Come Not When I Am Dead (11 page)

Joseph
took me to the restaurant to meet Edward.
 
Both of us in a state of high excitement, pushing each other along and
squealing.
 
Trip, trip, tripping
along, tap tap of our shoes on the concrete, high skies and no goodbyes.
 
“I feel dizzy with excitement” Joseph
says “and it’s nothing to do with me”
“do you feel that your head has exploded sideways and it’s sort of contained
about 20ft all around you?”
“No”
“I do”
“Shall I go in first to see Edward and say, ‘right, if you want to keep her,
then just adore her, love her kittens, give her perfume and chocolate and TALK
TO HER.’”

Edward
was on his own, standing outside the restaurant in a beautiful black cashmere
coat, elegant and statuesque he looked.
 
I wonder if he’s too handsome?
 
He was looking out for me but I was coming the other way.
 
I am a little bit frightened.
  
Joseph held my hand and our world
was silent, Joseph looked in my face and our world slid off somewhere else and
something dropped me into place.
 
And as in a dance, we slipped by each other and he left me “see you
tomorrow whorington” and I breathed out and then there I was, fantastic in my
silence, looking in to the face of this beautiful man.
 
And I really am looking, penetratingly
in his face, just to see.
 
And he
doesn’t speak, he is waiting and he is looking too.
 
Then I smile and this circular, bubble
of a world just disappears and the noise of cars and people, shouting and
beeping and walking and living assaults my ears and I know I am here.

I
was reserved with Edward, I couldn’t help it it’s just the way I am
sometimes.
 
I am the new sheep, too
scared to come to the bucket.
 
I am
standing in the middle of the field, all ways open to me, and I want to come,
but I will not yet.
 
And little by
little I will move closer, but if you make one silly and sudden movement, I
will turn on my back legs, my front legs momentarily leaving the ground and I
will be off and we will have to start again.
 
I was reserved, but not for long, and
then it melted away and bit by bit I became interested and happy and exuberant
and then I was fizzing inside.
 
We
had been wondering, Joseph and I, sitting on our beds earlier, wondering what
Edward did for a living, Joseph said “banker”
“stockbroker”
“engineer”
“architect” but it was only his blue shirt that made us think of any of those
things, he could be a wrestler or a dancer, a shop keeper or a salesman.
 
But he was a soldier.
 
I think I like that best.
 

He
is on leave, visiting his sister in London, he was waiting for her when I
pounced on him earlier. “What do you like to do with your time Gussie?” as he
shook out his napkin, crisp and white, making shapes in the air and I thought
that was far lovelier than ‘so, what do you do for a living?’ because that’s
not necessarily what you like to do, and that’s the important thing and I
reeled off a list of loves.
 
I was
probably too exuberant, I probably laughed too much, I was maybe too friendly,
and I didn’t know him, not really, but I suddenly felt happy.
 
And talking about the things I liked to
do made me happier and more animated, and I came to life before I knew it.
 
I shot up to the ceiling like a bullet,
I opened up and out and then I floated back down.
 
“I like to read, and paint and be
outside with my kittens.
 
I like the
cold weather and stomping about in the rain smoking cigars.
 
I like lying on a rug, on my back,
staring at the ceiling.
 
I like
going in to a cold, cold sea with all my clothes and shoes on and lolloping
around on my inflatable dolphin.
 
I
like exciting hunts in the cold weather with my hawks.
 
I like silent stalking after deer.
 
I like standing in a river, being head
butted by roach and pushed around by water swishing all around me and watching
rising, silver trout in the dimpsy light.
 
Those are some of the things I like doing” and he laughs
“and do all those things bring in an income?” and then I was disappointed
because he’d ruined it.
 
But then he
said that he’d like to do all those things with me too, and for a moment I
thought that I might let him.
 
Am I
not real?
 
Do I not understand real?
 

We
ate a meal which was probably lovely but I ate it without really tasting
it.
 
It is strange being with
another man, being alone with another man.
 
It’s not a thrill as in something new for the sake of newness, but it is
a thrill to meet someone new who seems so nice who you think could potentially
interest you or add something to your life.
 
I don’t want to waste my time with
anyone.
 
And I sit there and watch
him talk to me, his mouth moving, lips a bloody penis pink, his teeth
ridiculously perfect and strong-looking and I imagine him chewing grass.
 
His shirt, one little clear pearl-like
button open, the way he pushes his hair back with his hand, but it must be the
memory of a ghostly, previous hair style he had, because his hair is too short
to fall inconveniently in to his eyes and needs no pushing back.
 
I listen to his words and know that
they’re chosen carefully and I wonder what he would say if we had known each
other for 1 year or 15 years.
 
I
note that he turns his mobile off when we sit down at the table, that he stands
if I stand, that his shoes are good, his legs are straight, his back is broad
and I do like him.
 
He is definitely
far better company than Percy.
 
He
is far more communicative than Charlie.
 
This isn’t the way it was all meant to be though, but that’s not my
fault.
 
I think of Charlie, and for
the first time I know that I’ve been let down by him.
 
He is part of my nature, Charlie is, he
has grown in to me like a deer’s hoof grown around wire, or a tree around
binder twine, like something that is so different, but has become the same, like
love and hate and socialism and capitalism, like black and white and hot and
cold, he’s part of me, he’s my same atmosphere and I don’t know if I’m burning
or I’m freezing.
 
But this man is
not Charlie.
 
And all the flowers
fall from my basket.

We
leave the restaurant and, as he closes his wallet and puts it back in his
pocket, he asks me what else I’d like to do.
 
I say I’d like to go back to my
hotel.
 
I am not suggestive and he
is respectful.
  
We will just
see.
 
And if he makes a silly move I
will turn tail and run, with a mouthful of meadow grass between my teeth.
 
He calls a taxi and we talk quietly with
a little more reserve and I’m thinking, what will happen?
 
What will happen?
 
I don’t know, not yet.
 
It is all slow motion and there’s a
stream of muggy, polluted consciousness following me around, a song in my head
‘Sometimes I’m thinking, whatever did I do?
 
Nights are always chilly in these days
of you’.
 
And Joseph won’t be back
later and I know that whatever I want to happen, will happen, but I haven’t
decided yet, I am up in the sky and he is down below.
 
I see the top of his head and I see his
feet falling on the pavement.
 
I am
not here again.
 
And I am still
thinking outside my bedroom door, I am still thinking inside my bedroom
door.
 

I let him kiss
me and I melt into him, I let myself flood in to him and it makes me dizzy and
he has to steady me.
 
This is what I
want.
 
And something is whizzing and
whizzing around me and I can’t see it or catch it and I don’t know what it is.
He is a stag, he is a dog with a rag, he is most definitely a man and I am
something naked on a lonely horizon, turned on beyond measure, running
backwards and forward with nothing in sight, frantically looking for
satisfaction.
 
This is knowledge.
 
I am water surrounding him, I am the sun
ripening him, I
 
am a cool breeze
fanning him, I am a buzzard on a post too tantalisingly near him.
 
But I don’t know if I am me.
 
I don’t know if I can be me.
 
I am someone to take home.
 
I am someone to cherish and cosset, but
it’s not all of me.
 
I have left all
of me at home.
 
But he is warmth and
he is fleeting and he is nature and I lose myself in him.

I am back in Devon in my own dear
little house but I feel like an intruder.
 
I creep through quiet rooms like a thief as if they don’t belong to me
and if I spoke, my voice would shock and shatter the silence.
 
It smells sweet and musky, but I feel
bad and dirty,
it is too tidy
I think
as I move furtively around and then the spell is broken as Coningsby trips up
to me with a gentle little quack.
 
I
love you back “I’m bad Coningsby” I say to her.

I look at my phone and get Charlie’s
number up but don’t ring it.
 
He
should call me.
 
I am grimy after my
train journey and have a shower, hot and brief, I pour baby oil all over my
skin and smooth it in, I look at my body in the mirror opposite as I wash but I
don’t feel quite as excited by it as I normally do.
 
I will call him.
 
I dab myself dry and run into the
sitting room, naked and sit down on my towel.
 
Poppenjoy jumps up to my lap, her claws
slightly digging in to my thighs, her purr is instant, she has missed me.
 
I stroke her head, her back and she
blends in to me.
 
Her fur soft and
silken against my skin, she brushes me, she is all delicacy, a rabbit’s scut
collecting pollen.
 
I am glad to be
home.
 
When I am dry and dressed I
go through to the kitchen and see Jo’s left a note for me and some home-baked
scones on a plate on the kitchen table, some butter and raspberry jam.
 
I am glad I am home where I am
loved.
 
My thoughts are still of
London and there’s a train rushing through my head, keeping me on a fast
journey.
 
I sit down without
thinking, and eat 4 scones thick with butter and a smear of red jam.
  
I am a wolf.
 
Then I run up the stairs to my bedroom,
draw my curtains, give the wee catties some tuna treats, get in to bed and fall
asleep as they all settle all around me and lick their messages of how much
they’ve missed me and how glad they are that I’m home, and I fall into a
beautiful, heavy, solid steel sleep.

I wake up an hour later hearing the
front door bang close and the chime chiming in the hall.
 
My eyes heave open and then fall
closed.
 
I am thirsty and my mouth
feels that it doesn’t quite belong to me.
 
I am listening carefully and hear Jo taking off her shoes and creeping
noisily upstairs.
 
I imagine her,
back bent, head down, toes first, floral wallpaper behind her shoulder and efag
in her mouth.
 
It is good to be
home.
 
She pushes my door open.
 
It is good to be home.
 
She comes in to my room, it is good to
see her, and suddenly this strange spell is broken and I really am back home.
 
She plonks herself on my bed, her hair
is frizzing out all over her head and she’s got a brown tweed Italian jacket on
that I haven’t seen before “how was London then?” all sunny smiles and bright
eyes, puff, puff, puff.
 
“It was
rather gorgeous really” and I stretch my arms up towards the ceiling and smile
a weary but happy smile “I’m glad to be home though” and then I tell her about
Edward.
 
It is good to tell someone
something, and even though she’s shocked that I had sex on the first date,
she’s glad that I’ve got someone, or potentially got someone.
 
“And what about you Jo?
 
Don’t you want someone?”
“Nah.
 
I don’t like sex, I’d rather
put the bins out.
 
I’ve got you, that’s
far better than any man.”
 

I stretch up out of my bed, feeling
oddly refreshed and ridiculously happy.
 
We go and play squash.
 
 
I put on my little blue squash dress and
Jo puts on a big skull t shirt and leggings and we go out together in her car
which is far cleaner and tidier than mine.
 
And in someone else’s car I always feel that I’m being looked
after.
 
My hands held together, on
my knees and I am all of a sudden polite.
 
“It’s a bloody brilliant game” she says to me on the court, wiping her snotty
nose on her t shirt, which then hangs limp and wet and I smile at her, a big,
open, encompassing warm smile that means ‘thank God I am myself here’.
 
“Do you remember brother, that stainless
morning?
 
No, do you remember Jo
when you did a smell in the courts and it really stank and then you blocked the
door so that I couldn’t get out past you?
   
And I grabbed you hard
around the throat and you couldn’t breathe?
 
I must say, that street-fighteryness
really surprised and delighted me about myself”
“You’re too skinhead” she says “it’s not right.”

Later on, if you can imagine the cosy
scene we were sitting by the fire in the sitting room.
 
Jo was sitting on grandma’s chair,
pushed a little back away from the heat.
 
Raffle Buffle, Poppenjoy and Everingham were all curled up together in a
soft bundle in their basket by the fire, I was sitting on the rug just behind
them, Coningsby was spread out on the sofa behind me, a little to my left fast
asleep and the Major was on one leg on the curtain rail.
 
The only light we had was from the fire
and our tones were just as hushed and as sleepy as the lazy flickers coming
from the logs.
 
When we reached a
pleasant lull in our conversation we were jolted by “police here” called out
from down the hall and after he’d been to get his hard backed chair from the
dining room, Frank came in bringing breezes and brightness, waking us up.
 
“Hello my dears” he said “I’ve come for
a glass of sherry and an invigorating chat to get rid of the rubbish in my
head”
“we’re too sleepy for vigour” I said to him “but you can have some sherry and
tell us about your horrible day” we are made almost horizontal by the
heat.
  
It is lovely to see
Frank, it’s like the old days when Grumpy was still alive and whilst he sipped
his sherry and settled himself down I said “tell us then.”
“Oh just some nasty people to deal with today.
 
Do you know it was so much easier in the
old days, policing was.
 
You could
be a bit more physical that you can now” and he rubbed his hands together
towards the fire.
 
“Physical?
 
What, like riding bicycles around the
village?” I said and whilst Frank was saying “don’t be daft” Jo said
“a bit of the rough stuff?”
“you’ve got it” Frank said “not that that’s generally a good thing, but I was
thinking about it today, some of these types only respond to a bit of what they
know best.
 
It’s all too bloody easy
for them now.”
“Frank, are you talking about police brutality?” I said, sitting up and
suddenly a bit shocked or excited, or just awake.
 
“It’s the only lesson they seem to
understand.
 
We’d give them a bit of
a rough time in the cells and we’d soon get to the bottom of things.
 
You can’t touch them now without them
knowing their rights and reporting you”
“Are you serious Frank?” because he does often make jokes that I tend to take
literally, I am aware of that, so, you have to make sure.
 
“I am my dear, we’d make short work of
them in the old days, it’s a different matter now.
 
I don’t think I’ll be that sorry when it
comes to retiring”
“well, you’re a sly devil I didn’t know you liked a bit of that.
 
Do you really wish you could still
‘rough them up’? Did you really like that?”
“Don’t be silly Gus, I didn’t like it, but it was effective, that’s all,
there’s still a place for that sort of thing” he said and then Jo, who had been
looking rather horrified all this time, yawned extravagantly and stood up and
said “I’m off upstairs now.
 
Goodnight.
 
You’re too
skinhead too” she says to Frank as she left the room.
“Oof, she didn’t like you saying that”
“What was that about?”
“Nothing.
 
Now Frank, tell me, were
you grandma’s lover?”
“what makes you say that out of the blue?”
“you never answer my questions”
“shouldn’t ask them then”
“you are frustrating”
“you want to know everything, you always thought too much” and as if in
punishment for the rudeness to his mistress, The Major flew over and sat on
Frank’s shoulder, then pulled at his ear and made it bleed, he fills my heart
with fluttering sighs and loveliness does my little magpie.
 
I have asked Frank again and again over this
last year or two but he never tells me, but one day he may.
 
He’s a funny man.
 
Sometimes I question him for hours,
shifting, always fidgeting, but always listening.
 
He looks at me, puffs on his pipe and
lets out a little laugh “funny you having this house” he says to me “I remember
you in your nappies, but that’s not it.
 
Your grandma managed this house, she was in control of it, but
you
, you are controlled by it.
 
I’ve never thought about it like that
before, but it’s true.”
“Freak” I say “funny you say that though, I know what you mean, but it feels
like part of me, like part of my soul or one of my bones.
 
There’s a magic to this house isn’t
there, like it breathes”
“there you go, off on one again.
 
You know,
 
you should get
yourself a husband”
“don’t go on about that again, and what’s that got to do with this house and why
does everyone go on?”
“I know you” and he bangs his pipe on the chair arm
 
“I look out for you and I keep an eye on
you”
“what on earth is that supposed to mean? You are weird Frankus”
“just what I say, you need a nice, single man”
Frank is odd sometimes, and he gave me a suspicion that he does know, well,
obviously more than a suspicion, that he doesn’t approve, but if he does know,
he doesn’t tell me and that makes it feel as if I want to tell him even more,
because not to say feels like a lie.
 
Feels like I’m a lie.
 
I
stretch my toes out towards the fire which I light every single day of the
year.
 
My toes wiggle the warmth
around, my back is straight and my hands on the rug behind my back.
 
“I would like a nice man”
 
I say to the flames
“what about my son?”
“I don’t know your son, not anymore, what’s he up to nowadays?”
“he’s coming here soon, you can ask him for yourself”
“you’re a freak Frank, you never tell me anything.”
 
I used to look at Frank’s son when we
were younger and see if I could trace grandma’s features in his.
 
I would see if I could find out if grandma
had a bit of a sketchy past when he was born, but I came up with nothing.
 
I don’t know how they would have palmed
her child off on Frank’s wife anyway, but people do all sorts of things.
 
Major is on his haunches by Frank’s
feet
 
now and there are three pussy
cats entwined on the sofa.
 
We
talked of Jim, he teased me about the electric netting, he ate my chocolates
and drank more sherry, and then he said “you know the vet, ‘Charles’!” and he
said ‘Charles’ with an overtly ‘posh’ accent and I knew, just by that that he
didn’t like him and that this was going to be horrible. “Yes?” and I keep
looking at the flames and out of the corner of my right eye, I see two very observant
brown eyes watching me “what do you think of this new business then?”
“I don’t know what you mean, what new business?”
“Come on, you must have heard about it!
 
His wife and that bloody awful prat.
 
Hey?” but he looks at me and I look at
him and he can see that I know nothing about it
 
“his wife doesn’t mind everyone knowing
what she’s up to, so I’m not gossiping, and if you ask me, she’s been
advertising it.
 
Shame for the
children though.
 
What do you think
of her?”
“don’t know her really”
“and him?” you are tricky Frank, I think
“I like him, he’s a decent chap I think” but he looks darkly at me,
“not so decent as can’t keep his temper, not so nice as is good to those around
him, not so strong as goes off at the merest hint of trouble.”
“Uh?
 
What are you talking about?” I
hate this sort of thing, I hate having to control my emotions, my facial
expressions, my verbal outbursts, my shouting, screaming mind and my shaking
body.
 
And he told me that Charles
and his awful wife had had a dreadful row, spitting and snarling at each other
in the garden and pretty much everyone heard.
 
Then later on he got in his car and just
drove off, cancelled his appointments the next day, and apparently was rude to
uncle George who’s decorating his surgery at the moment.
 
And Frank looks at me and I look at
Frank, and Frank’s eyes say
you can tell
me
and my eyes say
I will, but not
yet
.
 
“You know that bloody great
house they live in is in her name don’t you?” but I didn’t “I don’t think he’ll
be in a very good position, financially speaking.
 
But that woman’s a bitch, and that’s
never a word I like saying about women, she’ll make things difficult for him
and he knows it.
 
I don’t think
there’s much love lost there.”
Don’t you?
 
I wanted to say, but I just watched him
talking and kept my mouth shut.
 
 
“People rush in to these marriages, they
reach a point in their lives where they think ‘about time I got married’ and
they marry whoever they happen to be courting at the time.
 
Can’t do it like that, needs a lot of
thought marriage does” he says between puffs of his pipe.
 
“Did you marry your wife before you met
Grumps?”
“what about Percy?” and he ignored me
 
“he’s a good man, local, he’d suit you wouldn’t he?
 
His Father was a rare one, makes me
smile even now just thinking of him.
 
So, what about him?”
“He would be utterly perfect if I could love him.
 
He has asked me.”
 
I feel as if Frank has me by my tail and
I’m trying to make my escape.
 
I
feel I’m running away when I should be asking for help.
 
I feel I should be saying ‘what is it
Frank? Why can’t I love him?’
“I would like to, you know, I’d love to have children, I’d love to fill this
house with children, and maybe one could control it!” and I smile
“Percy wouldn’t suit, I know that.
 
Now”
and he changes the subject, he has tested me and he can be himself “how you
getting on with Jo?
 
I think that
was a good move.
 
She seems a very
nice sort of person.
 
She looking
after you?”
“She’s my lodger, not my nanny!” and we smile, then laugh and my heart fills
with gladness because he’s here, he is reassurance, he is warmth and he is
safety, but he makes me want to cry and hold on to him.
 
He makes me feel that I need him, that I
need someone to look after me.
 
I
don’t though.
 
And he gets up to go
“I do love you you know Frank” and he smiles.
 
He stands up slowly, but straight, he is
careful and he is considered and considerate.
 
He pulls his body straight, limbs up and
out, picks up his coat that he wears all weathers and goes out “dark as a bag
out here” he says before he disappears into the night.