet and me chest
Specially now me husband’s gone n’left me
we used to do everythink together
me n’Stanley. Everythink.
proper team we was
only now it’s just me
on me Jack Jones
‘cept for the girls who come round
helpin’ me aht
they’re good girls
one of ‘em’s a dancer
legs up to ‘ere
she only does this to keep her
‘ed above water
although you’d fink
wiv legs like that
she’d be alright, eh?
Family? Yes and No.
I got four sisters
and I hate the lot of ‘em
Jes’ because you share the same farver
don’ mean to say you’ll get along
anyway, there’s only two left now
so all’s well that ends well
during the war?
I worked in a factory
making bullets
I didn’t want to, mind
they ‘ad to drag me orf
kicking and screaming
still. I made some good friends
course – they’re all dead now
either that or too tight
to send a card at Christmas
my family? Or-straylia
I know. It is a long way
probably why they chose it
I’ve been there a coupla times
didn’t like it
I couldn’t never open me eyes
d’you know what I mean?
it was all too bright
Swimming? You must be joking!
Only if you want to get et by a shark
taking aht the laundry weren’t no joke, neither
what with all them widowy
spiders waiting for you
under the rim of the basket
they got fangs like this, mate
and poison what’ll turn yer air green
Nah. I’m alright here, fankyouverymuch
So long as I’ve got the girls
me CSI Friday and me
Saturday night strictly
How many children you got?
Two? Tha’s nice!
‘Cos you know what they say
two’s company three’s a whasisname
I bet they give you the runaround.
Nah then. What’ve you gone and done
wiv me slippers?
feathers & the beginner’s mind
So what happened was, we were queuing to board our flight back from Toulouse when there was an announcement. Mesdames et Messieurs. They were short of space in the overhead lockers, and would appreciate it if some passengers would volunteer to put their carry-on luggage into the hold. We already had two pieces checked in, so it didn’t make much difference. There were a couple of laptops in the carry-on, so we took those out and Kath went ahead to sign in the case. Which meant she took her seat on the plane first.
The seats on these planes are arranged three by three, either side of the aisle. What we normally do is sit two in front and two behind, Martha and Jess, me and Kath. When Kath went to sit down, she found that the third seat was taken up by a young guy who for some reason had ended up in the seat immediately behind his wife. They were newly married, and it seemed a shame, so Kath volunteered to do a swap. She would sit with the girls in the three seats behind us; the guy would sit next to his wife by the window, and I’d be in the aisle seat next to him.I didn’t mind. It was a short flight, late at night, and I probably wouldn’t be all that sociable anyway. Everyone settled in. The young couple next to me were halfway through a film on a netbook, sharing some headphones. I tried to figure out what the film was. A slick, supernatural thriller. Tense shots of glossy people at a cocktail party in a skyscraper. Every so often they paused the film so the guy could explain a plot point. No – you see, it was his brother who did the deal. So now he’s the one trying to stay out of Hell. But the girlfriend has the book and she hasn’t found out about the ticket yet… When the guy finished explaining, his wife squeezed his arm and gave him a kiss, the kind of kiss that sneaks up the arm, smiling, eyes open. They would lock like that for a while, then put the headphones back on and unpause the film.
I watched the cabin crew demonstrate the emergency exits. When we’d taken off, I closed my eyes and tried to meditate.
There’s a technique I’ve been trying to learn called ‘noting’. It’s a way of dealing with distracting thoughts. You don’t fight or try to control them, because the effort of doing that will become as distracting as the original distraction. If you see what I mean. The idea is simply to ‘note’ that you’ve become distracted, a light acknowledgement – as light as a feather touching a glass – and then gently bring the focus back to your breathing, and the business of being in the moment.
I was using the feather a lot. The young couple were about as distracting as it’s possible to be without training. Apart from continually stopping the film, explaining what had just happened, leaning into each other for elaborate shows of reassurance and affection, rearranging the small mountain of coats and bags that surrounded them like a nest, they were as exercised by the menu choices on the snacks trolley as they were about the film. Hot chocolate or a glass of wine? Pretzels or peanuts? What do you think? No what do you think? Reassuring kisses. I checked the expression of the air stewardess waiting to take their order, but she was as professionally neutral as the safety demonstration, perhaps even more so. (Note to self: check out any courses in mindfulness endorsed by EasyJet.) Finally they made their order, everything passing inches in front of my nose, despite me trying to make whatever adjustments I could to minimise the risk. Money going backwards and forwards, complicated transactions. But finally it was done, they had their drinks and were back into the film. I closed my eyes again and thought about a giant feather swinging into the side of a glass house like a wrecking ball.
The boutique trolley came round.
The guy thought he might buy a watch, because they were twenty percent off. Should he, or shouldn’t he? You should treat yourself. You’ve done so much for everyone else. Why not? But I don’t know… You’ve been saying for ages you wanted one… yeah, but – really? When the trolley stopped in the aisle he tried on a few. The whole range, as far as I could tell. Holding each one on his wrist, his wife saying yeah.. but a brown strap? The turbulence was getting so bad I was worried about the stewardess. She had to brace herself with one hand on the overhead, her legs apart still maintaining the kind of professionally passive look you only see on saints and contract killers. Finally, after a great deal of tryings-on and comparisons, the guy settled for a Boss watch. Sixty-three pounds and twenty pence. His card was declined. Horreur. Not normally a problem. His wife offered to pay on hers, but he was adamant the stewardess try again. She did. Mon Dieu. It worked (although I was suspicious; I think she faked the sale, happy to pay sixty-three pounds and twenty pence so long as she could move on with her trolley and her life).
I went on with my meditation. Fell asleep. Had a dream I was sinking beneath a stormy sea. Woke up with the guy’s coat over my head.
‘Sorry! So sorry!’
The plane had landed; everyone was getting ready to leave.
*
There’s another technique in meditation: ‘Beginner’s mind’. It means that no matter how experienced or practised you think you are, you should try to approach every session as if you were coming to it for the very first time.
Waiting at the baggage reclaim, I told the girls about my experience with the young couple. Jess listened patiently, then touched me lightly on the shoulder (like a feather touching a glass).
‘Basically – what you’re telling us, Dad – is that you sat next to two perfectly normal human beings.’
The bags came round on the carousel, including the extra one we checked. I dragged them off, and we all headed out of the terminal for the taxi.
*
Thanks for reading – and a Happy New Year!
a tale of two women
I.
Maud is asleep on the ottoman.
‘She’s exhausted’ whispers her granddaughter, Eve. ‘We thought it best if we let her rest a while’
Maud couldn’t be more comfortable, a pile of crisp white pillows behind her head and a richly patterned duvet tucked around her.
‘Come and have a seat,’ says Eve. ‘We’ll wake her up in a minute.’
Eve leads me to a heavy oak dining table in the middle of the room, where Eve’s mother Lucy and Lucy’s sister, Beth are waiting.
‘Thanks for coming,’ says Beth, standing up to shake my hand.
‘It’s good of you,’ says Lucy. ‘Everyone’s been so kind.’
We take our seats.
It would make a good painting. The Visit. A broad and comfortable room, naturally lit by the low winter sun through the patio windows, a collection of old prints and portraits hung around the walls, ferns in planters, a baby grand covered with an antique shawl and a spread of family photos in simple, silver frames – and then the focus of the picture, the loving family leaning in on three sides of the table, me with my open folder, pen in hand, and Maud, snoozing in the background.
‘Can you just go over for me why Maud was taken to hospital in the first place?’ I say.
‘It was just before Christmas,’ says Lucy. ‘Mummy’s always been fiercely independent. She doesn’t like fuss and she’s absolutely resisted any attempt to get some help in with the garden.’
‘Imagine!’ smiles Eve.
‘Quel horreur!’ says Lucy, shaking her head.
‘Anyway. That’s the context. What we think happened is that Mummy was out there planting bulbs and having a bit of a tidy up – overdoing things as usual – came in and then suffered some sort of collapse. Not a stroke or her heart or anything. More a kind of giving out or a weakness in her legs. Whatever the reason, down she went and couldn’t get up again. Wasn’t wearing her red button, of course.’
‘I think it’s upstairs on the bathroom door,’ says Lucy.
‘Exactly. So there she was, down on the floor, and she just couldn’t get herself up again. The best she could manage was to shuffle about a bit – although not as far as the phone, sadly. Malcolm, a good friend and neighbour who lives just across the way, well Malcolm saw the light on quite late and rang Mummy to ask if everything was all right. When she didn’t answer he came over and let himself in with the key we’d given him…’
‘Thank God!’ says Beth.
‘…thank God!’ says Lucy. ‘Thank Malcolm! As soon as he found Mummy on the floor he called the ambulance. They were a while getting here, so once Malcolm had established that Mummy hadn’t broken any bones and so on, he helped her up and waited with her for the paramedics. She had every test you could think of at the hospital. Really – everyone’s been so kind….’
‘Absolutely!’ says Beth. ‘Thank you so much.’
‘…just amazing, actually. But aside from the usual wear-and-tear of Mummy’s osteoarthritis and her habit of doing too damned much, they couldn’t find anything wrong.’
‘A bit of a chest infection…’ says Beth.
‘Oh yes. The chest infection,’ says Ruth. ‘Beyond that, who can say? We’ve got some carers starting this evening. I think Mummy’s been given a bit of a frightener by all of this and she’s finally agreed to some help. One of us will stay tonight and however long it takes to get her back to strength. But she is ninety, you know. You can’t go on pretending you’re a young woman forever.’
And we all turn to look at Maud, fast asleep on the ottoman.
II.
‘I’m ninety, you know!’
‘I can’t believe that!’ I say, touching Renee lightly on the arm. I have to admit it’s a lie, though. One of her eyes is permanently closed, giving her a lopsided, leering look, and when she speaks – with difficulty – she rolls up her mouth at the end of each sentence, taking most of the lower half of her face with it.
Rene is stuck on the commode. She wasn’t able to pull up her nightie, and opening her bowels has resulted in a mess that’s going to take some deft manoeuvring to sort out. At least I’m here with my colleague, Helen, though. Together we manage to stand Renee up, and whilst Helen keeps her steady, I set to work with quantities of tissue and wet wipes.
‘Sorry about that,’ she says.
‘Don’t worry, Renee.’
After a while she says: ‘We’ll have to take the decorations down soon.’
I glance up at the walls. There are three lines of red tinsel stuck with masking tape to the crumbling plaster above the fireplace – not delicate strips of tape; the kind you tear off in a hurry and slap on.
‘Shame. It goes so quickly,’ says Helen, adjusting her position as I struggle to free some more wipes.
‘Yes,’ says Renee. ‘Still. It can’t be Christmas all the time or it wouldn’t be special.’
Her son Graham watches us from the other side of the room. He seems to do a lot of that. He was watching at the front door as I parked the car, not waving back when I did, or even saying hello, merely turning with a flat, mildly irritated look and disappearing inside, like a bear plodding back into its cave when it finds winter still has a way to go.
‘How is she?’ he says, as we struggle to get her nightie over her head.
‘Not sure.’
A microwave dings in the kitchen.
‘D’you mind if I get my dinner?’
‘Go ahead!’ says Helen, dropping the soiled clothing into a bag.
After a minute or two Graham reappears with a plastic dish of curry. Instead of taking it upstairs or out back, he sits on the side of Renee’s hospital bed, and starts tucking in with a spoon.
‘Sure you don’t mind?’ he says.
It’s disquieting to see just how exactly the food looks like the mess we’ve just dealt with.
‘Absolutely,’ I say. ‘Smells good.’
circa 1966
I don’t wan’ tae appear ungrateful
but I wish you’d all just sod off
You don’t need to tell me I’m ill
– I mean: Look at the state o’me!
dragging my sorry seln’ around
roped to this machine
like an old goat to a tyre
everyone too sentimental
or squeamish – or busy, no doubt
to break out the shotgun shells
and put one in tha’ back o’me heed
I mean – come on, son!
Who’re we kiddin’ here?
The thing is – it’s bad enough
losing ma’ freedom like this
getting dragged off to hospital
at a moment’s notice
hanging around on a trolley
while some fifteen year old doctor
hums and harrs and scratches
the fake wee beard he got fer christmas
lookin’ everywhere but straight in ma’ face
don’ bother, sunshine
I know what day o’ the week it is
I know what my lungs are like
C’mon in, number eight, your time’s up
No – what’s worse is a hundred people
I’ve never seen before in my life
traipsing through the house
like there’s no front door
saying ‘Hello Janet How are you Janet’
when I’ve never clapped eyes on them in me life
It’s like I don’t live here na’ more
I feel like sayin’ ta them:
‘Janet’s gone, mate.
She fucked off back to Glasgow
circa nineteen sixty-six
you’ll have to deal with me instead.’
cat scene investigation
I took Solly to the vet’s for his vaccination and worming pill yesterday. Which is how I came to step barefoot on glass when I came down this morning.
You see, yesterday I’d taken the cooker extractor fan apart. It had started to make noises and drip gloop on the hob – a noxious, sticky substance that would’ve poisoned the whole family had it fallen into the soup (or improved it, one of the two). De-glooping the extractor fan is my least favourite chore. It doesn’t matter how much kitchen cleaner I spray on it, or how many times I flush it with boiling water, the two panels carry on oozing this stuff like it’s coming from a whole other dimension, like chef’s ectoplasm. Anyway, I did my best. I set the panels on some kitchen towel to drain as much of the gloop as possible. Whilst the panels were off, it seemed like a good time to change the bulb that had blown some time ago (shorted out by gloop, no doubt). We didn’t have a spare, so I put it to one side so I could take it in to get another.
Meanwhile, Solly had to go to the vets. He knew he was in trouble when he saw us bring the cat carrier down from the attic. But we’d thought ahead. We’d closed all connecting doors, shut the cat-flap and turned on all the lights. All that was left for him was to hide under the sofa, but we played the classic pincer-movement and made a grab when he ran for the chimney. Getting him into the cat carrier was tough. It always is. He sprouts extra legs, each one bristling with claws. It’s like trying to wrestle a bale of barbed wire through a letterbox. By the time we’d stuffed him into the cat carrier we looked like we’d been beaten up and thrown in a bramble patch.
‘Good luck at the vet’s’ Kath said, dabbing her arms.
As I took him outside, Solly began to wail. He’s a black and white cat, by the way – appropriate, given that this wail of his sounds exactly like the siren of a black and white cop car in an old noir movie, pulling up at the scene of a dreadful murder.
At the vets he was completely different, though. When the vet opened the carrier door and reached inside, he slunk out onto the examination table, looking straight ahead.
‘Wow! You’re like the cat whisperer!’ I said to her.
‘I wish I could take the credit’ she said. ‘But the plain fact is, he’s terrified.’
‘Poor Solly!’ I said, feeling guilty. I ruffled the top of his head, and that’s when he gave me the look. The look that said: Don’t think it ends here, my friend.
The vet began checking him over. Teeth, abdomen, ears. Stethoscope to chest.
‘How’s he looking?’ I said.
She sighed and took the stethoscope out of her ears.
‘Sorry. Carry on,’ I said.
She put the stethoscope back in.
And that’s when Solly gave her a look. See what I have to put up with?
Of course, when we got back home, Solly disappeared into the garden for hours. When he finally made it back in to eat, he was his usual, darkly mysterious self again, gnarling and chomping through his meat and biscuits with the noisy relish of an old sea captain back in the snug of The Neptune after a particularly harrowing whaling adventure. (Although I might be reading too much into it.) And that seemed to be that.
Except, of course, it wasn’t.
As Solly well knows, I tend to walk around barefoot. Certainly in the summer. In winter, it’s mostly socks, but I did get a pair of slippers, because the tiles in the kitchen are freezing. The only trouble is, I’ll often leave the slippers by the back door, so first thing in the morning, I’ll blunder downstairs, through the sitting room and into the kitchen to get them, not bothering to put on any lights.
That’s what happened this morning. Just as Solly knew it would.
I heard the crunch of glass before I felt the pain in my foot. I gasped and staggered backwards to put the light on, which showed me in an instant all I needed to know, like the flash of a CSI camera: Solly on the counter by the hob, smiling at me. Solly with one paw still extended – from having gently swiped the spent extractor fan bulb onto the floor. Solly leaping clear of the mess, and stalking away into the sitting room, his tail straight up, like an antenna, transmitting to all the other neighbourhood cats: Operation Vet Vengeance: Executed.
drag me to hell, traffic warden
We watched the Sam Raimi film Drag me to Hell last night. It was great. Plenty of outrageous set-ups, plenty of gloop (although nothing as horrible as the stuff from the extractor fan). One thing that did strike me, though – how convenient it is that the demons and evil spirits in these films always look so goddamn awful. They’ve all got terrible teeth and skin, weird eyes, ghastly nails. A demon is basically someone who pays no heed whatsoever to the basics of personal hygiene. Which is handy, in a way, because it makes them easier to spot.
Not like real life at all, then.
I mean, I was given a parking ticket the other day by a traffic warden, even though I wasn’t causing an obstruction, and even though I was attending to a very poorly patient.
‘Double yellows, yes. Loading bays, no,’ he said. ‘You should know that.’
‘But it’s Christmas’
He shrugged.
‘So let’s get this straight,’ I said, struggling to hold it together. ‘If I was unloading frozen chips to this chintzy fucking tea room, that would’ve been okay?’
‘Yes.’
‘So it’s chips and not sick people, is it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t even bother,’ said a painter and decorator, passing by, stopping just long enough to give the traffic warden a stare that was worryingly like a curse. ‘He just better hope his family never needs help sometime.’
Looking back on it, setting aside all personal feelings about the matter, I have to say – the traffic warden looked as nice and friendly as anyone else. He certainly didn’t look like a demon, with yellow eyes and sharp teeth. And he had very nice hair, what I could see of it, round his cap.
the skull on the rock
Leonie, professor of anthropology (ret’d),
sits in her Riser-Recliner,
a blanket of crochet squares
tucked snug on her lap,
a view of the garden,
(bird feeder, gnomes,
water-feature – two children
sheltering under an umbrella
water running like rain).
‘Justin the priest was here earlier,’ she says.
‘You just missed him.
I think he sees me as a challenge,
a bit of a project.
And I have to say – poor chap,
he does bring out the devil in me.
I told him all about this documentary I’d seen
some paleolithic cave paintings in France.
Now – the thing is, of course
we don’t know why they did these paintings.
and one must always resist the temptation
simply to ascribe to ritual
things we do not understand.
That being said, it was clear the people
had gone to extraordinary lengths
to put those horses and deer on the walls.
And then – the most marvellous detail –
they’d placed the skull of a giant bear
on a large rock, looking to the entrance.
As soon as I saw it I thought
Ah-ha! Altar!
Now. I said to Justin, I said there are two ways
you can think about this. Possibly four.
Either they were celebrating God
as best they could, in a naive way
OR they were scratching a divine itch
in a way that felt appropriate to them
using their own symbolic language
drawings, rocks and bones and so forth.
I said to Justin – I could see he was flustered –
I said that it struck me quite forcibly –
as it had done many times in the past –
that this whole God-thing
was simply an illusion, a trick of the light.
I think no sooner had we the ability to work a tool
we experienced a collateral development of consciousness.
D’you see?
Suddenly we weren’t simply spending our time
running away from lions, or running after deer,
suddenly we found ourselves with time on our hands
looking round at the world
and worrying about our place in it
and that’s when we started painting the walls,
carving flutes, and putting skulls on rocks.
‘That’s an interesting argument, Leonie.’
‘I don’t think Justin finds it interesting.
Horrifying might be closer.
Still, he’s a sweet chap. Easily shocked
but his heart’s in the right place.
He hates to think of me being confined to the flames
when I pop off. Although quite what function
that would serve, I haven’t the faintest idea.
These vengeful father figures, they’re so persistent,
don’t you think?
‘Absolutely.’
‘I wouldn’t mind betting that old bear god
wasn’t known for his easy temper.
I bet you a pound to a pinch
once his skull was on the rock
everyone dropped to their knees.’
‘I bet!’
‘Poor Justin. I wonder he keeps coming round.
Aren’t you worried about the hereafter?
he said. No I said. It’s the here and now that concerns me.
But – bless him – he’d brought a peace offering
some macaroons he’d made.
They’re really rather good
I think there’s a couple left.
Would you like one?’
so this is christmas
I was shopping in Sainsbury’s yesterday. A list in my hand of the things I was bound to forget. Ground Cinnamon. Black Treacle. Some stem ginger (Kath was doing a traybake for Jessie’s drama group Christmas party). I wandered into the milk and juice aisle. There were Christmas songs playing overhead in a stream that was only interrupted by public announcements of special offers, rounded off with a Thank you for shopping at Sainsbury’s, and I’d been drifting along, checking the list, looking around, unconsciously joining in with these songs that I’d heard a million times before and couldn’t avoid this time of year, singing along in the same way that trees bend in front of a strong wind, to let it pass as harmlessly as possible without losing too many branches. But then I realised that I was singing along to Happy Christmas (War is Over), the John Lennon song. And I wondered what John Lennon would’ve thought, if he’d been standing in the milk and juice aisle, too, hearing his song absorbed like this, made safe, neutered, by the whole corporate sales drive of Christmas. Would it have depressed him? Didn’t it jar with the message of the song?
And that made me think of a documentary film I saw of him called Imagine. There’s a scene in the film where he talks to an obsessive american fan who’d been camping in the grounds of his mansion. They’re all standing by the front door, the american in his tatty sheepskin coat and floppy hat, John and Yoko in the doorway, with some other people around. And the american is saying something about how much John’s music has influenced his life, how they spoke directly to him. John is pretty tough about the whole thing. He tells the american he was just putting words together. Some of them worked and seemed to mean something, some of them didn’t. That was it. He said all songwriters did pretty much the same thing. If he was writing a love song, he was mostly thinking about Yoko. Everything else was about John Lennon, and no-one else. And if anyone listening happened to take some meaning from it, well – that was good. If not, well, whatever. And then they all went in for some breakfast.
I remember being shocked by the tone of what he said to the american – especially when he said he was only writing about things around him, how he was feeling, whether he’d had a good shit that morning. Was his songwriting really such a functional thing? It confused me at the time and still does. Especially taken with all the other seemingly incompatible things about his life, like John singing ‘Imagine no possessions’, and then a year or so later keeping a whole apartment refrigerated in the Dakota building specifically to keep his and Yoko’s fur coats. All of which helped me overcome my moment of existential angst in the milk and juice aisle of Sainsbury’s. Because I thought – actually – John Lennon would’ve appreciated the contradiction, seen his place in it, the whole societal ‘trip’.
And who knows? Maybe he’d have written a song.
Kath’s traybake was fantastic, btw.
Happy Christmas. I hope you have a great holiday – and thanks for reading the blog this year!
wedding photo
Me and Vera used to
go dancing Saturday
One night I said to her
I’m just off to the bar,
do you want anything?
Yes, she said, bring me back
a handsome man, she said
but I went one better
and come back with a pair
That’s him in the photo
nods to the mantelpiece
a black and white picture
of a demob suit and
pattern dress, ducking out
a church door, arm in arm,
like the links of a chain
newly struck on old stones
running out to the light
