Memories in sepia
By Craig Hallam
I didn’t even hear them coming. My basket, snatched right out of my fingers, was the first thing I knew of it. The sickening smash as their bumper tossed it into the air, tiny white wheels still spinning, made me shriek. I covered my ears, I don’t know why. A blast of whump whump whump filtered through my gloves as their music died away; my ears throbbed as if trying to copy the sound.
I stood in the road, breathing in the thick scent of hot oil and rubber, left alone with the agony in my wrist. I didn’t know what happened to me, just a blur of motion, colour and noise. It took a long while, I think, before I realised how close I’d come to being killed like a rabbit or a bird, the ones you see at the roadside, all fur or feather and nothing else.
Do you know what that’s like?
It’s easy to say I’m past my sell-by date. Tell me I’ve had a good innings; tell me I must know my time’s short. I know. I think about it regular. But when faced with your own mortality, realising how easily you’re snuffed out….I’m not ready. I thought I was. I’m not.
I stood in the middle of the crossing, white lines leading away in either direction. My basket’s tartan sides were torn open like….like I could have been. Shopping sprawled across the road. Fresh fruit mashed into the tarmac. A tin had rolled into the furthest gutter, beans I think, not that it matters.
I stared down at the white lines, completely blank in my head. It’s funny how the brain works, when it works at all, but all I could think was:
“There’s black lines between the white ones. Every white line has a black one on either side.”
It’s silly, but that’s what I was thinking. Strange how you never notice something like that.
Another car stopped, a young woman I think, and she tried to help me out of the road. I know I struggled and fought her at first. She tried to take me across the road and I wouldn’t go. There was something…something about the beacons. The way they flashed so regularly on their stripy poles, like laughter in lights. I knew stepping between them would be the end of me, I just knew it. I think I told her that as we turned back. I think I did but hope I didn’t.
She left me at the kerb, huddled in my skirts like a crippled pigeon, to clear the road. My body felt like it wanted rid of something and it was trying to shake it out of me in a fever. I couldn’t tell you when the shaking had started but it wouldn’t stop. I know when the weeping started though, right there and then. I cried and cried like I did as a girl when I skinned a knee, grabbing at my wrist to stop the ache. I think I rocked.
The oak trees at the roadside whispered to me, tried to hush my tears.
I refused every offer of help given. My pride was knocked enough. Although, as I walked the extra half an hour’s route to the subway, my arm wrapped in a sleeve like the walking wounded, I cursed my own stubbornness. Every inch of my body ached, even more than usual. The shaking had stopped but threatened to come back whenever I thought too much. I rested a lot as I walked. I probably flinched as cars sped by, but don’t tell anyone.
I finally found myself on a familiar stretch of pavement; a returning trench soldier limping home, determined to reach loved ones after an age at war. Only I had no one to return to. No one would sit me down, press a hot cup of tea into my good hand and slap my back with hearty congratulations for my bravery. I’d have to do it myself. I wished again that I’d taken the young woman’s offer of help. If I’d asked her, she could have brought me home, helped me over the formidable step, sat me down on the sagging, lumpy settee. Instead, I stood at the end of my shabby garden path alone.
I’ve lived in this place for most of my life and no longer know any of the faces that blink at me day to day as if amazed that I’m still breathing. I knew them all once, but things change, as they say, and now the street that was once mine is nothing but a row of twitching curtains.
Every time I reach that spot I feel with undeniable certainty that I won’t make it the last few feet to my door. That time was no different. My body had had enough. My legs were too tired to carry my weary little frame this time. This time I’d stand stock still until my rusty bones refused to move. Then, under the weight of my years, I’d crumple to the ground.
But I made it to the door, as I always did, fumbled for the key with my free hand and shouldered open the door to my solitary confinement.
It struck me then, the smell of my home. Like old newspaper. I could almost smell the ink. When had it begun to smell like that? When had I let it?
Finally sat on my settee, what remained of my shopping still lay where it’d landed just inside the door. The bruising in my wrist was starting to show, spreading under my skin like the shadows of fish under water. A constant throb came and went like a siren. I eyed the District Nurses’ box, the one with the bandages and dressings they’d use when they came. That wouldn’t be for another week, they’d only visited this morning, and it was never for long. I’d have to wrap the wrist myself.
I cried. Again and again I cried. Not for the pain, not for the things I’d lost, not for the embarrassment or the dignity that had been stripped from me, but for the loneliness. You don’t realise how truly alone you are until you need someone who isn’t there; until you speak out loud and your own voice is unfamiliar.
I’ve wandered through the last few years of my life seeing other human beings as nothing but speeding shapes that jostled or tutted at my slowness. The nearest thing to conversation I have is the monotone boredom of the checkout girl, and I like it that way. Getting too attached leads to sorrow. I’ve lost the only person I’ll ever need, or so I thought, and no one else can compare. But on that day, the sound of my sobs echoing back to me in my sparse living room, I would’ve given what remained of my soul for another person to be sat on my settee. The only people I have now are etched in sepia, staring out at me from dusty gilded windows.
At first, all I could think of was the drone of fading horns as the car passed close enough to ruffle my clothing but, slow as the rising of bread I came to myself. I remembered other things. The blurred colours started to clear, like a watercolour left in the rain, but in reverse.
That didn’t make sense at all, forgive me.
What I mean is that as the shock wore off I remembered details that I didn’t know I knew. The car’s colour, how the fallen leaves scuttled like mice, and something I wish I could now forget. Four pale faces with dark eyes, twisted by speed, staring at me from beyond glass like explorers in a submarine. Their laughter standing out even above the music. One voice rising above the others, shouting something I couldn’t make out. That I’m thankful for.
It comes back to me in dreams, made fuzzy by sleep. The faces change. Sometimes they’re people I knew; sometimes they’re my husband, cold as he was when I saw him last; sometimes they’re me; mostly they’re the same old whooping ghosts.
I must’ve fallen asleep because I woke up. That happens more often of late, these dozing periods. I wonder if it’s my body practicing for the longest sleep I’ll take.
I’d slumped down on the settee, my head drooped back, but I still cradled my arm like a baby. Right down to my fingers was a horrid purple, the skin stretched too tight by the swelling. The light had gone out of the day, leaving only an amber streetlight to see by. I didn’t close my curtains, check the door, or move my shopping from the doorway; the only perishable I cared about putting away was myself. The stairs are always an effort of tugging; an impossible feat of strength; a chore of Hercules. I remember that story from when I was a school girl. It’s taken me seventy years to understand how he must’ve felt. He toiled alone, every day, silently pressing on with whatever task was given to him. The difference between me and him? He went down in history, I’ve been forgotten.
Perched in my night gown at the edge of this old bed, pain rattled my bones. All I’d wanted to do was get home, just get home, and I’ve no idea why. Nothing’s made better by being here anymore. What I once loved, what I neede
d from this place has gone.
I’ll carry on, because I’m afraid of what happens when I don’t.
A Poem About Writing A Poem
By Jacqueline Hodgson-Blackburn
Whoever says that talk is cheap
Has never tried to write a poem.
Never tried to muster up
a tripping rhyme that buzzes round the brain
or probably never undone does,
Till it can never do again.
Or minced around a half baked word
That trickles down the drain.
No, never have they fleeced a sound
Or flexed it to its knees
Or played around inside their head
With colons, stops and T’s.
But those who never write a poem
Or juggle words and rhyme
Will never know just why;
Words conjure up a sharp defence
For feelings gone awry.
Excruciating Itching
By Pete Denton
There is no more frightening a sight
Than a haircut that’s plastered down tight.
As my fingers reach out to my head
I am starting to wish I were dead.
It’s something that just gets me scratching,
Like a plague of insect eggs hatching
On my brow filling me with despair,
On a forehead that’s encased with hair.
This isn’t about the right shampoo,
Using hair products that act like glue
Defective mind? Perhaps you’re inbred
Resulting in a bulbous forehead.
From a weave to full hair extensions
Not coloured with younger pretensions
There are full blown fashion disasters
Self styling can be tough to Master.
So listen instead, heed my warning
Looks good now, regrets in the morning
Advice is do away with the fringe
It is wrong and will make others cringe.
There should be legal requirements
But there’s not, forcing me to lament.
Take a mullet or an eighties Perm
Both should result in a long jail term.
Choices are made as you rise from bed
Please keep it away from the forehead
Scraped back or tied up, options are there
Upsetting folk with your ghastly hair.
There is only one way to atone
Get it cut, now go pick up the phone.
For the joy that the hairdresser brings
Like a fallen haystack of cuttings.
Caked with hair gel or styled by blow dry
It is making me break down and cry.
In the end it is all about pride
You could ask for a short back and sides.
The best way to prevent me itching
In the spirit get into the swing
I do not want you feeling misled
The best option is just shave your head.
Past Glory
By Andy Stratton
I was leaning on a wall, the ancient wall, or not so ancient, of the old city of Empuries, when I saw him, some twenty feet below me. He was tall, well over six foot, broad shouldered with long grey and black hair, flicked out in a wave at his shoulders like a bird’s tail. He had a Spanish nose; a cutting nose that started high, sloped quickly out, then dropped down to a slight overhang. I imagined miniature climbers planning their descent of his nose with ropes and pitons hammered into his flesh.
He seemed a giant amongst his countrymen and women. He wore a white linen shirt and grey trousers and, I remember now, open leather strap shoes, buckled tight across his feet, but closed over his toes.
He reminded me of Spanish gentry, where titles had passed from generation to generation, carrying a look that crossed the centuries, thrown back three hundred years. I could see him, seated on a giant of a horse, clad in metal breastplate, sturdy spear at his side and a two handed sword or broad axe, clipped into his saddle. He would nod to his faithful few, say curtly ‘we must do our best’ and ride out to an uncertain future.
He looked out at the sea, the Mediterranean, chopping weakly at the shore. His eyes seemed to see beyond, to far off lands; Brazil, Argentina, California. He looked over the water, over time, to lands to conquer - as his Roman cousins must once have looked to this place.
I waited for him to pull out a cheroot, a cigar, or maybe a pipe, so that I could walk away, leaving him smoking in my mind, dreaming of past or future conquests, but he just stood and looked and leaned.
I waited, a bee stuck fast in honey, until he turned and walked to my right. I watched him pass below, behind the peach coloured church. I turned away from the sea and followed the gravel path towards the square, where tables and chairs stood for tourists, like me, to relax.
He appeared again, and I followed him to a bar. He hunched over and stepped into the gloom inside. I felt compelled to follow, to learn more about him, but a waiter stepped in my way and guided me to an empty table.
The waiter returned to my table with a basket of bread. ‘Uno cafe, por favor’, I ventured. As he turned to go, I gestured towards the inside, ‘El Senor, grande’, I gesticulated with my hand high above my head, ‘Proprieter?’
The waiter shook his head. I caught the words for no and little else.
I pointed to myself, ‘No hablo espanol bien ... Ingleses.’
‘Ah. English’ He smiled ‘…He is, how you say … the catcher of the rat.’
The Forbidden Room
By Pete Denton
Sara stood on the landing staring out of the window. Her eyes were transfixed by the branches of the willow tree at the bottom of the garden as they beat down on the roof of an old shed. Its green paint weathered through years of neglect. One of the windows had blown in again but she didn’t have a clue what to do about it.
She was no longer looking at the tree or the garden. Her focus blurred and she saw flashes of images; moments frozen in her mind from the last two weeks.
The doorbell rang and she jolted back to the present. She knew who was at the door from the ring – two quick presses and a short delay before a final press – it was her brother. She moved to the top of the stairs and grabbed hold of the wooden handrail.
‘Mom, are you there?’ she shouted. ‘It’s Michael.’ She scrunched her bare feet into the thick piled carpet, steadying herself. She could feel the warmth from pipes running under the floor boards. Her gaze moved to the only closed door on the landing, to the left of the bathroom. The stripped wooden door to the main bedroom had been closed to her since that day. She couldn’t bring herself to open it let alone step inside. So many happy memories had been replaced with death and despair. She’d retreated to the spare room. She just lay in the dark each night turning the events over and over in her mind. Remembering and reliving. The recent pain overshadowed anything else and it was now a room she had forbidden herself to enter. Her eyes ran over each knot in the wood, each indentation in the texture of the carved frame.
The door bell rang again and she hurried down the stairs. She opened the door and her brother smiled and shook his big black umbrella behind him.
‘It’s bloody freezing out there,’ he said.
‘I’m not sure where Mom is. I thought she was down here somewhere,’ she said looking round. She glanced outside as he eased his way past her into the long hallway which ran down the centre of the house. She watched the rain bouncing off her red car on the driveway. There were a few people walking across the road and she took a couple of steps back and retreated down the hall. She heard Michael close the door behind her and she turned to apologise. He smiled and waved it away.
‘Mom’s just left but the catch must have dropped so I couldn’t get in.’
He took off his coat, hung it over the banister and then gave her a hug. Sara knew he was holding back as her feet stayed on the ground. Michael was older tha
n her and had always taken his big brother responsibilities seriously. He was a foot taller than her and equally as lean. He was in his early fifties, though he didn’t look it with just a few wisps of grey around the temples and in his beard, which was neatly trimmed.
‘We’re all here to help look after you,’ he said.
She nodded without looking back and moved into the large square kitchen. Both Michael and her mother had been more frequent visitors since her husband had been posted to Afghanistan. Things had intensified over the last nine days and she loved them for it even if it didn’t always show.
The bread maker moved onto the baking mode and the smell started to fill the room. It gave her a lift even though she wasn’t remotely hungry. This was her mother’s attempt to entice her into eating something, but her appetite had gone. Maybe when it was ready she would break a few pieces off. Maybe. Sara knew that she had lost weight where there wasn’t any to lose. Her usually vibrant green eyes were dull and sunken. Her hair was flat and lifeless and her skin drained of colour.
‘Sara, you need to talk about it,’ he said.
‘Do I?’ she fiddled with the switch on the kettle and got two mugs out of the cupboard, almost slamming them down on the counter. She didn’t want to talk. Words were too much of an effort and it wouldn’t stop what happened from being reality. Talking about it would bring clarity to the images in her mind and she wasn’t ready for that yet.
The kettle boiled and Michael made drinks. They moved into the sitting room at the back of the house. Sarah flopped into a large comfy chair in front of the French doors and they sat drinking in silence.