#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.