The following is a transcribed account of a telephone conversation I shared with my mother - May 18, 2015.
Phone rings.
Incoming call.... MUM
“Allo Mum...”
“Mmmm.”
“Mum, you OK?”
“Nah, not really.”
“Why, what's wrong?”
“I'm pissing blood all over the place.”
“What do ya mean you're pissing blood all over the place?”
“Well I am! I've cut all my arms open!”
“You're pissed!”
“Yeah, and you're on HEROIN!”
“What's that gotta do with anything?”
“Well it's the same innit?”
“It would be if I phoned you up saying I'm pissing blood all over the place.”
“Yeah well I am! It's everywhere.”
“And what can I do about it? Why phone and tell me that?”
“Cause I thought you cared!”
“Even if I cared what the fuck could I do? It's obviously just to worry me.”
“yeah alright Shane! HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HER....”
“Mum Shut the.....”
“HEROIN!!! HEROIN!!! HEROIN ABUSER!!! HEROIN!!! Don't fuckin' like that do ya!”
“Jesus.....”
“Yeah, Jesus Christ, Superstar, walks like a woman and he wears a bra! Heard it all before.You don't care if I'm dying do ya?”
“If you're dying phone somebody else... someone nearer. By the time I've got through to England and got an ambulance you'll be dead. You're wasting precious time even now.”
“Nice Shane, nice! Well at least I now know who fucking cares!”
“If it was that serious you'd have bled out already.”
“What? Bled out??? You're fucking evil you are!”
“Yeah, it only takes a few minutes. What did you cut your wrists with? A spoon?”
“Er, yeah... alright Shane.... alright.....”
She was about to close the phone. She loves closing the phone. I beat her to it and cut the line before her.
Text Message.
Outgoing → Dan (brother)
Shane: Dan I've just had Mum on the phone, drunk, saying she's cut her wrists open. I told her to fuck off and killed the phone. X
Dan: She's been drunk everyday lately. Not sure what's up with her. Have made an effort to go and see her more but she just tells me not to bother. Do you think I should call. X
Shane: Yeah she phoned me drunk yesterday saying how lonely she is.... turning other peoples tragedy into her own. Yeah, you should probably phone just to be sure. But knowing her she'll not answer now so as we think she's dead. Let me know. X
Dan: Tried calling but she doesn't answer. Maybe she's sleeping it off.
Shane: Sleeping it off? Drinking it on more likely. I'll try.
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
Phone call outgoing → MUM: no reply
1hr later... Phone call incoming → MUM
“Mum?”
“Yeah, allo.”
“So you're still alive then?”
“Yeah. I'm sorry Shane. I'm just so lonely.”
“We're all lonely mum.... half the world is lonely.”
“Yeah, but I'm here all alone.”
“That's no reason to phone me up over here and say you've sliced your wrists open.”
“Well I have.”
“Even so, why phone and tell me?”
“Well, you do the same Shane!”
“When have I ever done anything like that?”
“Well ya phoned up when that fucking Anne left ya!”
“I was upset. But I didn't say I was pissing blood all over the place.”
“It's the same fucking thing Shane!”
“How is it?”
“Well it is... what the fuck can I do if ya girlfriend's left ya!”
“I didn't ask for help. Just a voice.”
“Yeah, same thing!”
“OK. I'm not gonna argue. You should phone Dan.. he's probably worried.”
“Why the fuck would he be worried?”
“Dunno, but he is.”
“Ya aint fucking phoned Daniel 'av ya?”
“I tex'd him.”
“Shaaane! What did ya fucking tell 'im for!”
“He's a right to know if you're pissing blood mum... and he is closest to you. It's him who'll have the horror of finding your body.”
“Shane you're never gonna come home are ya”
“I've told ya I'll be home soon.”
“Yeah, Puggy thought that!”
“Well I'm not Puggy. I'll be home this summer.”
“Promise me.”
“I just said didn't I.”
“Shane, I miss you.”
“Mum, phone Dan.”
“Why should I? It's not your fucking phone bill is it!”
“It'll only cost about 10p.”
“Yeah 10p YOU'LL NOT BE PAYING!”
“Just phone him!”
“I might.... I might not.”
“Grow up Mum, you're 65.”
“Yeah, I'll grow up when you grow up!”
“God, are you for real? You should get back on the gear... the methadone at least.”
“Yeah, you'd fucking love that wouldn't ya! Then I could start sending you stuff again. 8 brown every fucking week then having ya give me the silent treatment when it's fucking late!”
“Or when you spend the money on crack and say the letter mustve got lost.”
“I've NEVER done that... NEVER!!!”
“Well you have, you admitted it last year.”
“Did I???”
“Yeah.”
“Well, only once Shane! You've done the same!”
“When have I ever.... leave it. Phone Dan, mum.”
“I will after I've mopped this blood up.... it's everywhere.”
“Are you still bleeding?”
“.....yeah...”
“Where?”
“My face.”
“Your face??? Thought you'd cut your arms open?”
“Yeah, well I socked myself in the face as well.”
“Oh well.”
“Nah I didn't really. My arms are bleedin.”
“Put some alcohol on them.”
“Are you being funny?”
“No. Alcohol is good for cuts.”
“You're being funny int ya?”
“No, I'm not. “
“Shane, I love you. You don't know how much I love you.”
“I love you too mum”
“Yeah bet ya can't wait till I'm dead though!”
“Why? You haven't got any money? What benefit would your death have for me?”
“Yeah that's nice. If I had a few bob ya couldn't get rid of me quick enough.”
“What's wrong with that?”
“How do you know I've not taken out life insurance to leave you and Dan with a few quid once I'm DEAD!”
“Have you?”
“No.”
“Well in that case, I want you to live.”
“I need to somehow stop this bleeding. Think I've some elastic bands in the fridge.”
“Why would you have elastic bands in the fridge?”
“Er... not the fridge... the cupboard... the drawer.”
“Oh. That makes more sense. But hows an elastic band gonna stop the bleeding?”
“Well don't they say on all them TV programs to tie the limb off?”
“That's normally for amputations or severe shark bites. The minimum requirement is a severed main artery. Is your artery severed?”
“By the amount of blood it is.”
“You'd be dead if it was.”
“Yeah, as you keep saying.”
“Mum, clean yourself up and phone Dan.”
“OK. I love you Shane.”
“I love you too, Mum.”
“Bye Shane.”
“Night night, Mum.”
- - - A new Memoires post coming soon... Based on a fictional conversation
It was a mild summer evening. A cool breeze was bowling lightly through the Rhône valley. I gave up trying to write, showered, changed into light clothes and went out for a stroll. I needed cigarettes and so I climbed the small hill and then descended down towards the back end of town to catch the late night tobacconist.
It is a plain walk, though not unpleasant, culminating at Grange Blanche, the city's largest easternmost transport interchange. Due to the sheer volume of commuters passing through each day the upper station and its surroundings is a magnet for the neighbourhood’s drunks, beggars, miscreants and pick thieves. Coming into that main hub the change is manifest: raised voices, drunken growls, car horns blaring at the insane, the monotonous pleas of beggars, beer cans and wine bottles left under the seats of the tramway stop, human shit dehydrating and turning black in dark corners, piss streaming across the sidewalk, men wandering around holding their trousers up, going through bins, harvesting cigarette ends. In this place that can deliver anyone to any corner of the city, it's ironic just how many others have no place to go.
She was sat in the island in the middle of the road. She had legs only they were bent far back in the wrong direction at the knees and fixed there by some diabolical force of nature so as her back calves were facing the world. Her filthy toes were a tongue's length from her mouth; her face looking out over the soles of her inward twisted feet. To her left was a little straw egg basket containing a cardboard sign asking for money, and alongside that a few coins were scattered about as encouragement to the world. Her arms were also affected: one full length and crippled with the hand frozen in a contortion of fear, and the other, shrivelled away to just a small wing like thing. I was horrified and curious. There was something in the young beggar girl's deformity which repulsed me, and yet the freakiness of such a sight attracted me for the paragraph of literature I could exploit from it. Crossing the road I made my way to the tobacconist and then purposely took the same route back just so as I could pass her by once more.
I walked at a half pace. From behind I studied her form, her clothes, her hair. I could taste the grease, the dried skin and lice in it. Her backbone was surprisingly straight. I made my way past, crossed over the main road, then doubled back around the metro as if I'd gone to take the wrong entrance. From across the road I watched her, balanced on the axle of her arse. It made me cringe, imagining the angle of her lower pelvis bone crumbling away against the hard concrete ground. I crossed the road once more. She eyed me. She was a beggar exploiting her misfortune and was infinitely aware of everything moving on around her, every look of horror or sympathy, every hand going into every pocket and by movement alone knowing which hands would pull out a coin or two and which were going in just to rattle the cash and taunt her. On arriving at the island this time I decided to approach her. I asked if I could take her picture for 5 euros. She wasn't French and didn't understand. She looked at me lost, her eyes wide with fear and panic like I'd pulled chloroform around her mouth and nose. I mimicked taking a photo and then showed her five euros, holding it up like it would make sense of anything. She said something, some tragic noise that belonged to no language
He appeared out of nowhere like he'd been there all the time. A little man in a cheap white panama hat, thick skin the colour of tobacco spittle and hands covered in dark-blue self-inked tattoos. In very poor French he asked what I wanted with the girl.
"Photo," I said, once again mimicking a camera clicking, "five euros."
"No. No foto!" he said, waving his hands like it was completely out the question.
I didn't argue. We had attracted a small crowd of onlookers and I'd have felt like a right scoundrel taking a photo of a severely handicapped beggar girl. I already did feel like a scoundrel. I made to walk away when I heard: "Ten euros."
"Five" I said, stopping and turning back.
"No, not five, TEN!"
I shook my head.
Then he said: "Anglaizi? English?"
"Yes," I replied.
"Me, I live in Dublin for two years,” (holding up two fingers). "So you want foto of my daughter, yes?"
He said that with à bizarre look in his eyes, usually swapped only between males when referring to sex or illegal activity.
"No, it's OK. No photo. Forget it."
At that he lent in, a stub of a cigarettes in his mouth, the smoke curling up into my face. "You want fuck-fuck with my daughter? Foto too! 50 euros. Fuck-fuck clik-clik?" He gave a smile that revealed teeth as rotten as my own, though which repulsed me more. Sensing I was fixed to give a negative response, he said, "Look, she a good one, look", pulling on one of the invalids upturned calves as if to demonstrate how flexible she was. The calf didn't budge, just trembled like a short plank of wood but was otherwise locked in place. It was now apparent that the girl was also slightly mentally retarded. I wondered how many men had fucked her. I couldn't possible know the answer to that, but I did. I knew because I know this world. Too many was the answer. I made quick to get away from this circus, the beggar man's dark tanned and dirty tattooed hand clawing me back as he laughed and said "fuck-fuck clik-clik fuck-fuck clik-clik."
It was gone 9pm when I arrived at the Place Ambroise-Courtois in Monplaisir . The tables from the bars and bistros were still out in the square, occupied by couples and friends. The distant sky was streaked through with bubblegum clouds and a light jovial atmosphere was in the air. In the middle of the square groups of middle aged and old men were playing pétanque. I listened to the metal balls dent and crunch on the pink gravel. I smoked a cigarette and thought of nothing. It was a tranquil moment but on a nostalgic wind blew in a feeling of melancholy which seemed general to the evening and even more general to the smell of beer, coffee and perfume.
I had been aware of music playing from since I had arrived, but it was only now that I took proper notice of it. It was some kind of modern salsa-pop coming from the octagonal pavilion in the middle of the square. Wandering closer I saw couples dancing and an effeminate male instructor going to and from each couple and adjusting body parts, straightening backs, pushing male legs apart with his foot. I stopped and stood watching the evening dance lessons alongside a small crowd of other onlookers. I watched each couple, my eyes leaving one pair for another, observing their movements, their faces, the tenderness or coldness of their embraces. Then in a move that seemed choreographed for me, the couples parted like they were on revolving platforms, and in the opening, right in the middle of the pavilion, was revealed a haggard ragged man, dressed in cheap black, dancing alone though feigning clutching a partner in a classic closed position.
His eyes were gritted shut and a look of tortured pain was creased across his face. Where he'd lost his teeth his lower lip overhung like an ornate ledge. It was the face and movements of a chronic drunk. I watched the man dancing alone, watched him imagining away his loneliness, watched his hands sensually holding his imaginary partner, maybe all the women or men of his life. He wasn't dancing the salsa, but rather a waltz, living a classic romance, being the classic romancer in his drunken world.
It was while I stood fixed on the drunkard's loneliness that I first made out the laughter and the gasps. I wasn't the only one who had been drawn to this man; the better half of the square now watching him. With the laughter came fingers pointing, and following in turn, each table then moved around, the clientele of the bar straining to look his way as if it was an important part of life. Others in the square followed the fingers and eyes, all focused in with mocking at one man's public torment and distress. That's when the cheering, whistling and whoops of encouragement began. I didn't understand. I was still intent on the drunkard's face, the passion and sadness with which he waltzed with his memories. Then, under some strange spell of instinct, my eyes moved down, over the baggy black shirt tucked into trousers held closed by a thin belt, settling on the huge piss patch spread around the man's crotch and soaked down his left leg, urine still couling out his trouser leg as he danced alone in his own piss. And as the world laughed and pointed and whistled, I watched along with a volcano of sadness bubbling away inside of me, reminded of my mother in the school playground that day, or queuing up, jiggling with her legs crossed while buying cigarettes, or crashed out in social services, and I was hit by waves of brutal and tragic emotion, sobbing along to the salsa and the jeers of the world. A man wasted and alone, cradling himself in his own lonely dance. Me or him? Separated and defined by the flimsiest of events.
It was past ten when I passed the Notre-Dame homeless shelter on Rue Sébastien Gryphe. There was a lot of activity in the street, the city's down-and-outs making their way to the shelter before lockdown. One man was being carried like a wounded soldier by two mates either side, each one nearly out on his feet too. A battered woman stomped up past me, holding a can of beer, wobbling around as if walking on a pavement inflated with air, screaming obscenities at a man left behind at the gates of the shelter who was screaming back equally vulgar abuse. The street, now in the dark of evening, reeking of foulness, was full of bums, ex addicts and the mentally ill, all mooching slowly down, converging on the centre. The sidewalk and doorways were littered with the physical history of those who had almost made it but whose bodies had given out at the last. I poked my head in the entrance of the shelter glancing a quick look around for anyone I knew, anyone I'd scored methadone from in the past. From the dark of the grounds I saw someone's raised hand. At first I wasn't at all sure it was for me, but then I heard my name. I peered in more closely but couldn't make out the face in the darkness. The man rose and came across. He seemed happy to see me. Pulling out from his embrace I weaved to escape the current of bad odour he gave out. He smelled of rottenness and sperm, like my bed one winter in London. Standing back I looked at him in the tattered leather jacket he was swamped in, the grubby off-white t-shirt underneath, ripped and soiled by god-knows-what. The face was familiarish, but unplaceable.
"You won't get in tonight," he said, "I was down at 7pm to be sure of a bed."
"I'm not here for a room.. Just passing."
I looked at him trying desperately to recall his name, if he was a user or not. He didn't look like a user but I knew no-one outside of that. That's when I spotted his shoes, large loafish trainers encased in thick mud, the mud caked over his trouser bottoms too.
"you don't remember me, do you?" He asked.
"The face I do... but I'm not sure from where."
"Olivier!" he cried, "It's me from the Town Hall!"
And then I remembered and was shocked at the drastic change which had came over him. It was the same Olivier I had worked with for the City of Lyon, the same Olivier who had studied the Sexual History of Prostitution, who had a degree in Belle Lettres (which is literature), who had all his hair and sanity two years ago and now stood before me with not much left of either. He seemed hyper, but it wasn't drugs. His eyes flitted about, looking over his shoulder back towards something in the darkness. Then he looked at me and gave a weak, watery smile. He gave the impression that if I hugged him he'd break down immediately and sob until he died. I didn't hug him. That wasn't my job. I thought of whose job it was and wondered why they hadn't done something which was so evidently needed.
"And work??? Are you working?" I asked, knowing he wasn't, couldn't possibly be.
He shook his head, then turned around to look into the dark grounds of the shelter again.
"I must go, Olivier," I said.
He turned back with a worried, confused look on his face, like he didn't understand. I held my hand out and he shook it, all the while looking at me like I was to say something, clear some matter up. But I had nothing to say, nothing to clear up. Suddenly his eyes took on a lost look, like he didn't know me, and without a word he turned around and was going, trudging off into the dark of the grounds, in his mud caked shoes, just an odious smell left in receipt of his presence.
By the time I made my way back to the metro station the city had mostly cleared out and was sunk in the full beauty and tragedy of night. The hordes of Romanians who congregate on the pavement outside the supermarket to sell their salvaged wares were all gone, just a few sex workers remaining, their pimps or fathers sitting on the low wall of the tram stop drinking beer and whispering "Monsieur? Monsieur?" to each passing male. Down along the row of kebab shops young Mahgrebian boys raised their eyebrows as I passed. Not responding, and walking slowly by, one left his little group, hastened to catch me up, and on doing so, slowed to my pace, and out the side of his mouth said: Hashish? Goood, gooood hashish, monsieur? When I took no notice of him he kissed his teeth, said something derogatory about America, and rejoining his little possé, shouted: "muvva fukka, bitch!" I smiled to myself and walked on, glad the world was so cowardly and cruel.
In the metro I stood along the platform, staring into the vending machine without the slightest intention of buying anything. The driverless D metro arrived. I wanted to go home, was so tired for home, but my home was far from here and one euro seventy would not get me there. Stepping inside the carriage I was hit by the smell of alcohol and vomit and could sense a tension of violence in the air. It came from a young male at the far end of the carriage to my right. I watched him furtively. Early thirties; trim and lean; hunched over in his seat, spitting out the sodden husks of sunflower seeds. With the sudden torrid heat of the night, and the alcohol in him, he was sweating profusely and his face looked like it had been treated with anti- flame gel. Every now and again he would intentionally burp, letting out a new stench of bilious alcohol fumes, before glaring across my way. Something in him disgusted me. It was as if he had forced me inside his guts, a violation, the opening gambit of his domination over others. I avoided looking blatantly across. The métro pulled into its second stop. The man rose, ignored the doors closest to him, and made his way down the aisle between the seats, passing along the hand rails, swinging with the movements of the train, to exit via the doors opposite me. Letting go of the last handrail, he stood there drunkenly staring at me, swaying forward, a sunflower husk stuck on his bottom lip.
"Pardon, Monsieur!" he growled, meaning that I was in his way. I wasn't. He could not have had any more room had I not been there. Still, I stepped a step back. As he exited he spat a last gob of damp husks out his mouth and then burped.
In the last weeks I'd had my dealer rob me three times, a so-called friend do sleight-of-hand magic with bags of gear, seen one too many people corrupted by smack habits blaming their behaviour on mental illness and unresolved emotional trauma, had people revising history so as to look the victim in it. I had smiled but the insults and corruption in people were becoming stale.
Angry. Upset. Alone. Wounded. Bitter. I watched the metro map despondently as if it held some answers. The stations came into view. Doors shuddered open. Orange lights beeped triple. The doors closed. And it went on. Standing looking out the frontal lobe of the driverless train I watched the track ahead. In the distance I could see the next station as a point of light in the dark: Grange Blanche.
There comes a time when we must all descend into the dark heart of life and unite with and become the enemy, take our frustrations out on the weak and become as ugly in our dominance as we feel under submission. I thought of the disabled deformed beggar girl, wondering if she was still there, if the offer was still open. I imagined her stripped to the skin, towering over her, angry and frothing at the mouth, speaking only with the force of my hands, her crippled legs forced wide apart, to have her be reviled by herself through the sheer greed and repulsion with which I fucked her with. I thought of stooping lower than any other man, eating her pussy and gagging on the filth of Europe's immigration problem.
50 euros! Not even a meal in a half-decent restaurant.
50 euros! Half a pair of half-decent shoes.
50 euros! To possess someone entirely, to fuck and buck away with only my own orgasm to worry about.
I imagined her fear, her lack of desire, the pain that sex would cause her, the perverse light in which she'd view western sexual practices - ungodly acts which even at the height of her understanding she'd never be able to make sense of. I imagined fucking her with the hatred and sadness of an entire life, reimbursing myself of all the money I'd had robbed, really getting down to work, getting my full fifty euros worth out of her, mirroring all the horrors of our world in one brutal selfish barebacked violent fuck, a complete detox of all the rottenness of life.
I stood imagining that, wanting to abuse someone or something for all that I had seen and lived and become, somehow show in real criminal terms the hideous effect that this world does have upon us. I watched the open doors, disputing if I should alight or not. Beep beep Beep... And my chance was gone.
With no movement in the air the summer night was humid and sticky. I stared at my ghostly reflection in the dark window of the metro. I looked ravaged, life-worn. I thought of the father pimping out his handicap daughter, of thé drunk dancing alone and pissing himself, of the hordes of social shrapnel inching their wounded bodies and minds down to the homeless shelter, of the whores outside MacDonald's sucking on straws and swallowing milkshake, of the violence consuming so many people and the bitterness and corruption which reigns. In the vile regurgitated odour of red wine and vomit, in a deserted carriage of the late night metro, I stood alone and thought of all these things.
I was almost home. I had almost made it. I stepped off the tube and made towards the exit. So Dog We Were; so dog we are; So dog I am. Fuck Fuck Clic Clic Beep beep beep, at the end of another beautiful, and foul, smelling night.
Read by Soc Priapist "Our days and evenings were spent together toughening ourselves up, bonding and preparing our offensive. Our first decision was to join a boxing club. We were weak targets for the bullies and in order to walk the streets and parks untroubled we needed to learn how to throw decent right hooks. So one Wednesday we joined Chelsea Boys Boxing Club and on Thursday we knocked each others teeth out. The three of us taking it in turns to square up to one another and direct our anger and pain towards a physical body. But we never hurt one another: we toughened each other up. And as we lay in the park, on the grassy hill with black eyes and busted noses, we joked and laughed as love and friendship throbbed and stung upon our young bodies..."
In the spring, when the days first turn good, they sit outside under the Magnolia tree.
The bloom of the Magnolia is white and bulbous and drops like dead doves, weighted in the belly, each one making a little fump:
fump...
fump...
fump...
To this beautiful carnage they drink strong beer and watch the world and lay back in the cool of the blossom. From afar they look like an assortment of old discarded clothes.
11am. clear skies above. the lazy sound of traffic droning by. a haze out in the distant like there lies the sea.
This world proffers daydreams. A daydream that things could be just how they are only better. A daydream that we need no more than temperate days and fruit and water and the cool of streams and grass and fraternity and love. Over there, under the Magnolia, when the days are kind, when the time is right, when a breeze breezes through and tickles over the soul, the drunks and the bums and the waifs and the strays find solace in the low of the day. I too can be found under the Magnolia, drawn by historical forces. My being is light in strange moments in strange ways. Behind my closed lids there is orange dimming black then coming through to orange again. I hear the faint stirrings and mumblings of the others, feel an insect run over my hand, catch another little 'fump' and meditate in the floral fragrance of birth and death. I am close to somewhere I once was, to something lost; something missing; something gone. Under the Magnolia I am not who I am but who I was, simultaneously at peace in various moments of my life.
I was borne into this world by a drunk: a bad one. My mother did not drink to be saved but for revenge, to wage war against a life which had cast the first stone. I often find my mother under the Magnolia. She turns up in the guise of young women so completely ruined, abused and emotionally swollen that they are no longer sensitive to the human touch. To register at all one must hit hard. There ends no woman left; just broken bones where the soul got out. My mother never stays long. She sits there stewing in her drunkenness, shifting between drink laden faces, each look a pictogram of the hateful, bitter emotions chewing away inside of her. Then she is gone and there is left a melancholic tranquillity in the day, over the city, like I've stepped back in time.
The world around the Magnolia is full of ghosts. It's what brought me here. People turn up with missing parts, sometimes in flames, caught in existential screams between planes of life they cannot escape. They move in and out of this timeless place, appear for moments and then disappear again for weeks or years or lifetimes. I am here now, I was here before and I shall be here again in the future. On the trunk of the Magnolia I carve my name; on my body and on the page my words. This is my life and this is my time. I close my eyes and hope in some way to go on forever, but I know my heart will not hold out.
Helen Roberts opened the door of Hammersmith and Fulham social services and all four of us pushed in. She gave a hurried look down each end of the road and when sure we had not been followed closed and locked the door. “Is that it?” she asked, looking at the large bag my sister and I were holding. “Is that all you've got?” It was 1987 and we had just fled the family home.
“He's gonna fucking kill us, 'elen!” my mother slobbered. “That door won't stop 'im... You ain't seen 'im after a drink. He's a fuckin' dang'rous alcoholic... not fit to be around children!”
“Yes, although when we spoke to Mr Levene, he said it was you with the drinking problem. That it's you who's not safe to be around the children. That you're drinking in excess of two bottles of vodka a day.”
“Yeah, did he also tell you he fucks men! That he brings perverts and child molesters back with 'im!” my mother retorted. She tried to do that thing that women do where they say something clever and then pout their lips and slam their hands on their hips, but in her state she just kinda stumbled a few steps forward and stood there growling with a whiskey laden face.
Helen peered in at her with concern. “Come this way, we all need to talk.”
We followed Helen up some stairs and through a security door into a family holding room. There were bean bags on the floor, boxes piled high with grubby toys, and story books with every other page torn out. At the very back another door led into a room that contained only two wooden chairs and a table. Helen, our Social Worker of the last three years, used this room to speak to each family member in turn. Rachel, my elder sister, was called in first. Before the door even closed shut my mother was in her handbag unscrewing the cap from her half bottle of scotch. She took a few huge swigs then turned to me.
“And remember Shane, if she asks am I still drinking you say “No!” If not they'll send you back to that bald cunt!” She took a final swig from her bottle then circled her lips with her forefinger and thumb. She somehow thought that by rubbing the alcohol from her mouth that it would render her less drunk. Of course it didn't and a moment later she was sat lurched over on her side with a pee patch breaking around the crotch of her jeans.
For some reason my sister returned having been crying. Mum gave her an evil drunk look and then turned away in disgust. Rachel flopped down on a bean bag anf wiped her fringe out her wet eyes. She must have cracked and admitted to the horrors of what we were all living.
It goes without saying that I didn't crack. I was proud to lie, proud to be Mum's impenetrable boy. I repeated all I was told and sat there looking smug and disinterested.
“Shane, there's little use denying it, I can smell alcohol on her breath!”
I just shrugged “Well she ain't drinking. My mum don't drink.” And then I was set free.
Of course, it was obvious to everyone that mum was paralytic drunk. She was flopped down in the cushions with the world a blurred view through top and bottom eyelashes. In front of the whole family Helen bit the bullet and came out with it.
“Lesley, we need to speak about your problem with alcohol. I can understand why it is you may have felt the need for a drink today, but leaving home with the children entails a new kind of responsibility. There is no way we can let them permanently into your sole care without taking steps to combat this.”
At first my mother just sat there furious, looking off to her side and slightly nodding her head. When she realised the game was up she broke down crying. At first silent tears, then sobs, then shrieks between caught breath. When she finally finished mascara was dripping off her nose and chin. She looked like something which had come in from a storm. It was then agreed that mum would stop drinking, take up AA meetings and visit Helen once a week to report her progress. To show how earnest she was, mum gave Helen her almost empty bottle of whiskey and in another pathetic alcoholic outburst she bawled, “Take it, just TAKE IT!... I don't want it anymore: It's killing me!”
We must have been in the social services all day as when the police finally arrived to escort us across to a hotel on the other side of town the evening dusk was hanging low.
I remember that car journey well. Not so much the sights but more the scents: my mother's lipstick, leather jacket, chewing gum and whiskey. In a way it seemed perfect for what was passing us by outside - like a smell track to a film. Driving through central London's early evening bustle seemed almost unreal, like a magic world that only existed in books or dreams. It was exciting and beautiful, but somewhere I felt, even knew, it was probably the worst possible place my mother could ever be.
Surprisingly enough for a whole month my mother did stop drinking. She began AA meetings, met Helen sober once a week and got us enrolled back into school. She applied for grants to buy us new clothes, made the court custody appearances that had been proceeded by my stepfather and even started talking about taking us on holiday. And then one day I returned home from school and she was lolling naked on the floor pouring out a glass of Vodka. “I've started drinking again!” she stammered, “but I suppose you fucking knew that already!” Spread out on the bed, sucking on a B&H, was Tony, her AA sponsor and the person she was supposed to call if she was having a crisis. He just laid there looking shot and blowing smoke rings to the ceiling.
In the hotel we had two rooms: R104 & 105. The first was for my mother and the second for my brother, sister and I. I went into the adjoining room and joined my siblings.
“Have you seen mum?” asked my brother raising his eyebrows. I just nodded, sent my bag crashing to the floor, then sat on the bed staring at theTV.
From that point on life returned to how it was. The only differences being we were in a new borough, in a newt house and with no step-father to lay down the law. As a result my brother Daniel and I quickly started exploring Victoria and going to all the places we were told we shouldn't. Because of its links with prostitution and its proximity to London's sex district of Soho, Belgravia was advertised as a dangerous area for children. But for us the danger was exciting. We'd wander around in the dark evenings peering into bars, the social foyers of large hotels, and the ringing and flashing games arcades. It was not long before we met other kids who either could not or did not want to go home, and with them we sat around Victoria's main station smoking and mucking about until the early hours of the morning.
My mother's drinking only worsened. She quit AA, quit seeing Helen and quit trying to make one bottle of vodka last. By the time she met Caroline she was knocking back two full bottles a day.
Caroline was a young 18 year old prostitute. I have no idea how my mother met her, just one day she was there... living with us. Her 'thing' was being paid to shit on men; that's what she did. She said that some men like that. Laughing, she explained that the best thing to eat if she didn't want to hang around too long was spicy curry or Mexican. Like many prostitutes I have since known, she seemed to take an enormous pride in her hustle, saying that no-one could “drop a load” like her. But we were young and it was just a big joke.
Caroline lived and slept with my mum. She drank but never to the extent that mum did. In fact, I can not ever recall seeing Caroline obviously under the influence. As with all my mother's lovers (male or female) it wasn't long before violent arguments started bashing their way against the wall. The next thing we knew Caroline had moved into our room. She said mum “needed mental help”, that she “was fuckin' crazy.” And she was absolutely right.
By this stage we very rarely saw mum anymore. She hardly ever left her bed, even less the room. She just laid there as the piss slowly spread, occasionally leaning over and puking up milky lumps onto the floor. Then she started locking herself in, and this is where the climbing out the window began.
Our rooms were situated on the fifth floor of the hotel with the windows opening up onto the street. From window to window ran a small ledge just over a foot in width. With my mother's disposition for suicide, and having locked herself in, it was the only route into her room so as we could check on her. For that reason my brother and I took it in turns to crawl along the ledge and into my mother's room. Once there, we'd make sure she was breathing, nick a few cigarettes, unlock the door and leave. And not just once or twice. We carried out that manoeuvre multiple times per day. One slip and we'd have fallen to certain death. But we were small, fearless and agile. It was a whole different story when my mother decided to climb out.
“So you think it's fuckin clever coming into my room, stealing money and pouring my drink away, eh!" mum shrieked, looking at me with hatred. “Well, we can all play that fuckin game!” And with that she pulled the belt tight around her dressing gown and began climbing out the window. At first we started screaming and then Caroline clung onto her legs so as she couldn't get out. Mum gave a frenzied couple of back kicks and was suddenly free, out on the ledge and raising to a stand, 100ft over central London. Then she started to walk.
No-one moved. We were all in shock and had even stopped screaming for fear of distracting her. I closed my eyes and had scattered visions of blood, brains, teeth and blond hair. I imagined the panic that would strike me when she fell, the silent milliseconds before hearing her body hit the concrete below. I thought of the horror I would feel looking down to see if she had survived. Mums body smashed and broken and dead.
The room was dry crying. Just large terrified eyes looking desperately at each other for help, as if by showing such extreme fear the other could produce some kind of a miracle solution to stop the others anguish. Of course no-one could and mums drunken ranting and screaming was drifting in from outside.
“Don't worry.. I'm not gonna jump! Though you'd all fucking enjoy that!” And then she was back in view; crouching slowly with an unsteady hand on the ledge. Then sitting, with her pale legs dangling down, mum leaned back into the room and looked at us upside down. “Well fucking help me then!” she demanded, looking like she was holding back vomit. We all rushed forward and grabbed a hold off her. With our combined weight we pulled and dragged down. After a moment she fell in, banged her head and her right tit fell out. She lay on the floor looking concussed and spastic. Slowly turning her head, and focusing in completely the wrong direction, mum slurred, “Caroline, I want you out of here you fuckin' little bitch!” Then she stood up, staggered to the door and was gone.
Caroline never left and by morning mum had even forget she had climbed out the window. She just remained even more in her room, bleached white and withering away to nothing. Her hair became matted and dread-locked and now she even shuffled down to the off-licence in her soiled, bloody, vomit crusted nightgown. On the rare occasions we saw her she'd either be steadying herself down the hall (usually with bags of vodka) or sometimes with a saucepan of tepid soup. And then just as quickly as it had started, one day mum called us in the room, and laying there like a queen on her deathbed, she said: “I'm packing in the drink.”
That was the first time I saw mum withdraw from alcohol. “It'll take three days,” she warned us.
“On the first day I'll have the sweats; on the second the shakes; and on the third: DON'T LET ME OUT THE FUCKING ROOM!” She kinda gave a loving laugh. In relief and joy we laughed along too. Things were finally going to be OK.
That marked a new pattern in her drinking behaviour. My mother would now binge – stop – binge - stop - binge. She could be sober for 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months, no-one knew, not even her. And then one day she'd be drunk and it would all start over again. The only sure thing in it all was that she was always drunk more often than she was not.
That small period in Victoria was probably the most isolated of our lives. We had no neutral adults or grounding forces around and really had to fend for ourselves. We done our own washing, cooking and ironing. We put ourselves to bed and got ourselves up for school. When we got home we'd take it in turns to be on suicide watch. We were children looking after children.
Whilst awaiting the custody hearing a temporary court order prevented us having any contact with dad (stepfather) and he was not allowed to come within a hundred metres of any place he knew us to be. As I'm sure it did my brother and sister, that hurt and saddened me. In a strange way I had grown to love him... to enjoy him for who he was. I had certainly never imagined that one day he'd not be there. That just kinda happened. Mum had asked us to make a quick-fire decision and we chose 'her'. 5 minutes after nodding our heads, Dad, the dog and the house were gone. It was a shock and none of us really thought through the consequences of that choice. It was only when we understood Dad could end up in prison if he approached us that it really hit home.
Our forced separation was sad, for us, but by far the saddest part was imaging Dad all alone. I was obsessed with that thought, of what he had done when he arrived home on the day we left. Did he find it strange the lights were out and the place silent? Did he at first call out? Sense a strange emptiness? Did he then realise certain things were out of place, missing? That Mum's room had been ransacked of a few important things? Did he then rush up into our room? See most our clothes and hand held electronic games were gone? Did he knock the neighbours up in a panic asking if they'd seen us? Did he break down and cry? As the weeks and months passed I became more and more preoccupied with what had become of Dad. If he was alright. And then I could take it no more... along with my brother we decided on a secret visit home.
It was a spring evening and the light was just on the turn. It was cold and wet and pale mauve. In a park barely 10 minutes walk from the old family home, my brother and I had just finished football practice. Instead of taking the bus home at the nearby stop, we decided to walk to the one a few stops further along the route, cutting by our old house to get there. “Just keep low and follow me,” I said to Daniel “if he's there we mustn't let him see us!”
Ducking down behind the cars on the opposite side of the road, I led the way. Like that we crept along until we were right opposite the old house. I raised myself just enough to be able to see. “All the lights are out. I don't think he's in.” I reported back “Shall we go across and have a look?” At my brothers nod we both came out of hiding and crossed the road.
The first thing that happened was Shandy, dad's dog, saw us coming and began doing back-flips at the window and licking the glass. We tried to calm him down but he just got more crazy, barking and whining. In the backdrop the place was a mess. There were bottles, betting slips and torn newspaper strewn everywhere. Down next to the fire was a grubby stained duvet and sleeveless pillows. “Try the bell.” I said to my brother “see if there's electricity?” Daniel pressed the bell and shook his head. “It must've been disconnected. He ain't paid the bill.” he said. “He's living here in the dark!” It was sad beyond words. Sadness of the like which can only ever be felt. Bending down, I lifted the letter box and peered through. The hallway where we used to play football and cricket in was now just a littered mess. There were clothes and books everywhere, unopened letters and boxes. A light switch hung by wires from the wall. Down through the kitchen I could see piles of dirty pans and dishes stacked high. But for a split box of economy teabags and a bowl of sugar the back cupboard was bare. The stairs leading up to mums old room had been stripped of their carpet; some of Mum's old clothes clung to the steps as if they'd been torn up and chucked down in anger. The bannister we used to slide down now had every other post missing or broken. Dads beige summer jacket hung at the bottom with the dog chain. It's strange because it wasn't like looking at home but felt more like looking back in time. Like in a museum, where behind glass they have created a scene from some bygone era or other. That's what I felt looking in. It was a reconstruction of a broken home.
By now the evening was almost dark. The house had descended into shadow and seemed profoundly empty. It no longer smelt like home but like the dust that settles on the top of an old box. It was a place of sadness and pain; a place where a man sat who had lost his children and didn't know what to do. A place where the owner didn't want to live there anymore. I let the letter box fall down and looked at Dan. “Come on, lets get outta here.” I said dejectedly, and without speaking a word of what we had seen we ran off and caught the bus back home.
We had now been in the Hotel five months, and mum, bedridden, soiled and dreadlocked took a turn for the worse... she got depressed! That on top of being suicidal was bad news. Now, for some unknown reason, she could no longer bare living in the Hotel and all we heard were sobs and wails trailing from her room. That and the sound of neat vodka glugging its way out the bottle and down her throat. Lucky for us good news would soon arrive and a week later we would be gone.
Of course that final week was a memorable one. It ended with Caroline leaving in tears, my mother going through the shakes and sobering up and an Indian tenant leaping to his death from a 4th floor window. The gypsies on the ground floor who caught his landing said his “head cracked open like a coconut and he bit his tongue off”. They also said he was “bollock naked”. Unfortunately all that was left when we arrived was the blood. A dark red stain in the shape of Ireland.
Two days after that we received a letter from the council saying they were pleased to inform us they had found us a home, albeit another temporary one, in Maida Vale, North London. Before the bottles and puke piled up it was the most fantastic and luxurious place we ever lived. Mum later told us what we already knew, that out of pure desperation to quit the hotel she had been fucking the manager Mr Patel, who in turn had written to the council nominating us as the family most likely to benefit from re-housing.
Benefit? Not really, no. The next seven years just brought more of the same. All that changed is we were growing up and growing wiser. We stopped phoning 999 after each fake suicide attempt and instead of tipping mum's drink down the sink we tipped it down ourselves. Soon we were just as wasted as her and twice as reckless. Mum would eventually lay her alcohol demon to rest, only to fall into the arms of crack and heroin addiction in the same year. But compared to alcohol abuse, crack and heroin are nothing... as it turned out, they were the best years of our lives.
Thanks to Everyone who has stuck through this blog and stuck through this post. As ever it is appreciated more than I can possibly say.
Autumn has always been a very special time for me. I remember London in October: The city full of burnt wood and magic; the cold creeping in off pink skies; the warm evening traffic crawling slowly into nowhere. There is something so sedated and calming in this time. I breathe it in. And with each intake of burnt air a memory drifts into my head.
As a young boy I remember walks along the mansions near the river. It would be just as the light fell, as the parks and public spaces were chained and locked, and mellow winds chased the scents of the freshly dead summer around. Overhead the last flocks of migrating birds would twist and dive by. The final distant calls of nature would sound out and then fade with no reply. So many such evenings I would wander mesmerised down shadowy west London avenues, staring in amazement at the illuminated stained glass doors, the homely hallways behind them, and through large Victorian windows, family get togethers in the living room. I would watch young girls play piano, or peer through huge open plan rooms as families sat and ate supper in the distance. I loved those little walks. The tranquility as the light gave way, as the street lamps rescued the city from darkness, and as life and nature and all things living and dying settled down for the night. For a few brief moments I felt as though I was a part of it all, that I was watching a lost film roll of my own family life. It was with a longing sadness that I dragged myself home, my young footsteps echoing a loneliness that only I could understand.
Later on in autumn, as the evenings darkened ever earlier and cool winds cut chill and whistled through stairwells and lift shafts, I remember being sent on errands to the Fish & Chip Shop. In fear of strange shadows and pursuing footsteps, I would run back home, holding the bag of hot food against my stomach. But in my house a fish & chip supper did not signal a weekly treat whereby the day's food budget had been abandoned in favour of succulent golden battered cod, spiced Jamaican patties, pickled eggs and chips soaked in onion vinegar. No, they were sad events: suppers which signified that my stepfather was absent and my mother, due to the intake of several litres of cheap vodka, was incapable of cooking. Often my mother would use my short absence as an opportunity to gather up all the tranquilizers and sharp knives in the house. I would return home to find her sitting on the side of her bed, wearing a sagged and evil clown face, and either chewing on mouthfuls of pink and green capsules or running a sharp potato knife menacingly up and down her wrist. More often than not the fish would end up splattered against the wall and the chips tramped into the carpet or vomited up into the toilet. On very special nights I’d be hit in the head with the hot bag of food, and then sent off to call for an ambulance on another false suicide attempt. In the early hours of the morning my stepfather would return twelve pints of beer heavier, and finding the house empty, he’d stagger back out knocking up the neighbours until he found the one who had taken us in and saved us from police cells, or worse, the Social Services. I’d hear his deep dangerous voice asking of details and then he’d lead us home, a small rabble of sleepy heads, blankets and teddy bears. But that’s not a autumn memory, not really... that’s just a memory, a timeless reminiscence of days long gone.
Autumn is also the build up to winter, to crystal brittle skies and a silver sun whose distance fails to penetrate the cold. It’s a mid-time, a halfway house between two extremes, a time of beauty and romance and reflection. So I reflect. I send myself to sleep with past images and memories. As the leaves start to bruise and prepare to fall, and as goalposts replace cricket boundaries, so once again I get lost in memory and return to lands that no longer exist. This post was brought out by the season. It is born from changing times and lost and forgotten loves. On the winds of this new autumn, under fading October light, I deliver another piece of myself: The first 31 predominant memories of my life.
I do not remember being born; not many of us do. But I do remember being fed. That is my 1st memory, being held to my mother's breast as she lay on a blanketed bed feeding me. My 2nd memory is of being scolded for knocking over a glass full of Martini... my mother pushing me off my tricycle and onto the floor as she sponged up the wet. My 3rd is the year 1980. I had returned home after my first day at school with that nugget of knowledge: “It’s 1980. Mum, the year is 1980!” My 4th memory is watching my father open up his veins with a small meat cleaver after a violent argument with my mother. I watched from behind a long pleated skirt as my stepfather fought and wrestled him out the house. My 5th memory is a camel ride in London Zoo. Red top, Wellington boots, and beige Rupert the Bear trousers. My 6th recollection is my mother's scream, an unbearable sound that pierced my life and brought me fully into existence. My 7th is learning that my father had been murdered, dismembered, boiled, diced and flushed down a toilet. My 8th is finding my mother choking to death on the froth of an overdose, pills and broken glass littering her room. My 9th memory is of the hospital ward where she laid for a week - bruised, unconscious and full of tubes. My 10th memory is taking a beating from my stepfather and then having my head shaved. My 11th is a dark room, nighttime radio, the glurping of neat alcohol being poured from bottle to glass, burning cigarettes, LED’s and tears. I remember the touch of pubic hair as my mother rubbed herself against my little legs. My 12th memory is realising that my brother and sister had rejected and distanced themselves from me after it was properly understood that I shared a different father. My 13th memory is my mother turning up drunk on my birthday and smashing all my new toys. My 14th is falling off my bike and losing consciousness. I remember pulling a wheelie, a pair of spinning handlebars, approaching concrete ground and then nothing. I came around grazed and bloodied on a public bench with a pair of watery grey eyes peering into mine. “You ‘ad a bit ov a fall young man... you’re Ok though!” My 15th memory is the Black House*. My 16th is my mother spraying perfume in my stepfather's eyes and then his hands, tattooed with ‘Love’ & ‘hate’, smashing into her jaw. My 17th is breaking my collarbone and laying in unbearable pain for 3 days before being taken to hospital. My 18th memory is being hit by the sperm of one of my mother's lovers. My 19th feeling the force of adult fists and kicks. My 20th is my stepfather doing the ironing in a dress. My 21st recollection is being arrested and detained in Hammersmith police station after throwing a grapefruit through Mr Brownhead's window. My 22rd & 23rd are of my mothers repeated suicide attempts. My 24th is being summoned to my mother's room and her declaring that she was dying of cancer. My 25th memory is being hit in the side of the head by a large bunch of keys. My 26th is fleeing the family home with my mother, brother & sister. A secret car ride across London and hiding from my stepfather. My 27th is the window ledge of Hobb's Hotel in Victoria, my paralytic mother swaying on it 70ft above the ground. My 28th is Christmas 1988, my mother's lesbian lover trying to strangle my sister to death. My 29th is White City Estate. No furniture, gas or electricity. It was cigarettes, stolen cars and my mother's final, yet unsuccessful, suicide attempt. My 30th memory is throwing a world globe out off the geography room window and being permanently excluded from school. My 31st memory is starting off on my first days building work at the age of 15. I realised on that day, as i returned home absolutely exhausted after 8 hours of soul destroying work, that I was no longer a child, that the burst-balloon-sponge-cake party was over. I also realised that hell was not an obligatory place of stay and I was not there on her Majesty’s service. There were roads which led to hell and if I was ever to return there again it would at least be in consequence of my own footsteps. In a sense that sums it up. From the fall of my innocence rose my independence, a passionate and dangerous independence that flirts with hell without quite descending into it. But maybe that’s not really a choice? Maybe I am just a blessed and lucky sod?
Anyway, that’s my month of memories... as many reminiscences of my dead youth as there are days in October. But contrary to what it may appear, I have never thought of my young years as a broken or traumatic time. Far from it, my overriding recollections of those years are the memories that do not exist but those which litter and fill in the gaps. The childhood I remember was one of joy and escape... of exhilarating bike rides, hard schoolyard walls and dusty football marathons. I recall late evenings, staying out playing as one by one the other children were called home and finally I was left kicking my ball down dark streets alone. So, in tune with the new season, that is how I see my youth: it was a bruised but not a battered time. It was an autumn and not a winter. And as the new season imposes itself proper and mornings and afternoons sweep cold, my eyes can only blink heavy through golden tones and I can only ride high as once again the scent of burnt wood wafts through another European city. In a way, the combined beauty of 33 autumns is the answer to my unknown equation. The present can never be more wonderful or less hellish than it is right now, because after everything, and before anything else, this is all that there ever really is.
Take care Readers and thanks for sitting out the drought...
My Thoughts and Wishes as Always and Ever, Shane.x
Buy Tony O'neills Books here! Yes, that's an order!!!
Writer/poet, Friend and Outlaw Tony O'neill has written stuff just for You. If you like my work, then you'll love Tony's... if you hate my work, you'll still love Tony's. So do yourself a favour and buy at least one copy of at least three of Tony's books... if not, stay out of touch and die clutching Trainspotting... it's your loss.
