#337 or the endless steppe

So I've moved country, again. It's nice to have a hobby. I didn't do it quite so well without her, I was the packer, the lifter of heavy things, writer of multiple lists and neurotic check-and-check-again-er. Mostly she laughed at me, and unpacked essentials that were caught up in my whirlwind of over-zealous packing. I managed this time, to pack everything four days before I left the country, once I was finished I stared around the empty flat and could hear her laughing at me as I decided whether to unpack a toothbrush and some clothes or just buy new ones. 

I suppose, in theory, I've moved to what most people would call home. People with happier childhoods and some general sense of belonging to a place, a culture, a people. I've never felt particularly attached to this country, certainly not this bit of it, which holds such a wealth of terrible memories that I was dreading this move. It was, on paper, a terrible idea to move here. I'm in the middle of nowhere, several hours and a bridgeless river away from the coldest city on the planet, no friends, no family. So far I've found it oddly comforting to be able to spend great swathes of time completely alone working to get the house (inherited) and estate ready for sale. I'd prefer, obviously, to be able to do that in a country where it's not suicide to leave the house without two pairs of gloves, two scarves, and swaddled in fur or feathers. 

The absence of family seems utterly normal here, my Grandfather lived here alone and I was sent to visit him alone. I remember meeting him for the first time, a great bear of a man in furs and a face mask. I would stay with him for two weeks or more and hear him speak only a handful of sentences. The man was a battleaxe, even on the first day of spring you would find him preparing for winter. When I was very young he had a pet wolf that he had trapped, it had escaped and eluded him for three days in the forest. He believed it was a spirit trying to teach him humility and couldn't bring himself to kill it. I remember a great beast of a man in furs looming out of the ice fog to meet me in Lenin Square and an endless drive over the frozen river, stopping the car to let a pack of wolves overtake us. Most of all I remember a four-day walk with dogs and the utter misery of it. He didn't speak a word and I was so cold I thought it would kill me. When we got there the farmer asked why we hadn't driven and my Grandfather said 'the boy needs to learn.' I didn't understand, but I think it's coming to me now. 


It goes without saying that it has been almost a year. I imagine the first of January will find me sleeping in the bottom of a vodka bottle. A year. An entire year without her, without them. I'm not proud of this year. I've worked, too hard, scraped a handful of friends, sunk into bitter depressions, drunk too much, talked too little, remembered too often, and broken the heart of an exceptional man who deserved far better. I've taken myself away from the few remaining people who know me and still managed to care, and have dropped myself into my ideal environment. Here, I can go weeks without seeing another person, weeks without saying a word. She would be appalled. I suppose I can't keep weighing up my decisions based on what she would have thought, but why not? Surely better her judgement, the best person I've known, than mine, possibly the most despicable?

#254 OR embossed emails

So, it's been thirty seven days. I'd like to say I've been frantic with the business of living, with rebuilding my life into something enjoyable, meaningful, or at the very least just full. Instead I've been miserable for three weeks weaning myself off oxycodone, going opiate-free was the brilliant idea of my shrink. He believes I'm avoiding pain, and he's right, damn him. Of course I'm avoiding pain, physical and emotional, who wouldn't, given the choice? So he suggested stopping painkillers and, to add lemon juice to the papercut of my physical pain, insisted I choose between attending a wedding or a christening. I've been avoiding invitations all year, disposing of embossed envelopes without opening them, but apparently it's acceptable to send wedding invitations via email now, which makes it harder to spot the embossing, the virtual rose petals and overused italics that seem to feature heavily in the invitation market. I chose the wedding, for obvious reasons - I can take a plus one, getting outrageously drunk isn't as frowned upon, and there's no danger of being asked to hold a baby. Unfortunately I've been asked to make a toast, I used to be funny, occasionally charming, good at that sort of thing provided I was given a little notice. Now...now I'm not so sure. I can't imagine standing up in front of everyone without her to look at in the crowd, I used to practise beforehand, a dry run of the speech without the jokes, it would sound so disjointed that she'd be in fits of laughter anyway. And after the speech was done she'd hold my hands to stop them shaking (I'm a tragically nervous public speaker) and tell me quietly that she preferred the earlier version. Ever the critic. 

So I need to prepare a speech, dig a suit out of my still-packed boxes, and find a plus one who knows what happened and why everyone will be staring at them. I imagine, for some reason, that everyone will judge me if I take a date. As though it hasn't been nearly a year, as though friends won't be glad that I've finally moved on a bit and stopped my endless whining. I can't really imagine doing the wedding thing with anyone else. We used to have a fine time, especially when people started regaling us with tales of never-ending wedding planning; entire years devoted to making sure that one day is perfect, and the tens of thousands of pounds that they spent. The first wedding we went to, almost a year after ours, was unbelievable - stately home, colour scheme, hundreds of guests, giant reception, the whole deal. I have pictures, group shots, and we stick out like scruffy, tanned sore thumbs. My suit doesn't fit, her dress is brand new, totally at odds with sun-faded bracelets, and high heels reveal sandal tan lines on her feet. We'd only arrived in the country two days before, still jet-lagged, the entire weekend was overwhelming. Cutlery and table cloths, dressing for dinners, speeches and toasts, and what felt like herds of people. The bride kept laughing that she should have eloped and saved all the bother; she about cried when Lena told her that our wedding took two weeks to plan, cost twenty five pounds and was over in about as many minutes. 


I try not to think about whether I'm getting over things as fast as I should be, but it's inevitable. I wonder how other people do after something like this, whether nearly a year later, they still aren't quite right. Still aren't nearly back to themselves, still haven't...I don't know, the phrase is "moved on" but I'm not entirely sure what that means. I hope it doesn't mean forgetting.




 

#217

I've lived, quite happily, with my ghosts for the last eight months. Grief is comfortable, after a while. A comfort blanket of misery that you can take everywhere with you. I couldn't or wouldn't let it stop me working but I allowed it to extend cold, dead, clammy fingers into all other aspects of my life. It became convenient to nest in my sadness, to spend ninety hours a week working and the remaining hours alone, talking to ghosts. I could have made more of an effort, months ago, to pick myself up and dust off the darkness, little by little. But I didn't. I didn't want them to leave. A part of me loathes the intrusive memories, the nightmares, despises the shock of seeing her face in a crowd, of ironing a shirt and discovering the faded pink heart she stitched inside the cuff. The rest of me clings desperately to those small moments of shock which leave me standing, stricken, remembering her. After all, without those...what are they? If I forget, then what? What's left? 

 

I argue with the rational part of myself that thinks, repeatedly, perhaps now - perhaps it is time. I fight fiercely with that side of me; I gave up their ashes! I gave up her things! I gave in to her family, their graves aren't even in this country! I gave up my job, our house! Isn't that enough? What more am I meant to do? And so I curled, safe and sad inside my nest of grief. And there I stayed. People tried to tempt me out, to drag me out, to pull the words from me, and force my sadness into the light. As though it would crumble in the face of their happy little lives. But it doesn't work like that. I gave up those things because it was easier. Because if I gave up all the things that reminded me of them being gone, then I was free to live with my ghosts. 

 

I'm drawing myself out slowly now and trying to find people I can bear to have near me. People who didn't know her, and people who did, some of them. I've never particularly liked people, or really understood most people, which makes it even more important, somehow, for me to find people I can bear. I still miss them, daily, hourly, sometimes minute by minute. I still have nightmares. I still get intrusive memories. I still see her face in crowds. I still haven't held my friend's three month old daughter, and I still haven't returned my mother in law's calls. I still work ninety hour weeks. I still talk to my wife. I still have that awful, hollow, clenching pain in my chest. But I've talked to an actual living person every day for two months, returned some calls from old friends, been outside more, drunk less, and tried a little harder. I'm not going to suddenly forget her because I put down the bottle and go sit in the garden.

And tonight? Tonight I had a date. A third date. Which I barely even thought about because I was so tied up in work, and so thrilled that everything went smoothly. So no guilt. Well, a little, when the extremely odd thought that my dead wife would have liked him. Which isn't a thought I can deal with, it's one that I keep boxed in the corner of my mind. Things are getting better, I suppose, which brings new guilt, new sadness, and correspondingly little happiness. Which makes it hard to see what all this was for.

#206 OR longhaul

For the last few nights I've been wandering the streets of the city late at night, through til dawn. Talking to police officers and appalled members of the public, watching London burn. I feel strange, disconnected from it, this no longer seems like my city, don't recognise these people. Youths in hoods kicking in shop windows and burning down one hundred year old department stores. That's not the mad British way I've come to appreciate, like a fine tea. But during the day, during the day Londoners appear incredibly brave in that stalwart English manner. Marching down the streets with brooms and binliners, or in the early evening making plastic cups of tea for police officers, handing them round on an upturned riot shield.

I'm staring down the barrel of having to move again. It seems as though I'm constantly drifting, although I never thought that this move would be permanent. I used to enjoy moving. We, used to enjoy moving. We moved yearly, every July brought the same old kit bags, different tear-filled goodbyes and parting gifts, the same drive to the airport and the same long, long flight to Paris, the same strange month seeing old friends, stocking up on odd little essentials (me - marmite, zippo wicks, biros, toothbrushes, and razor blades. Her - liquorice cigarette papers, underwear, birkenstocks, embroidery thread, and tampons. Both - pills, bandages, endless piles of first aid supplies until it looks like our luggage got switched with that of Médecins Sans Frontières.), and leaving our tatty, stained old Lonely Planet on the shelves. Then we'd head off again, with a crisp new guide book full of post-its and her over-excited red pen circles and exclamation marks. Heads together on the flight over, checking and re-checking the list of things she wants to do, and books I posted to myself from the airport, laughing at our mispronounciation and wondering whether it wouldn't have been easier to stay put? Seeing as we finally knew the language? No, of course not, why even bring it up?

She always talked to the person sitting next to her. I sat in the aisle, to stretch my leg out and get run over by the trolley. I always fell asleep to the sound of her answering questions about why we were moving and where from and gosh wasn't it exciting? I'd wake up hours later, the cabin dark apart from television screens and flickering orange floor lights, to find her straddling my lap, shaking silently with the giggles, her hand on my shoulder. Clearing my throat, what are you laughing at? She laughs harder now I'm awake, tears on her cheeks, sat on my lap now. 'I'm sorry, it was just your face!' Oh, nice I say and wrap my hands around her waist, kiss her chin and tickle that spot above her hip until she squirms and I have to lift her off into the aisle. I haul myself up while she's in the bathroom, as she weaves her way back through the chairs she sees me and scowls, points a disapproving finger at me. 'You didn't need to get up' I know, I say, catch her hips in my hands and kiss below her ear, but I don't know if I could have restrained myself this time, my voice is a low breath against her throat; I can feel her lascivious laugh against my lips. 'From doing what?' She bats her eyelashes, pouts, laughs at herself. Tickling you to death I say, she squirms away 'you better sit down before you fall down, old man.' Bitch I mutter, sitting down beside her.

I was always envious of the way she slept on planes. Over a foot shorter than me she curled up like a dormouse in a blanket, eyemask, and earphones, she shut out the world, pressed her face against my side, and draped my arm over her. The first time she did it I looked up at passing passengers, embarrassed to be seen so entangled. Because you never think it'll end, do you? Even when the dark recesses of your mind whisper those thoughts to you in the dead of night, causing you to reach for your other, better half across the mattress, just to brush them with the side of your hand. Reassure yourself that they're there, warm, and breathing. Even then, with horror clutching at your heart and squeezing, you never think it will end. Never really comprehend waking with the tight clench in your chest and reaching, reaching, fingertips curling over the edge of the mattress with nothing but your arm and empty stretches of cotton in between.

Those vile few minutes of sweating, shivering terror are why I walk the streets at night, why I watch late night television, why I avoid bed like the plague.

#196 OR quietly

I spent yesterday in a froth of anxiety and indecision (as opposed to my usual fug of misery and despair) over the approaching date. I changed my mind about going every ten minutes and crashed and burned horribly during my weekly meeting with my boss. I told him I had a date after dropping my notes and losing my third set of blueprints. He took a step back, aghast. 'A date? Already?' His voice was slightly shrill. 'Yes, a date, already', after a mere one hundred and ninety six days of being alone, a period of time which seems both interminably long and barely the length of a heartbeat. 'Are you, you know, ready?' I paused for a while, twisting my wedding ring and fiddling with my blueprints. 'No, no, of course I'm not ready. But I don't think I'll ever be ready unless I start somewhere.' He looked rather taken aback at that, but then it is perhaps the most I've ever told him about myself. Frankly, it came as something of a revelation to myself as well. 'Well, yes, you're probably right. I can't imagine starting over meself. Don't know if any woman would want me! Of course, you've got double the pool haven't you?' Thankfully, at that point, I managed to re-shuffle my notes into the correct order and weigh down my blueprints so we could return to things that did not make me cringe.

I do not have 'double the pool' I currently have a pool containing one woman, who I can no longer have, and a whole array of other people who I appreciate like I appreciate a work of art; completely asexually. But I agreed to a date, and dithered for so long that it was too late to cancel. So instead, I dithered over dressing, forgot my oyster card, spilled lighter fluid all over my hands and zippo, lost everything I required to get out of the house, and eventually arrived thirty five minutes late. My date was waiting, patiently, nursing a glass of wine and flirting with the barman. Apart from an awkward moment where he estimated my age as a full decade older than I actually am, everything was positively delightful. Charming, witty, a nice line in dry black humour, and a lasciviously throaty laugh. I would rather have had a dreadful time, I felt guilty. I still feel guilty. I took my wedding ring off, naturally, not quite able to leave it at home, so instead it burned a hole in my chest, hanging from the leather cord I carried her engagement ring on for so many months.

It ended early, thankfully, as things wound down I was increasingly cracking up under the weight of eating in public, being my most charming self, and not mentioning anything tragic. So we milled awkwardly outside, my date waiting for a cab and myself waiting for a cab to whisk him off. We dawdled, I smoked, and was surprised with an invitation to a collection he is curating in a few weeks. Another date. An invitation to a second date, made on the first. I mumbled, stuttered, dropped my cigarette, bent to pick it up, stumbled, and was hauled up slightly too close to him with his hand on my arm. He hung on a little too long, I apologised, and laughed at my own bumbling ineptitude. We stood like that until a cab showed up, I kissed him on the cheek, pre-emptive in case he went for the lips.

It was early, so I went to the cinema, alone. Harry Potter, again, and sat in the dark and cried, quietly.

#194 OR base camp

I worried, less than a year ago, that I would be a terrible parent, that despite years of teaching I'd suddenly be unable to cope with a single child. That I'd drop her, or break her, or even worse simply fail her in some profound way so that she grew up sad, angry, and confused about why I did that to her. In the quiet, dark moments I spent lying awake beside her I wondered if I would take after my father and somehow be unable to stop myself turning into him and driving her away with fists and harsh, mocking laughter. I worried about losing Lena and being left with a girl I couldn't possibly understand. I worried about being unable to talk to her, or whether she'd turn out like me and our combined silence would drive my wife to distraction. I worried about losing her, like I worry about losing everyone. In spite of all this fretting, I figured that by the time she was fourteen, we'd have it sort of worked out, be almost forty years old and have some semblance of a grip on life. In short, it would be very different to having a fourteen year old dropped into your life and scrambling to make the best of it.

I don't know how to deal with him. I don't know what he needs, I don't know what he wants, nor do I know what he likes to do, his favourite food, colour, the names of his friends, what vaccinations he's had, where his birth certificate is, who is listed as his next of kin, what he's allergic to, when he last had a doctor's appointment, what the hell the name of his asthma medication is, or any of the other stuff that I really do need to know. Things that I assume I'd have got to know over the last fourteen years if he'd been mine. As it is, I'm fumbling around in the dark, making huge catastrophic mistakes, and lying awake at night worrying. He needs new clothes; I have no idea where to take him, no clue what he likes, and a sneaking suspicion that we'll be that teenager/adult pair having a quiet, vicious row in the middle of a department store.

Worrying about all these things now, brings back the quiet panicking I did while she was pregnant, except there's no one telling me not to be so ridiculous, and to shut up and go to sleep already. I've been on my own for seven months now, which seems an interminably long time and is the longest I've been single since I was twelve. It still scares the shit out of me, as well as being somewhat liberating. Unfortunately I don't do well with freedom, I devolve into a shambling, shuffling, dishevelled creature, wearing the same paint stained shirt for a week, and forgetting how to talk to people other than myself. I smoke too much, drink too much, and attempt to live on a biscuit and tea diet. Luckily Godson has adopted a pack of friends and is running wild over London, occasionally stopping by to complain that there's no food, drink soda, and lounge in front of the television in bizarre yellow and purple pyjamas, leaving me free to carry on my semi-feral existence.

In an attempt to remember how to relate to people I have a date tomorrow night. Accepting seemed like a good idea at the time, now...I am not so sure. Real clothes? Shaving? Taming my hair? Attempting polite conversation, appearing interested, talking about myself (the horror), navigating through crowds, eating nice food in public, not blurting out that I'm sort of heartbroken and still talk to my wife. I might as well try climbing Everest.

#186 OR why am I writing?

When I resurrected this blog in the wake of January's assorted tragedies and uprootings, I contemplated making it private. In the end, obviously, I did not, because I thought no one would read it. I'm still not quite sure why anyone has. I re-read posts only on particularly dark days when it seems impossible to reach the light, when there's a deep, dank place inside me which nothing will illuminate, which nothing can reach. Or on days when I've forgotten a little bit more of her and the agony of that is almost unbearable. I was convinced that no one would want to spend their spare time reading about such pain. And yet it seems that people have, and do, and while I'm grateful...I am also extremely confused. This is not the sort of blog that I read, I don't read widow's blogs or surround myself with the bereaved in an attempt at self-soothing. Instead I come here, and write (poorly) about whatever is hurting me most. Usually it's memories of her, of them, sometimes it's my frankly useless body, and sometimes it's the end of a series of books. I write about what hurts most because I come back to it later to open old wounds and remind myself that I am indeed capable of feeling something. 

I didn't have an audience in mind because I couldn't envisage there being one. I don't have an audience in mind now because...it still seems unbelievable that anyone should want to read anything I have written. That doesn't mean I'm not incredibly grateful for comments, or for people linking to my meagre little corner of misery (something which is absolutely astonishing to me). I am, fawningly so. Even though I have no real idea who I'm aiming this blog at, apart from myself, it's a little unsettling to think that I may manage to disappoint someone that I don't even know. 

I have laid bare very specific aspects of myself here. Things which I cannot say out loud to anyone. But this agony is not (thankfully) all of me and life is improving, slowly. After 186 genuinely awful days, I do still feel guilty about having fun, about doing things, about living. I do still feel that I should not be, that everything I do which is not limited to crying in the dark, is a terrible betrayal. I squash those feelings down. Because what's the point of being alive if that's all that I can do?

I think about them all the time. Right now, even. How ridiculous she would find this situation that I seem to have got myself into. She had to apologize for me not talking, for absent-mindedly wandering off while people were talking to me, for telling people to just be quiet already. The absurdity of me, in my own roundabout way, apologising for talking too much, to complete strangers, would make her howl with laughter. She'd be smug, too, because I'd finally understand how annoying it is to have to smooth down the feathers that I've ruffled.

Really, anyone who reads this...you probably know my wife better than you know me. There's thirty posts about her, about Cambodia, about grief and pain and loss. Posts which make my heart ache when I read them back, posts which bring clouds of memories to sit, heavy on my shoulders and follow me through the day. 

Looking back, it would make more sense to have introduced myself back in January, rather than awkwardly appearing here, in July, after exposing the darkest recesses of my mind. Unfortunately, in January, I wasn't particularly coherent. So here we are. God. It's always at the strangest times that I find I need her, that I realize all over again exactly how much she did for me and how I just don't quite work without her.

#178 OR riddikulus

When the first Harry Potter book came out, I was twelve. A year later, I would run away from home. Between thirteen and seventeen I was shuffled between foster homes and institutes and had long periods of being homeless, or squatting. I didn't have a lot of things, I didn't have a lot of money, often I didn't even have enough to eat. In fact I can still remember the contents of the horrible old duffle bag that I carried everywhere with me; one pair of jeans, one sweater, one t-shirt, sleeping bag, pocket knife, notebook stuffed with photos, my grandfather's watch, and, by the time I replaced the bag in 2004 – five extremely worn out novels. Paperback. I read them so often that they disintegrated. When I replaced them, I forked out for the hardback copies which have weathered my affections rather better. I read those books endlessly. In the rain, in the cold, by candlelight, by torchlight, under the covers, in my sleeping bag, in school, hiding in public bathrooms, on park benches.

I grew up with Harry Potter, in a lot of ways I spent more time in the wizarding world than I ever did in the real world. Those books taught me a lot of things and will never really leave me. Which, to someone that doesn't quite get it because they're a children's series and I'm a grown man now, makes absolutely no sense. But there are good lessons in there, important lessons. Without those books, I would be a very different man. Because it's that imaginary world which taught me about love and friendships which go far beyond family and doing what's right instead of what's easy.

Perhaps most of all the books are, to me, a way of coping with loss. They get called a children's series, and perhaps the first three are, but the rest of the series is a veritable bloodbath. No other children's story wipes out so many of its characters. And yet you carry on, because the ones who love us never really leave us. And because there's really nothing to fear in death.

My wife was a Harry Potter nut. The majority of my generation is, actually. I expect the midnight showing will be packed with adults, rather than children, and I anticipate a lot of crying. I watched every film with her, the last three at the midnight showing, with her wearing the same nerdy t-shirt. She refused to read the last book for months, almost a year she held out without reading any spoilers, without even lifting the cover, because she didn't want it to be over. Needless to say, when we moved to Thailand we took six books with us, just six. And those are the copies I've been re-reading over the last fortnight; frequently dotted with splashes of ginger tea or a flattened mosquito, bookmarked with Khmer newspaper clippings and with her scratchy pencilled notes in the margin. Inside the cover of the Deathly Hallows she's written today's date in stark, excited pencil and surrounded it with a countdown of the months. She arranged my annual summer vacation around the release of this movie and warned me that she would be seeing it often, maybe daily for a week or so.

I've thought a lot about this movie, and what it means. It's the end of a saga I've been wrapped up in since I was thirteen. Half my life has been tied up in these novels, these movies. J K Rowling said at the premiere last week that Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home. Which sounds a little trite, a little unbelievable if you're not a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. It's true though, because the things we love never really leave us.

And because I loved her and she loved this series, and because she'll never really leave me, I'll be wearing her shirt tonight, to the midnight showing. And trying not to cry for a variety of reasons.

#176 OR splinted

I like to wait, most of the time, for other people to initiate difficult conversations. I prepare myself, run through things I'd like to say and file them away at the back of my mind until someone else brings it up. Rarely do I ever have the desire to jump right in and get things over and done with, I'm happy to wait. But I'd waited since April for Godson to come to me so we could hash out a few key issues, and he never did. He was sick while he was here and then he was back at school and there never seemed to be any time, even on the phone, to straighten things out. Perhaps I should have broken my unspoken rule and gone to him back in Spring when he was still here. Instead I let things sit, and, as it turns out, fester until it all erupted on Saturday and we both said things that we didn't quite mean. On Sunday I let them sit, because just seeing him made me unspeakably angry and we'd already done enough shouting in the heat of the moment. Monday, unfortunately, I had to suck it up.

I bought breakfast, deposited it on the coffee table and we watched cartoons with thinly veiled animosity. It took us around an hour to get round to actually speaking. I swear, if I didn't know better I'd think we were actually related. We talked about his Mother, and I laid out what I knew about where she is, we talked about Lena, about his step-father, about his school and about sex. Because he's a fourteen year old boy and it's impossible to have a conversation with him without it returning to sex. He apologized for what he said, I apologized for treating him as a friend rather than a...I don't even know what to call it, a ward, I suppose. He told me, very quietly, that sometimes I call him Alexei. Which I hadn't realized, and is a disturbing thing to learn. But it's true, I treat him like my friend, my brother, not like a kid, and it's too much sometimes. They're similar, in a lot of ways and there's an uncanny physical resemblance, which I've never questioned his Mother too closely about.

In the end, I buggered up, and I should know better. Equally he was vicious, and should know better. But we've both been dumped together and there's a certain learning curve when a teenager is unceremoniously dropped into your life.

And this morning took me to my speaking threshold but, alas, we were not done for the day. I took myself off into the bathroom and he took himself into a spare room to practise in peace. Now, this sodding bathroom is the current bane of my existence. I know that I should admit defeat and call a plumber but after so many weeks of wrestling with it the whole saga has become a point of pride and I will bloody fix it if it kills me. It made its first returning stab at me today, the bastard. The short story is I was a touch cavalier and jammed my hand in a position that a hand is not meant to be in and the result was a compound fracture of my first finger. Sickening to look at but not half as painful as the seven hours we spent at casualty waiting for me to be 'reset' which, as a word, does not convey the disgusting sight and sound of your finger bones being realigned.

Seven hours, and all I wanted to do was ask him what he means when he says he loves me. I'm not sure why it's bothering me so much. I mean, he's known me as long as he's been alive and I endeavour to turn up whenever I'm needed, it's not altogether surprising. I love him. It's just...something. Something is a little odd about it, a look he gets. Not worth ruining our new truce over, though. I promised myself I'd try and remember that he's fourteen, my godson. Not my brother, not my friend, and I can see what he means now. I do treat him like my brother, Godson and I drive his Mother mad when we're together. All inside jokes and pranks and running off to have mad adventures. All of which is fine when you're visiting but it's not sustainable with him living here. And asking him what he means by loving me is, well, rude for one thing.

Fuck, I'm exhausted and he's only been here two days. I don't know if I'll even make it to September.

#174 OR gutwrenching

Wretched. Wretched, wretched, wretched.

Godson arrives on Saturday, early evening, tumbles off the train at King's Cross and we make  our slow way home. He talks, a continuous stream in my ear as we hang off tube poles, crammed in between tourists, and I watch the walls of the tunnel blur past, in between wondering how much he's grown and what the fuck has happened to his hair in the last four months. About his friends, about his exams, about classes and his show and how great it was, all the way back to the apartment. I apologize for not having put anything in his room that even vaguely resembles furniture. He leaves his bags in the main bedroom and wanders about, drinking milk from the carton. I wait, need to get the boy a haircut, Jesus, when did I become his Mother? Still. Haircut. He bins the milk carton. 'You've got rid of everything' we're almost eye to eye now, his eyes are green, his Mother's, disconcerting. 'Yes, yes, most of it.' He's chewing his bottom lip, frowning. 'Was it her stuff?' Lena's. The sense of her filled this apartment for months. It still does, for me. 'Yes. And David's, and some from my brother and sister.' He looks down, takes his shoes off by the door. Christ, listed like that it seems like I know more ghosts than living people. 'I'm sleeping in your bed.' The door's closed before I say 'oh, ok, yes, fine, no problem.' It's 1700 and I cancelled a not-date to spend the evening with him.

After an hour of work I call, reinstate the not-date, a bar near the apartment, won't be gone long. He won't even notice. What's the harm? Write him a note with my number, leave a key on it, brush the sawdust out of my hair and leave. I lock the door, warm under my hand, hot day for London, still daylight at 2130. It takes me half an hour to walk around the corner, spot the Banker stepping out of a cab. Infernally well-dressed, makes me feel like a bumbling fool. Look down at myself, just to confirm I look like shit. I do. Jeans, work boots, badly fitting t-shirt - is that glue, on it? - plaid shirt, ah. Reflection in the bar window, still some sawdust in my hair, and he looks as though he stepped out of a catalogue. Splendid. His palm is smooth against mine, smell of his cologne and scratch of my cheek against his lips 'you smell wonderful' he says, 'sawdust. Shall we go in?' We do. And drink entirely too many bottles of white wine with clinking cubes of ice and twining of condensation-wet hands, cool fingertips on my arm and the brush of his knee against mine. I was tipsy before I left home, by the time we make our incautious way outside at midnight, I am ratted. It's small comfort that so is he. I offer coffee. At least, I listen to myself say the words while the caged, sober part of my brain is shrieking ineffectually and rattling the bars. What the fuck am I doing? There's a fourteen year old boy asleep in my apartment and really? When has coffee ever meant coffee?

I meant coffee, so I make coffee. Pour it into him and fend off his warm fingertips and dodge the brush of his knee. I shush him in that too-loud drunk way, which makes more noise than it silences. Call him a cab and get him upright and downstairs, can't find my keys, leave the apartment door open, front door open, stand under the buzzing porchlight. It's rained, the railing is wet under my hand. I've left my cane upstairs, bugger, how drunk am I? I think, horrified. Bloody drunk. Shit. He's kissing me. He's bloody kissing me and he wouldn't be doing that if he was sober. I wouldn't be letting him. God. I haven't been kissed like this in seven months. The scratch of stubble and smell of his cologne in the rain doesn't make it any less terrifying. It's different, odd. I haven't moved. Close your eyes you fool. I do. And in a flash it's her, a last chance, a last desperate chance to say goodbye. I close my hand on his arm, wait...it's not...the taste of white wine and scratch of his lip make the hollow of my chest clench viciously, it's not her. It's not her. She's gone. I push him towards the cab and lean on the doorframe for a second. Just in time to catch Godson's heels disappearing into the apartment. Shit. Bugger. Fuck. I have to catch him. But she's gone. She's gone and...no. Catch him.

He's in the kitchen, clenching his jaw and shredding my note into angry confetti scattered over the floor and counter. 'I'm sorry, I just...went out, for a bit.' He shouts at me, thought I was gone, thought I'd left him, thought I didn't give a fuck and then, on the doorstep, proof that I did not give a fuck. I went out to get fucked on his first night back? Had I forgotten her? Had I? What the fuck was wrong with me? And he was in the next room! I don't shout, I over-share instead; telling him that in my head I was kissing her, kissing her, the last time, please, stop. He winds down, slamming his fist into my chest over and over and over until I clench his wrists in my hand, hold them against his chest, he struggles until we're on the floor, leaning back against the couch. Panting, red-faced, his streaked with tears. I'm a bastard. He loves me, he says. In this context it seems odd. He really loves me, he's insistant. I don't know what to say. I need to tell him I love him but he's up and spitting words down at me before I can open my mouth. Tells me that I never fucking say anything, no matter what he says, I never speak and it's no wonder people leave me when I meet the next person before the previous one has even left my bed. That's it. At last, the final straw. I grab his calf, the nearest thing to me, and dig my fingers in to stop him leaving. I hate him, right then, I hate him more than anything. I raise my voice, for the first time in years; they didn't leave me, they're dead, they're fucking dead, my wife, my family, they're gone. And what the fuck does he know about that? I'm sobbing, by the end of it, drop my hand from his leg and rest my head on my knees. Haven't cried since Hong Kong, since the hospital. Since they told me. I cry myself sick in a way I'd almost forgotten, it's been a decade since I cried like that. Uncontrollably, in heaving, gasping sobs. He leaves me there and at some point I creep down to the basement to lick my wounds.

The Banker has called twice since then. I haven't answered. Ivan has avoided me. I haven't been the bigger person and initiated the conversation. I will today. He's here until September; we can't continue in silence and we certainly can't continue if he reacts this way every time I go out with someone. It happened in April, a much watered down version in which he slightly over-reacted to me having a date. This, this was positively apocalyptic.

I shouted. And cried.

Apparently I am still human.

#172 OR cheeky

I meant to come and write this about five hours ago. But I got distracted, as I am wont to do; by brown envelopes and coffee and rejigging the pipes under the bathroom sink and putting in a load of washing but forgetting detergent, or even to close the door until later when it's too late and I can see my keys spinning in clear water. And eventually by a film which Lena recommended to me almost a year ago but I...well, got distracted and never watched. So I finally unearthed it tonight, as a distraction from everything else that I should have been doing. 

It was good, I see why she tried to make me watch it. But perhaps it's more fitting that I watch it now. The guy's wife dies, early on, and it takes until the end of the film for him to say it out loud. Finally he yells it so loud that his voice cracks, maybe he cracks too, a little. She said the whole thing reminded her of me. I can see why. It's grainy and dark and the main character is quiet, serious, out of place, shabby in dark clothes, with long-fingered hands, unshaven jaw and he uses ridiculous words. And he's completely lost, utterly devastated. Although those are things I've only picked up in the last six months.

Figure she wanted me to watch it so she could curl againt me with that knowing smile and nudge me whenever he did something that I do. Make jokes about how she deserves copyright payments for putting up with me. Kiss the corner of my mouth, realize I haven't shaved and nudge me again, bursting out in that huge, inappropriate laugh of hers. And I'd probably mutter at her and go back to my book, scribbling things in the margins and glancing at the movie over the top of it and my glasses. All of which will make her nudge me and demand to know why I'm in a film with ginger hair.

Instead I watched it alone in the basement, without reading, without any distractions for once. And without laughing. When he nearly cried, I nearly cried. But it doesn't take much to shove me to the edge of almost-crying. God only knows what it would take to make me actually cry, though, because that hasn't happened yet. Not because I'm a terrible person. Not because I didn't love her. Not because I don't miss her, God no, not that. But because nothing's pushed me to the point of shouting yet. Almost, teetered right on the edge of it a few times. Just cracking and yelling that she's dead, she's fucking dead and gone and never coming back. And the dam will break and my voice will crack and I'll cry. Probably in a heap on the floor. It won't bring her back, but it'd be nice to stop carrying it around, just for a little while.

#183

This blog is starting to strongly resemble my apartment; empty apart from ghosts. Despite knowing that I don't need to defend this recent inability to post anything...things have been chaotic. An old, old friend dumped her fiance of five years and came to visit; my liver has barely recovered.The godson's summer vacation is almost upon me and, true to form, I had done nothing until this weekend when a sudden flurry of activity saw me repainting the hall, main bedroom, guest bedroom, and finally refitting the bathroom cabinets. Godson's mother finally called, after being unreachable for six months and leaving her son to the mercy of my dubious parenting skills. She was hysterical, sobbing, almost incoherent, it would almost have been better if she hadn't called. And of course, because it is summer and the weather has been fabulous and because I am busier than ever...the most atrocious chest infection has struck and combined with my asthma and smoking to render me incapable of walking to the front door without wheezing dramatically.

And that, solitary reader (who am I kidding, this is more like a diary) is what has driven me back to writing. Because sometimes, being ill is sort of nice. When there's someone at home who you've been thinking that you don't see enough of, drifting together after midnight to growl and snore and wrestle over the sheets, one of you always rising early and leaving the other still mumbling, curling around your impression in the mattress. Then one of you is sick, just a little, enough to wriggle your way out of work and spend the day prone on the sofa watching old childhood movies and lazily heating canned soup. Your healthier partner slips out of work early to fester on the sofa with you, catching you watching Mary Poppins and promising not to tell anyone. That's when it's almost nice to be sick. This, this is a fucking disaster.

Because, of course, this is the first time I've been sick and alone. The first time for everything hurts like hell, but after seven months it's been a while since I did anything for the first time since I lost them. It's been a long time since I was sick at all, it was her most recently. Well, not recently, it was almost a year ago now that she had the most atrocious morning sickness. And now it's my turn, except it's not the same when the flat is empty and you haven't spoken to another human being in six days and the nagging worry at the back of your mind is that this asthma attack may, in fact, be your last.

All I can think about, apart from this wretched coughing and wheezing, is that two years ago I had dengue fever (the last time I was unwell) and she was there, throughout the misery. Through shivering and headaches and bonebreaking aches and sky-high fever and IV bags. All I remember is being miserable and delirious and the feeling of her hand on my forehead, of cold cloths on my face and chest. Then, of course, just as I got out of hospital and staggered home; her cheek felt hot against mine, fever-bright eyes, and back we went to the hospital - roles reversed.

I suppose the short version is that I miss the shared misery just as much as I miss everything else.

#167

I came back a week ago, slightly jetlagged, vaguely reeling and entirely exhausted. Naturally, I fell right back into working eighteen hour days filling my nights with sawdust, bourbon and silence wild parties. Flicked my way to Blogger almost every evening, at the usual time of zero dark thirty. But then, a thought finally occurred, a thought that strikes me periodically and usually shakes me out of a slump for a little while. It's not particularly deep, or even particularly pretty, but it works for me: if you always do what you've always done, then you'll always get what you've always gotten*. So I ditched the blog (without any guilt, honestly, I doubt anyone noticed.) and the bourbon (well...I stopped drinking it alone...mostly) and the basement, all in favour of doing something more socially accepted healthy.

It worked, I guess. I've joined a gym, which is something that is long overdue but I hate doing. Gym bunnies tend to look askance at cripples with canes asking about membership so it's one of those things which requires...well, a spine. Perseverance paid off and I unearthed my ideal gym, run by a grizzled old guy with an artificial leg. Naturally I got so over-excited that I absolutely maintained my cool, suave exterior and didn't at all exclaim that it was bloody brilliant that he'd lost a limb. Sometimes...sometimes I really wonder how I've survived this long in polite society. I thought I was forgiven and then he challenged me to a race up the Arch climbing wall, said he'd been looking for someone who was on an even footing with him. I lost, emphatically. Re-match in a fortnight.

All of this is good, undoubtedly. Creeping my way slowly out of isolation and the twin prisons of work and the basement. But things still set me back and some sights or smells or sounds trigger intense memories or flashbacks and feed my nightmares. All of that conspires to make this feel less like progress and more like a prolonged flaying. I wasn't happy alone, in the dark and peace and thick wood-smell of the basement, I wasn't happy curled up in the bottom of a bottle and I'm still not happy. Except now I'm not happy in public, which seems worse somehow, to be seen to twitch and shake and sweat and remember, to zone out of conversations or stare oddly off into corners. But then...if you always do what you've always done...right?

* Yes, I know "gotten" makes my inner (British English) language nerd cringe desperately. Unfortunately it's a quotation so I feel obliged to keep the blasted thing intact.

#157 OR home movies

My shrink had me recording my evenings for five nights, initially it was a little unsettling to be recording myself but by the end of it I'd forgotten. Poor bugger had to sit through hours and hours of me talking to myself, getting drunk and generally being a basket case. He hasn't told me exactly what he thought, he's cutting together a best-of selection of my insanity. Something to show the grandchildren, for sure. He wanted to see what I'm not telling him, which is a lot. No hiding from the video camera though. He said watching me wake up from the fifth nightmare was pretty hard for him. I was a touch scornful. It's pretty fucking hard to live with, thanks. And he touched me. Not a handshake for only the third time in our illustrious decade-long history (first - I punched him, second - he hugged me) a strange, strong grip on the back of my neck and telling me very firmly while glaring that we will. Fix. This. I hope he's right.

It reminded me of home movies; got a bunch of them in the spare room that I haven't watched since January. There's never going to be a good time to track them all down and spend my time lost in hours of footage of my family. I prefer to carry an SLR but for a while took to hauling around the video camera as well (residual guilt from splurging on it in duty free, why does everything seems like a good idea at the airport?) and I'm glad I did. Glad that flight was delayed so I spent seven hours wandering the endless corridors of Bangkok's vast (and unpronounceable) airport. I have a few clips on my laptop which made me smile, re-watching them today. A smile! At a memory, a first, a relief, the end of this misery is in sight. It's all of sixty seconds, a friend is holding the camera, shaking, sound of him laughing and my wife shushing him. She creeps into frame, holding a saucepan of water, the camera pans across a little to me; asleep in a hammock strung across the porch. As she gets closer her grin gets wider and the camera shakes harder, my eyes open too late, she's already upended the pan and I'm soaked, disoriented and finally - flat on my ass on the deck. The two pranksters are roaring with laughter which turns to squeals as I pull her down onto me, grip her in a tight, wet hug and shake cold water from my hair onto her upturned face.

Christ, I can't believe it's June. Time is crawling and flying. In much the same way as this apartment is too full and too empty.

#153 OR hanakotoba

Nights like these I wish I didn't remember things so clearly. It all seems to disturbingly tangible. As though, if I just tried hard enough I could reach out and touch them. Sometimes I wake up as if she's lying right there with her lips in the hollow above my collarbone. For a blurry half-second I wonder why I can't feel her breath there. I don't move, don't open my eyes. Remember countless nights of insomnia; wide awake in the warm night, the weight of her down my left side, her hand on my chest. Eventually, through the soft dark the same muttered words as always "stop thinking, it's too loud" and she rolls away, collapses onto her back, smoothing the hair from her face with the back of her forearm. Flips the sheet up and I can hear her smiling in the dark as the cotton drifts back down slowly. Press a kiss to her temple, an apology. Hand on my cheek, scratch of stubble  against her palm, lips on mine; curved in a smile.

I'm looking for a tattoo artist, a good one. I met one today, recommended, we talked about how to finish a piece, about how I left in the middle of it. She traced her fingers over the lines on my wrist. Oddly intimate. Couldn't remember why.

Couldn't remember why.

It hit me on the train on the way home and I was doubly appalled. I couldn't remember. It's just the beginning of things slipping away, it will happen and it will hurt every time but this first forgetting... This first desperate grasping for information left me speechless. Remembering on the train; her fingers tracing lines of oil onto my fresh tattoo. Inspecting it, memorizing it the way we learned each others scars and ink. So relieved that I remembered, at last. And still so upset about forgetting. Hunched over on the plastic seat, flickering lights of the tube, hands folded on my cane, head on the back of my hands. Eyes closed. Can almost feel her fingers again. Remember her laughing and pointing a stern finger at me as she discovered the hidden letters, the date. Her name, hidden in the crests of a wave. Anniversary tucked away along the edge of a lotus petal. She told me not to, but I couldn't resist. Two years later she was pointing the same finger at me, making me promise to put our daughter's birthday in there somewhere. She drew a flower, an Iris, to hold her name, date of birth. She studied Japanese, lived there for six months, explained Hanakotoba and researched flowers to include in the design. There's space for more, luckily. A Red Spider Lily*, Sweet Pea** and of course, her Iris.

Missed my stop. Walked home with her fingers ghosting up my arm.




*Red Spider Lily - never to meet again
Lotus - far from the one he loves
**Sweet Pea - goodbye
Iris - good news, glad tidings

#151 OR 500 miles

There are very few people who can persuade me to answer the phone the first time they call. Usually I subscribe to the belief that if it's important enough, they'll call again. My godson gets me to answer every time; I'm his guardian, there's no dodging the phone calls, even if most of the time they seem to be for cash or sex tips. I'm glad he calls, I'm glad he want to talk to me and I'm unspeakably pleased that he has people that will love him no matter what. His Mother is my oldest friend and this year has been a very strange year for her and I. This year Godson turned thirteen; I received an email from his Mom which was just a subject line and two attached photos. One picture was Godson, grinning cheekily at the camera, all blonde floppy hair and white teeth. The second picture was a scanned polaroid; me holding him, he's maybe a year old and wrapped up in my jacket, I'm sitting in the back of an old Jeep in my shirtsleeves, I remember being freezing, driving 500 miles with Godson and his Mom to escape our families. I turned thirteen that year too.

I haven't held many babies in my life, only two that I held for any length of time without trying to hand them on to someone else as quickly as possible. Godson, of course, it was a long way and I held him for almost all of the two days while she drove. And my daughter, all too briefly. I thought of Godson then, in the hospital. Remembered desperately trying to keep him warm in my jacket and living in constant fear of running out of money or running into a family member. I promised Godson's Mom that I'd keep him safe, no matter what, from everything we'd run away from. It's worked out so far, sometimes by the skin of our teeth and most of the time through good luck rather than good planning. But we've managed it for thirteen years, mostly her work with me providing back-up. I promised the same thing to my daughter, the day she was born. In the end though, I wasn't there when they needed it most.

That colours every conversation with Godson. I can't promise to keep him safe no matter what, because things don't work out that way. I can promise to do my best. But that's nowhere near as reassuring to me. Because I wasn't there.

#147 OR catharsis

I am, currently, on a train to Manchester for a cheering visit to a cemetery and a few bitter, rain-filled hours contemplating the grave of an old friend. A decade now since he died and I haven't been back to the city in eight of those years. It's not as though he'd know if I didn't bother to show on the ten year anniversary of his death...but still. I couldn't stay away. It seems (implausibly) rude somehow, to carry on blithely with my small, unimportant little life when Manchester is only a few hours away. What's so crucial that I can't spend the weekend up there, visit my old haunts and marvel at how much and how little everything has changed? Nothing. So here I am. Well. Here I almost am, god bless the British rail system. I've actually spent the last ninety minutes trying to avoid the eye of a morose-looking sheep which is standing outside my window. Same sheep, for ninety minutes. We're moving that fast.

From Manchester on to India, to see what might have been. If I'd been a few shades braver or perhaps a few more sheets to the wind. I've bought a return ticket and have appointments made for the week of my return, all of which are tiny, unimportant reasons to return to the grey of London and the drizzle and my empty apartment. But then it's the unimportant reasons which tend to matter most to me. A very English way of thinking, particularly for a man who is not English. I don't like tea, though, so my assimilation is not quite complete.

I am still intermittently heartsick and aching and carrying this hollow feeling in my chest. Perhaps this trip is an escape, part catharsis and part running away and a slightly creepy imagining of what my life could have been like if things had gone differently. I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I booked the tickets, only that I was a hair's breadth away from selecting one-way rather than return. I know that I'll see her there, too. That there's really no escape from this, no matter how far I run. Perhaps it's just a visit to old friends, to catch up with their new daughter and to help him renovate the ramshackle old house he's bought. Maybe we won't mention the adjacent plot of land where we planned to build a house for my family. Won't talk about how his oldest son is only two days older than my daughter would have been. Maybe I can leave the ghosts at home, for once. Locked up in that empty apartment, behind the door of the spare room.

If all goes to plan, the next few posts will appear while I am off gallivanting around Southern India. Of course, this train journey could be an omen. In which case anything could happen, most probably photographs of sad-eyed sheep will show up in their stead.

#144 OR paper or plastic?

Just hung up on my ex mother in law. Again. She's called regularly over the last four (how has it been so long already?) months. Three times today, which is slightly above average, usually she rounds out at a good four times a week. I'm thinking about changing my phone number rather than answering. She leaves voicemails periodically. She's worried, I'm exiling myself for no reason, I need to talk to someone, she doesn't want to lose me, I need family...the reasons I should pick up that she comes up with have been interesting. I'm not entirely sure why she thinks she knows what I need, or why she thinks I have any family left now. An estranged uncle who communicates with me through our lawyers. I haven't seen him since...actually I have no idea. He phoned after my cousin's funeral and that was a good five years ago.

I'm not completely heartless; I answered the first few phone calls. Figured she'd settle down after a while, maybe switch to email or a call once a month or something. But she calls all the damn time! And I'm sympathetic, I really am (mostly) but what she wants is her daughter and I'm not a replacement. Both times I met the woman it was over her daughter's hospital bed. Each conversation with her and each voicemail reinforces how little she knows me. Nobody tells me I "need" to do anything, it's a guaranteed way to send me off in the opposite direction.

I don't really understand how families work, not really, so maybe that's part of my reluctance to answer. I left my abusive parents when I was thirteen years old and haven't seen a single member of my family since. So I really have no idea how to deal with someone trying to mother me, even my own mother never tried to and really, I think it's a little late in life for me to be adopting a parental figure.

I called her mother, after the accident. I was eerily calm on the phone, dialling, giving the news, hanging up, dialling the next member of her family. I met her mom in Hong Kong airport for only the second time; I never was one for grand family reunions, my wife went home alone each summer for two weeks. She was ghostly pale, holding herself carefully upright, I gripped her arm and by the time we got into a taxi, I was all that was holding her up. She was silent throughout the six weeks we spent watching and waiting and clutching onto threads of hope. Afterwards...she was in pieces. I arranged everything, filled in reams of paperwork, filed reports and certificates and got permissions, booked plane tickets, half carried her to the airport, delivered her to her wife in Amsterdam airport. Got myself, somehow, to London. Accompanied by two small, light, white plastic boxes. That's what I remember most clearly about the funeral home. A charming Cantonese girl with a devastatingly white smile asking me if I preferred a metal or plastic container. Like at the supermarket; paper or plastic? I laughed and hated myself for it.

If I could give her what she wanted I would do it. In a second. But I can't, because what she wants is her daughter and granddaughter. So while I understand that she's distraught and that I am a complete bastard...I still decline her calls.

#141 OR withered petals

I have a problem with jasmine.

Actually, as you've probably guessed, I have a problem with many things. Today it is jasmine. Courtesy of a woman at the train station who swept past me, knocking into my shoulder and leaving me reeling. Not because of the knock, I'm not so fragile, because of her perfume. Not overpowering, which made it worse; the scent elusive, drifting, awful. The memory of smells and tastes is so much stronger than the others. The quicker to open old wounds, to twist the hollow in my chest and leave me standing, aghast in a crowd of pushing strangers.

Jasmine grew over the deck, crept up the posts and pushed tentative tendrils through the cracks in the planks. The flowers opened in the evening, as the sun set and enveloped the house in a cloud of jasmine perfume. She made jasmine tea, harvesting the small white flowers in the early morning, a basket of them, petals tightly furled. More than once I woke surrounded by the smell, confused in the early morning light, to find her kneeling, concentrating with that small frown, over a sheet covered in tiny white flowers. Picking the best of them and periodically standing to press the rejected flowers into the mosquito net, held there by fragile green stems. That night the rejects would open for the last time, still clutched in the net. She'd lure me to bed at six, early, flickering orange light of the lamp on her skin, warm against mine. The smell of jasmine curling around us.

Standing in the middle of a throng of pushing commuters, I recalled this poem:

The Wind, One Brilliant Day

The wind, one brilliant day, called
to my soul with an odor of jasmine.

"In return for the odor of my jasmine,
I'd like all the odor of your roses."

"I have no roses; all the flowers
in my garden are dead."

"Well then, I'll take the withered petals
and the yellow leaves and the waters of the fountain."

The wind left. And I wept. And I said to myself:
"What have you done with the garden that was entrusted to you?"

Antonio Machado
Translated by Robert Bly

Which left me so much more stricken than the smell of jasmine alone. That final question echoing in the hollow of my chest.

#138 OR spine unbroken

I say it gets easier. I say there's light at the end of this exceptionally dark tunnel. I say it was worth it. That I'd get married again. That I'm fine. That work is a good distraction. That I have hobbies and friends, as though any of those things compensate for family. I say that I'll call you back, that this time I will email, that I'll come visit, come stay, that I'll be at your wedding, definitely. That I'm thrilled your wife is pregnant, that your nephew won a race, that you'll be in town in July and we will be having drinks, that I can't wait to see you. I say I'll book a holiday, relax, enjoy being alone for once. That I'll get in touch with my last living relative and finally let him know what happened. That I'll text you back, sure. That I'll come out, watch you drink and dance. That I approve of your new girlfriend, that I'll meet you in Soho. That I'm fascinated by the details of your new business. That I enjoyed the book you lent me and returned to you, spine unbroken. That I have somewhere to go this summer. That I have plans for Christmas, already. That I have plans for life, that I'm going somewhere, that I have ambitions. That I've started drawing again, don't worry. That I'm not spending too much time alone. That I'm sleeping better, without pills. That I'm taking my medication and going to the doctor. That I'm eating right and talking about things. That I feel better. Really.

What I don't ask is why people are letting me get away with these huge lies? Enormous, blatant lies. Easily disproved lies that I tell straight to their face, looking them right in the eye. Perhaps the truth is too uncomfortable, it certainly is for me. I prefer the lie, the dream, the fantasy, the few elusive seconds before I'm truly awake when I believe they're here with me. Why tell the truth? Why let people see that behind closed doors I'm a wreck and perhaps the string tying me together is made up of threads of memories and dreams and ghosts. The only person I trusted to see me like this is gone, the person who saw what I meant rather than what I said, the one person I allowed to care. It hasn't been long, but already I'm not even sure how she managed it. Where the cracks in my stonewalling are, the tiny spaces she infiltrated now closed in self defence. No more, not again, certainly not yet. Too easy, once people are inside, to be hurt again. Too easy to be seen. Really seen and known and the full extent of this pain exposed to strangers. No. I prefer the lie, the stonewalling, the safety. I prefer to return the book, spine unbroken.

#135 OR outrunning

One day off a week, and I have no idea what to do with it. In a way I wish I was new to this city, then I'd feel obliged to explore it instead of having this pervasive feeling of apathy. Wanderlust, too. Wishing I'd chosen another path, there were two choices back in January - a job in London and one in Goa, India. I chose London because it was familiar and because I had planned to move to India with my family...around now actually, June, we were due to leave Cambodia and start afresh. She was so excited, we'd been on holiday there a year ago, loved the chaos, the press of people, the noise, the heat, the colours. Mostly loved her being happy. And now, here, looking out at rain-soaked grey buildings I can't remember why I turned it down. Fear, obviously. Afraid of falling to pieces dramatically and being unable to cope, of letting my friend down and ruining his new business, of moving alone to a new country - even though I've done it before, frequently. But there's a stark difference between being alone and being bereft.

Maybe tomorrow I'll write a resignation letter. Imagine being on a plane next week, packing up the shabby old kit bags that have survived so many ridiculous adventures and just leaving. Locking up all the memories of them in this flat and taking myself off, away, somewhere warm and bright and spend my days working on something that matters. There's a space for me there, already planned and waiting. Space for three, and I'd still feel bereft, of course. I know from bitter experience that there's no way to outrun myself, however hard I try. But maybe a purpose? A new language to learn, new children to teach, living with friends, maybe it would work. Soothe the raw ache in my chest somehow. Maybe it would hurt more, finding myself once again on a long-haul flight, turned away into the window and wondering what the fuck happened. Maybe it would recall too strongly the flight home in January, a stark reminder of explaining to the check-in girl why there was only one passenger instead of three. Of crowding myself into the airplane bathroom, kneeling, almost a month since I lost them and finally, finally wracked with sobs so harsh my lips cracked and bled, burnt with acid when the wrenching made me vomit. Keening, curled and spent on the tiny floorspace. Harsh, acrid misery, white knuckles gripping the sink, shaking, not recognizing the dark-eyed, gaunt man in the mirror. Returning to my seat, one of a bank of three. Two of them empty.

#132 OR puzzle pieces

Dinner with old friends tonight. Christ. Awful. Pretentious city bar with generic dark decor and glass tables, vase of beheaded flower stems on the table, full of bankers with their ties hanging from jacket pockets. I'm out of place, got caught up in my work, had to make do with the clothes I keep in the workshop. The mirror over the table reveals, barely, through too low light, a scattering of sawdust still in my hair. I smell of fresh cut wood and epoxy, bandaged hand where I was too avant-garde with a chisel. Our friends are in suit pants, tailored shirts and gelled hair, clean shaven, too much cologne. I barely recognise them from the idiots I met stealing road signs outside University halls. Somehow our roles have reversed; at Uni I was the smart one, always smart and well dressed, they were sure I'd be an advertising exec - a wanker in a tight suit. Somewhere along the line they became the executives with the tidy wives and the pressed shirts and the children and I...I became someone else entirely.

When something terrible happens, something life changing, something which completely alters your perception of yourself and the way you live your life, the way you do everything; you're broken down. You're in pieces and have to work to put yourself back together. Some things are simply thrown out, some are reforged, reshaped, twisted and turned until they fit somehow in the new you that's being created. It happened when I crippled myself, it's happening now. And somewhere in all of that I stopped being the guy that wore snappy suits and stole road signs with his friends. Now I turn up to swanky city bars covered in sawdust, wearing steel capped boots and plaid shirts, I wouldn't choose these friends. I'm not the same person, and my 18 year old self would have had nothing to do with this guy. I'd have wondered why he couldn't afford cologne instead of eau de woodwork.

The first time I put all the pieces back together I somehow became the man that disappears overnight to have frantic adventures on the other side of the world and has to send postcards to let people know he got married. Somewhere in that wreckage I became the guy that steps up and volunteers for things. I liked that guy. I was certain that I was a good man, my wife was proud and endlessly frustrated by me. I took that to mean that I was doing the right things. Now, I'm not quite sure.

Everything's all mixed up and tumbled around and spread out on the floor of the spare room with her life. I've been back in London for four months and still wake, disoriented, straining for the sound of cicadas. I'm not sure where the old pieces fit or what the hell to do with these new pieces; these jagged red and black slivers of grief and guilt and fear that have somehow become mixed up with the familiar, worn edges of the pieces I knew so well. They'll fit, eventually but I get the feeling I'll lose some more friends, put up some more walls and maybe those new sharp pieces will re-shape the old ones into something else I don't recognize.

I never did have the patience for jigsaws.

#130 OR teapot gin

A dance last weekend. One of her favourites, a monthly affair, themed. We used to go religiously. Last night I took a male friend. Dusted off an appropriate outfit; still in the dry cleaner's bag with her dress; an unpleasant surprise, the familiar feel of the silk between my fingers. Still held in the same place, even the dreadful lights are the same. Recognize some of the people, some of the outfits, definitely know the MC. I'm holding my breath as soon as we step through the archway. Bugger.

This was a big mistake. Huge. What was I thinking? Nefarious (names changed to protect the incurably indecent) has my arm, wrangles me into a chair. Drinks, he says. Being drunk will cure everything. He's at the bar for eons and I'm five years ago in the same suit, watching a tiny dark-eyed woman in a silver dress wend her way over to me. Excuse me, she says, my husband is a terrible bore and won't dance with me. Her eyes are mischievous, smile curling at the corner of her lips. Would you mind stepping in? I gesture to my cane, leg, shrug apologetically. She's got my hands, this time she won't take no for an answer. The next song's slow, we're not doing the jitterbug. She knows, requested it to lure me onto the dancefloor. She hooks my cane over the back of my chair, leads onto the dancefloor, leads the dance too. I murmur my complaints into her hair, her cheek pressed against my chest. Hand wrapped around hers, one arm around her back, the flat of her palm under my jacket. We don't move much, no athetics. After a handful of songs she's pestering me to see if I'm in pain. I am and I don't care, she's happy. It's the end of the night by the time we wander back to our things, trying not to lean too heavily on her. Someone's twirling my cane, joking about some people taking the theme too far. Hands it over, stammering, makes a joke about the war - and I'm the one taking the theme too far? She smiles up at me, something about being a hero, distracted by her wide smile, the hands on the small of my back and pressing my cane into my hand.

Nefarious is shaking my shoulder. Shit, yes. Now. I'm here. Present. I spend the entire evening drifting between memories of her in this hall and Nefarious. He succeeds in pulling me into one dance and then I retire, prefer to be the voyeur. Prefer to sit back and drift. We went there so often when we lived in London, annually when we returned, strangers smile and nod; remember me vaguely. It's hard not to recall her laughing, red lipstick, all dressed up; joking about not spending this much time getting ready in the past twelve months back home. Doesn't believe me when I say she's exactly as beautiful after all this effort as she is after showering in the rain. Punches me in the arm, should have said earlier, she wouldn't have bothered. Smiles, kisses my cheek and scrubs off the red lipstick with her fingers. Mostly I watch her flirt and dance and smile, stealing glances back at me all the time. Sometimes we take friends to our evening. They ask how I can watch her flirting and dancing. It's easy. She comes back to me. With an undignified crash into the seat beside me, pressed close, hand under my jacket, lips warm against my ear; "did you see him? He was far more handsome than you. I think I will let him take me home." Grinning wickedly before pulling me down into fierce kisses. She always came back to me.

#128 OR distance

She left me once. It wasn't all roses. In fact it wasn't ever roses. I tend towards practical gestures rather than the beheading of flora. After an argument in Paris she forgave me because I de-iced her car, left the heater running and slipped handwarmers in her coat pockets. She ran back up six flights of stairs to tell me I was ridiculous and that was forgiveness. Back home it was checking her shoes for scorpions, the eaves for snakes, brewing tea and spending two hours a week painting every crack with roach repellant. It took us a while to fit together like that. What seems mysterious and intriguing in a stranger isn't quite so fascinating when you have to deal with his silent grouching twenty four hours a day.

She left because I could never find the words. A recurring problem for me. She told me she loved me first, of course. I'd already loved her for weeks, assumed she knew because I already knew she loved me before she said a word. After a few weeks of waiting for me to realize that sometimes words are required she was gone when I came home from University. I had no way of calling her; we had no cell phones, no landline in our shabby little apartment, wasn't even sure where she'd gone. I didn't know what to do. At the time, I wasn't even sure why she'd gone. There was nothing to tell me what she was thinking. I'd like to tell you that a bloody great clue finally slapped me upside the head when I was so confused at her lack of communication, but it did not. So smart in some ways and so very, very dense in others.

She came back, of course. It was a week later when I tripped over her backpack as I came through the door. She was curled in her chair, asleep after her flight. She looked like hell and I finally realized how upset she must have been (that clue finally arrived, heralded by a sonic boom) paler, thinner, dark circles under her eyes. That was my fault, God, I loathed myself. Knelt in front of the chair, knees creaking on the floorboards, rubbed my hand over her thighs, watched her wake slowly. Always a struggle for her, a gradual shaking off of dreams; scared the hell out of her when she first saw me snap awake, instantly aware and grabbing for whoever woke me. The first thing she said? "I'm sorry. I didn't see it." Some things you can't see close up, some things need a broader view, a little distance to get them in perspective. To see what I wasn't saying.

Her hand was cold on mine, frowning, serious, nipping at her bottom lip.

"I need you to say it. Just once. Not now, just...sometime. I know you do. But just once, just this time, I need words."

I did say it. And I remember it so clearly, not just because it was the first time, but because it was one of only five times I told her. In the hospital, when the nurse asked me to talk to her (they're so convinced, against all evidence, that somehow talking will make a difference.) I still couldn't say it. It was reassuring to still be choked for words right at the end. A relief to know that I didn't regret being unable to say I loved her. She knew. For each of those five sets of three words there were countless actions, gestures and looks. She was an expert at reading me, always said it was that week away which brought me into focus. Not that being an expert ever stopped her from calling me ridiculous, or from introducing me to her best friend as a functional mute. She joked, when she found herself talking about 'forever', that she hoped I'd die first because I'd never find another interpreter if I lost her. She envisaged me living alone on top of a mountain, wearing a hair shirt and frightening off climbers with my inarticulate growling.

It's tempting.

#126 OR avoidance

Our friends mean well. They call with advice, with sympathy and drop by for cups of tea, or with food. Don't bring their children, even though I'd like to see them. Get the feeling I'm being handled carefully, know that they call each other about me. Check who has visited, what to bring, whether I've completely shut down yet. They want to do the right thing, to find the magic combination of words that will make me laugh in spite of everything. That's the trouble. Those magic words "in spite of everything" seem to follow everything I do that isn't simply breaking down and sobbing. It doesn't help that most of them are couples, I can't pinpoint when that happened, when my friends stopped being Frank the Twat and started being Frank, Ethel and Junior. It's the natural evolution of things. And now I'm an aberration in the group. Well, "now" - we were different before but acceptably different. People don't tend to understand when you flit off to the other side of the world and send long, rambling emails describing your fantastic new home. They tend to reply with sensible things like - "I thought you had no water?" Yes, and things are still great! "No power?" Well, no. You should come and stay! "Perhaps...perhaps you two could visit us in London? Next year?" But those are things you choose to do, friends don't understand and definitely don't want to join you, but they get used to seeing you once a year, vastly different and with mad stories which couldn't possibly happen in Europe.

This is different. This is tragic and sudden and heartbreaking and I always had the feeling we had friends because of her. Because she broke the ice, because she answered the phone, because she was cheerful and charming and open, the exact opposite of me. And now I find myself in a group or on the phone and I'm grasping for conversation, for actual words because suddenly listening and being goaded into telling stories or providing the punch line isn't enough. They expected me to change, of course, impossible not to change. But this isn't part of that, it's just how I always was except now there's no one to translate for me; no quiet hand on my thigh under the table when too many people and too much inane chatter drives me quietly mad. No one telling me categorically that we are going out and that we are getting dressed and that we will make conversation and that if I'm not ready to go in half an hour I'm never getting laid again. No one timing me from by the front door with my own watch, snapping the case shut as I fumble with keys, cellphone, cane and with my wallet in my teeth, she removes the wallet, tucks the watch into my pocket; I'm one minute late. She'll grant a reprieve, smiling against my lips.

Now I don't go. I don't even answer the phone. I went twice, two meals. Awful, dire. Ducked out to smoke twenty times, to answer imaginary phone calls and finally just left early. It's almost worse that they mean well and still don't know what to do. I stick to the same handful of friends who have known me for years, single and married, can fall back on inside jokes and one word sentences. Easy friends, comfortable friends. Actual friends. I feel as though I should see her friends, they want to talk about her, want to feel near her. But I can't give them that. Not yet. I feel like I should just make the effort, give them what they want. It'll hurt, give me a miserable few days before and after but surely I can do that, for her friends? Apparently not. Bastard.