Monday, August 30, 2010

A Post on the Subject of Mundane Violence - Spiritual, Physical, Memorial.


I felt – interpreted, sensed, imagined – a disjuncture, as I recently listened to the cremation service of my mother’s aunt. At one point, biblical references were creatively and affirmatively related to the dead woman always having ensured that the (food) cupboards were well-stocked – something about providing for the family, et cetera, et cetera, and so I’m sitting there knowing that this was a woman who was a generally prolific consumer… often received as communicating pride in her personal appearance, in her home, and in much else that no one (except her) really cared about. I found this vulgar, and dubious, to say the least, in what it and she communicated in terms of the Christian values that were said to underpin the service, throughout which, the speaker – a collared churchwoman – spoke without the merest flicker of embarrassment or irony. And so it goes.

Whilst in the north east (above), it was good to reacquaint with the deceased aunt’s husband, daughters, and their families. I also got to hear my mother and sister discussing various local folk’s trials and tribulations. For much of the time, I was left with the sunken feeling (sinking didn’t last very long) that these locals were the cast of soap operas that were routinely so violent, far-fetched and lacking in basic humanity that no outsider would wish to endure their grim narratives. And so I went. Leaving early, my drive back to the Midlands coincided with quiet roads – good thing, autopilot, quick. Whatever it was that I had on the radio – maybe podcasts, possibly Saturday evening Radio Four, I failed to take in – distracted. Sister’s casual mention of the young woman who’d just skipped out of town with her own sister’s husband, that was nothing – that occupied me as far as the end of my mother’s street. The matter of the house with the big shed changing hands, that was with me through to somewhere in North Yorkshire – say, Leeming Bar. It wasn’t so much the house, but more the previous owner. ‘What happened to him?’, I’d asked. ‘He went to prison, didn’t he. D’ y’ not remember?’, said mother. I didn’t remember, I’d never been told. She explained, sort of - ‘Prison - somethin’ t’ do with his step-daughters… y’ know’. His step-daughters, yes, I remembered them - the ones who my own sister used to play with. But for much of the journey, I was thinking about the old friend who I’d run into at the town’s football club earlier that day. As teenagers, we’d played football and knocked about together. At around 16, maybe 17, we drifted apart. My pathway was study and getting away, his was different. He didn’t have the scar when I knew him. Of course, as we caught up, I didn’t mention the line across his face. We talked jobs, where we now lived, and how our footballing allegiances had shifted over the years. His physique told me that it was a long long time since he’d last played football. As sister and I later departed the football club, she explained the old friend’s changed appearance - ‘It was Lenny Fulton that did it’. The name meant nothing to me. ‘He’d be about 40 now, lived down at the bottom of Chapel Street. They got into an argument one night, Lenny just slashed him.’ As sister sought out her car keys, I asked more – why did Old Friend and Lenny Fulton argue, why the violence, and what happened to knife artist Lenny. She explained, ‘It was nowt – drugs probably… He went to prison for it, though he’s dead now - alcohol.’ All of that, and the perfectly horizontal register of it – from just behind the ear, through the ear, across the left cheek, falling just short of Old Friend’s top lip – consumed me across the M62, to the M6.

In around 1990, maybe ’91, I thought it was cute, the way sister – then aged about five or six - would tackle a minced beef pie, as I watched the town’s football team with pals. She would then go and run up and down the undulating hills that flanked the western side of the football ground – all within my sightlines. We’d later jog back home – a distance which must have felt enormous to her short legs. In the same place, now, she explained to me how one of those pals who’d have been with us happened to look like something from a horror film.

For the final, short rainy stretch of the M6, I wondered about Lenny Fulton, about the final words that would have been conjured by and for his kith and kin, and whether his mother's food cupboards would have been well-stocked. My guess was that they weren't.

Saturday, August 07, 2010

you

The Boy and I are in WH Smith's, using up an old voucher card (we didn't know how much was on it) on some new kit for his 2010/11 school year. After bagging the various pens, glue-sticks and primary ephemera, the cashier - a pretty, young female - explains that there's just over three pounds left on the voucher card.

Shane: Er... just throw it... no! Are those scratch cards?

Cashier: Mm.

Shane: Pound each?

Cashier: Yeah. D'y' want three?

Shane: Yes please (actually a bit excited at the novelty of such suchness).

Cashier: Shall I give you three different kinds? (she has sensed that we don't normally do this sort of thing)

Shane: Yes, please.

We leave the shop with our scratch cards and retreat to a local cafe, wherein we read about what we must reveal in order to win.

The first two cards pass without success - we did not reveal a hatrick of matching amounts, and we did not reveal a logo of a dog. This is how I imagined it would go.

We move onto card three, and the boy suddenly shrieks.

The Boy: WE'VE GOT A PIG!

And so we had. Ten pounds worth of pig logo. We eat our lunches, drink our drinks and return to WH Smith's. We have filled in my name and address on the back of the card and are feeling upbeat as we wait in a short queue to collect our winnings. I see the potential for boy-amusing playfulness.

Shane: What do I say when I get to the front?

The Boy: Just tell her that we've won ten pounds and give her the card.

Shane: (entirely straight) Oh, ok. (pause) Should I say that we've got a pig?

The Boy: (amused, but trying to suppress the smile) Yeah, say that, say 'We've got a pig'.

Shane: Mm. (pause) Y' sure?

The Boy: (failing to suppress The Grin of Social Mischief) Yeah - 'We've got a pig', and give her the card. That way she'll know it's ten pounds.

Shane: (playing it naive) Mm, ok.

We are at the front of the queue. The cashier looks to me.

Shane: (playing it straight, handing her the card) We have a pig.

The cashier is temporarily raised from barcode bleeping boredom - she, too, fails to suppress the grin. From low down to my immediate right, I hear a boyish snort of laughter.

I continue to play it straight, entirely pleased with myself.

Tuesday, August 03, 2010

august

In no particular order:-

Moving house
A taste of (life) coaching
Feeling tense
Looking to do something selfish with the week after next
Not reading enough
Removing the cat from where he tears papers
Becoming an angler
Enjoying Sherlock
Feeling underwhelmed at the dawn of the football season
.