My Beloved Family

Sampson wet the bed again last night. I went in to wake him at 7.15 and the rancid odour, exacerbated by that general teenage sweat smell, gathered in my nostrils. I put him in the shower tray, still in his pyjamas, and turned on the water. After piling the sheets in the hall for my wife to deal with, I looked around Sampson’s room. Everything had a road or bridge theme. There were dozens of road atlases on the bookshelf: Britain, France, the US, Canada all featured. He also had heavy coffee table tomes with titles like ‘Great Bridges of the World’. Big posters of open road scenes and famous suspension bridges obscured the woodchip walls. For most people, these images would be all about freedom. Sampson, however, was afraid of cars and road journeys. It had taken three weeks of attempts to get him into the taxi for his special school, and if the driver he tolerated took a holiday, he had to stay home.

Having wiped down the rubber sheet over the mattress, I went back into the bathroom. Sampson had his head tipped back, eyes open, letting his mouth fill with the shower water until it overflowed and ran off each side of his jaw. I opened the glass door and knelt down to take him out of his pyjamas; water pooled on the tiles around my knees. Sampson bared his teeth, peeling back his slightly spiky top lip, as I shampooed his lank hair and soaped his skinny body.

My wife didn’t emerge, musty with sleep, until I’d towelled and dressed him and given him a bowl of porridge with glossy golden syrup. Sampson spat out his mouthful when she arrived at the kitchen door; he knelt next to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, grabbing onto the dressing gown cord. She patted him absently then brushed his arms off.

She sat down. She didn’t say anything to me and I didn’t say anything to her. I watched Sampson pressing over-full spoons of porridge into his mouth, laughing grimly inside, as I often did, at my wife’s choice of name for our only son. She’d said, a day after his birth, that she wanted to call him Sampson. I joked that he’d end up with very long hair, just in case; she stared at me, not getting it. I couldn’t be bothered to explain, so I let it go and the name remained.

His taxi hooted outside so I wiped Sampson’s face and took him onto the pavement, shoes velcroed on. The driver wound down his window.

‘Morning, good sir! How about a ride? We’ll listen to the railway tour audiobook, if you like.’

Sampson didn’t say anything, but he got gratefully into the back of the car.

‘Thanks, mate,’ I said to the driver, who smiled briefly and set off.

I went to work, but spent most of the day trolling cat videos on the internet. Pornographic sites were filtered, that’s why.

That evening, while Sampson and my wife watched a talent show on the TV, I put in my earphones and got my fix using the laptop. The double penetration was quite interesting, but I was bored after an hour or so. By then it was time to put Sampson to bed. I saw that the sheets were still in a pile outside the boy’s bedroom; my wife had forgotten to wash them. I prodded them tentatively; they felt pretty much dry so I just stretched the sheet back over Sampson’s rubber mattress protector and stuffed his duvet into the cover. It would be alright for another night. He’d probably just wet it again.

At that point, inspiration struck me. I went to the junk drawer in the kitchen, dug through the dud batteries and free casino matchbooks to find a rubber band.

I helped Sampson brush his teeth with the strawberry-flavoured toothpaste (his mouth clamped shut at even the aroma of ordinary mint toothpaste) and got him into his pyjamas. Once he’d climbed into bed with his bridges book I pulled back the duvet. He ignored me, captivated by images of the Bosphorus Bridge, as I dragged down his pyjama trousers. His penis flopped out (quite girthy, I couldn’t help noticing) and I wrapped the rubber band around it, doubling it over a few times so it was snug. Sampson didn’t seem bothered, so it can’t have been too tight.

I went to bed, leaving my wife watching a horror film in which the sheer power of some people’s meditative skill could explode the heads of others.

In the morning, I got up, only just realising that my wife hadn’t come to bed, and went in to wake Sampson, as usual. He was pale faced against the navy pillowcase. I hauled back the duvet to see if my ploy had worked. There wasn’t a urine patch, but a slightly bloody stain. I tugged down Sampson’s trousers and his dick tipped onto the sheet. He mewled pathetically. The stump seeped a grotesque mixture of urine and blood – even at a time like this, he couldn’t help wetting the bed. I turned to see that my wife was at the door: she saw the accident and slumped against the doorjamb as through she’d been sniped. I sighed, stepped over her body, went out of the front door, got in the car and started driving. 

Loose Corner

Kurt and I were in the bath together. His long fair hair was slicked down and the ends curled up on his slender shoulders. I made him take the tap end; sometimes, no matter how beautiful someone is, you have to put yourself in front of them. He sat slightly forward as a result, his feet nestling up near my armpits. Really, there wasn’t enough room for two grown men in that bath, but it was still something we liked to do together.

Kurt and I reached for our glasses of red wine and took a sip simultaneously; both giggling as though we both read into the synchronicity then dismissed our own silly conclusions. He looked so lovely then, lightly steaming up the inside of his wine glass as his sniggered through his nose. I thought: Kurt, I will love you forever. Let us grow old together. I gently niggled at his ribs with my big toes, making him squirm like a child dodging a hug.

‘Stop,’ he said, but cutely, like he didn’t mean it. I did stop anyway. Just in case.

‘I think we should buy some chickens. Keep them in the back garden,’ I said; just making conversation really. Kurt screwed up his face a little.

‘Ew. It would just keep reminding me that eating eggs is like eating a chicken period.’

‘Ok, how about a cat?’ I said, trying to make my eyes twinkle like Father Christmas. I’m not sure how a person can do that, maybe it’s involuntary, but I tried, for effect.

‘Hmm. You’d have to clean out the litter tray. I couldn’t do that.’

‘Sure, if we could have a cat. We’d call her Geraldine.’

‘Geraldine? Bit of a silly name.’

‘Kurt… that was my grandmother’s name.’

He eyed me, suspicious I was joking.

‘I told you that.’ I added, making sure I didn’t sound hurt. Hurt by Kurt – I didn’t think that would, or should, happen again. There was a time when it was almost a mantra: I said it to myself until it felt trivial; the phrase, I mean, and hopefully the hurt too.

‘I doubt we realistically could look after a cat.’ He closed down the exchange.

He pulled a towel from the hook on the wall beside the bath, rolled it up and wedged it between his back and the tap. I tried not to stare at the loose corner, which trailed in the displaced water. Kurt noticed my look.

‘Relax, Joshie, it’s just a towel. Don’t be such a paranoid Polly.’ He called me Joshie when he was ribbing me – knowing I didn’t like it. I didn’t mention that though, I said:

‘Where did that paranoid Polly thing come from? It sounds daft.’

‘My favourite teacher said it all the time.’ He paused, winced. ‘That’s not true. When I was a kid, I had to go to a psychiatrist for a while. She babied me a bit, saying things like paranoid Polly, worrying Wally.’

I tried my best to sound tender, understanding, not shocked. ‘I didn’t know that. Why?’

‘Why did I need a psychiatrist?’

‘Yes.’

‘I beat up another kid in school.’ Kurt looked mildly surprised at his own sudden sharing.

‘That… happens quite a lot in schools doesn’t it?’

‘It was serious. The boy went to hospital.’ Kurt’s face dimmed; his eyes narrowed as they did when he was remembering something. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he for a while. I sloshed a bit of water over the rim of the bathtub while adjusting my position.

Kurt said: ‘I don’t want to talk about that anymore,’ and reached for his wine.

I thought: I only know a tiny loose corner of this man. We’ve lived together for seven years but his history is opaque to me. He dangles a kernel of his inner life for me; my misconception is that it is more than just a seed, a seed that holds the full blossoming tree of his mind and story; for me, a seed that is dormant and mostly silent. 

an eighth reflection...'rooney: the best team player in the premier league?'

In early 2-3 months of the 2013/14 season, Wayne Rooney – the White Pele,  the charging Baby Elephant, or so it used to be– has for the most part been lauded by domestic pundits for his supposed ‘return to form’. 

BBC football journalist, Garth Crooks, recently joined their number, including Rooney in BBC Sport’s team of the week for several weeks running while Manchester United’s equally over-praised revival took something approaching-but-falling-short-of-shape. 

Crooks, at least on two occasions, described Rooney as ‘the best team player in the Premier League’, a claim that goes some way to showing statistics can lie, and motives can perhaps deceive.

For Rooney is the player, that in spite of having a strong assist record, not to mention six league goals this year, as well as an active heat map (pitch coverage) this term, is also the same player who spent the majority of 2012/13 sulking because Sir Alex Ferguson would not play him in his favoured position of centre forward - instead preferring him wide-left in a 4-3-3 cum 4-5-1, so as to give United a semblance of balance - or in the centre of midfield - an area where United have been sorely lacking since the demise of Darren Fletcher.

 

Moreover, Rooney’s reaction to the arrival of Robin Van Persie, who in his first fifteen months at the club has gone some way to rivalling the impact of Eric Cantona, did not speak of a player with a utilitarian consideration of his team.  Rooney was more concerned for himself, and his self-assumed role as Bertie Big Potato (with hair, or lack of it, to match), than the greater good.

For United fans this was even more galling since, again, Rooney was and remains in the minds of many a Red, the same player who was prepared, it seemed, to move to Manchester City for what he had decided was Manchester United’s lack of ambition in the transfer market only as far back as 2010.

Indeed, Rooney’s selfish past is now limiting David Moyes’ tactical options: after all it is clear to see United need Rooney to play wide left, or partner Jones in the middle in Carrick’s absence (and in the absence of any other plausible options) until the midfield is reinvigorated, except Moyes won’t use Rooney in anything other than his favourite position for risk of upsetting the player, even though this means sticking to a rigid, and largely ineffective 4-4-2. 

And yet, all of a sudden Rooney has apparently rejuvenated, and what a surprise in World Cup year!  Rooney is, it has to be acknowledged, a player whose heavy physique and lack of professionalism off the pitch - especially for a ‘team player’ on 200k+ a week - will more than likely limit the length of his career at the top level to perhaps two, or three more years; a player for whom Brazil represents a last chance for genuine personal glory. 

Meanwhile, Manchester United’s abject performance against Cardiff, a dogged, but ultimately mediocre side in first tier terms, on Sunday, provided further evidence that Rooney’s chances of more silverware with United to adorn his very own trophy cabinet will be few and far between before his time is up.

But if Rooney is after a move away, this perhaps another reason for his rediscovered application, which team worth their proverbial salt would risk spending big money (and United will demand nothing less) on a player who wantonly kicks out at an opponent five minutes in to an important away league fixture, and risk a sending off that could jeopardise his team? Or, more to the point, which player other than a hot-headed, self-absorbed, team liability?

On Twitter Rooney describes himself as a Nike Athlete rather than associate himself with the Manchester United team he is supposed to be such a keen part, telling for the want away, want all for himself mercenary he really is today.

an eighty fifth story...'the woodpile'

Lynette got to go in the boat instead of me because she’s bigger, and the life-jacket fit her.  And I went around the back of the farm house, through the field where the rye grass is up to my head, went and sulked behind the wood pile.  It was a hot, dry afternoon, and where there was dust everywhere else, dust and yellow rye grass, and brown scrub, it was damp by the woodpile – the logs had been sprayed with the hose to keep them from catching alight. 

Presently, mama comes along and finds me, sitting on my cotton pants, legs drawn to my chin, arms folded, chin resting on my folded arms, sulking.  ‘What are you doing down there?’ she says.  ‘Nothin’’, I say.  It’s hot, hot day, but it’s damp by the woodpile and I can feel the seat of my cotton pants are damp too.  ‘Nothin’?’, says mama, ‘nothin’’, I say again, I ain’t moving anywhere, any place, unless I get to go in the boat instead of Lynette.

Mama is wearing blue dungarees, the pair she always wears, with the patchwork pockets, and she has her arms on her hips, looking down at me.  Her brown hair is up in a bun, but she's tied it loose and there’s wisps of hair hanging down around her face.  ‘I was going to do some baking’, she says when she sees I’m not responding, my eyes studying the damp earth where I’m sitting, earth that would be dust if it wasn’t so hot and the woodpile hadn’t been watered some.

‘I want to go in the boat’, I say, making it quite clear I ain’t moving, or baking.  There’s a wood-louse crawling, or drowning, under my legs, by my gym shoes.  I’m tempted to pick him up, but I ain’t moving.  ‘You need a life-jacket to go in the boat’, mama says, hands on her hips, looking down, ‘and Pa said so now didn’t he?’.  ‘I ain’t baking with you’, I say, and the heat makes mama wipe her brow with the sleeve of her blouse, and she pushes a strand of her brown hair behind her ear. 

‘Why does Lynette get to go in the boat, and not me?’, I ask, now looking up at mama from my damp seat by the woodpile.  The wood-louse has curled itself right into a ball, so it can’t yet be dead, just protecting itself.  I’m probably scowling a bit, probably still cross.  Mama has her hands back on her hips: ‘Pa says you need a life-jacket that’s big enough’, she says.  But Lynette ain’t much bigger than me, even though she’s three years older, and just because Pa said so. 

‘I ain’t baking with you’, I say, and dig the heels of my gym shoes into the damp earth, which is damp because the wood pile gets watered when it’s as hot as this.          

a seventh reflection...'gods n' ghosts'

Bill worked for a bible publisher.

When out and about people would say to him in jest, ‘how’s God these days?’

‘Send Him my regards!’

To which Bill would reply, ‘sure, but you’ll have to pay for the postage’.

Heaven is a long way away (perhaps).

Meanwhile, other more earnest types would ask him, ‘so do you believe in God?’

To which Bill would rejoinder, ‘no, and I don’t believe in Ghosts either’.

This was one of Bill’s favourite retorts.

It never failed to amuse and bemuse, was often met with nervous laughter, after which whoever it was who asked the question would totter into the next room to recharge their glass.

And Bill would smile.

Bill understood God was a concept, alive and well somewhere in his head, just as any old Ghost, but that God was not flesh or blood, as more earnest types perhaps wanted to believe, or un-believe; a man with a pointy beard and the power to levitate you six feet off the ground, in the act attracting flocks of blinded admirers.

The latter was the God the new atheists loved to hate, and they had only scorn for anyone who purported to be something of a devotee.

And yet Bill also knew that if he was ever in mortal danger, he would more than likely pray to God (the concept), for human beings need something to fall back on: moments in life can be very, very lonely (tap the side of your head - the show is, let’s face it, in there).

Moreover, if there was the thought of a Ghost lurking at the end of a dark corridor, Bill accepted he would more than likely retreat into the sanctuary of his bedroom, however much he said he didn’t believe in ghoulish apparitions.

Because in the world of human beings ‘twas and is ever thus.

In the mind, the idea of God nourishes, and gives solace.  The personification of God remains abstract or irrelevant.  He, or rather, It, does not need a form, or for that matter, a house.

The concept of Ghosts haunts, and engenders fear.  Nevertheless, their personification too, is abstract and irrelevant.  Although they live in your loaf.

a fiftieth poem...'still nothing'

This is an interlude,

I remember thinking -

The beginning of love.

I’d stand at the kitchen window,

And watch, and wait.

A flock of birds would rise

From a nearby coppice,

The telephone would ring,

Or the kettle would sing,

And only then did I return

To the business of living,

Try again to ignore

The not-knowing.

‘Stop talking to yourself!’,

I would say,

‘She will be back..

..any day’,

But before long

It was summer’s end,

Siren songs,

The first chill winds

Of a new fall.

Dusk is now mid-afternoon,

Long. thin shadows

Up the garden wall,

Still nothing from you.

an eighty fourth story...'snakes'

The sound of children’s voices trilled up the valley.  Somewhere below the veranda where Josephine lay they were at play, splashing around in the old swimming pool, or charging in and out of the almond groves.  It was hard to tell, it didn’t matter.

Josephine readjusted her position on the recliner to avoid the direct glare of the late afternoon sun.  A lizard scurried over the hot paving stones and into a crack in the wall of the farmhouse behind.  Josephine could hear her husband tinkering on the upright piano through the open shutters in the living room.  The piano was out of tune, again it didn’t matter. 

‘Stop it!’, ‘Stop it!’ - the children once more.  And there followed a gush of giddy laughter.  Josephine smiled to herself, the sun nourishing the oils in her skin, and the weight of the last year beginning to lift from her slender shoulders.  Her husband was now playing ‘Chopsticks’ – badly – and Josephine began to laugh too, and presently her whole body was convulsing with unfettered joy, joy at being alive, joy at coming back to life.  It was working, this holiday, as her husband had promised, as the doctor had said.

Out here among the olive and almond groves, the eucalyptus trees and Mediterranean pines, out here where the sky was big and blue, and the sun warm and high, out here where the only sounds were Josephine’s children at play, and her husband tunelessly unwinding, the crickets chirping, and the occasional drone of a light aircraft, there was a natural sense things would get better.  For too long Josephine had been wearing the inside out.

On the farm, surroundings were so vivid one could not fail to be absorbed.  The sun soothed, the scent of the flora and fauna delighted, the trill of her children laughing, and her husband’s piano playing charmed.  Josephine had felt peace slowly descend since their arrival a fortnight ago.  Everything was so inviting she found she was able to forget London: the cold steel and stone, the cold people, hurrying selfish, the cold winds blowing through the hard streets, tunneling down the underground, and the tube, claustrophobic and angry.  Not to mention the round, stern face of her unsmiling, uncompromising editor.

Josephine stopped laughing and sighed.  An enormous wave of relief washed over her at the knowledge she would never have to set on eyes on that man again, except maybe in the next world.  She had always held that it takes strength to be gentle and kind, and yet so many men and women of influence seemed to possess so very little of it.  She had learned life is full of people who try and bring one down, but also that she was born to walk upright, and Josephine promised herself then and there she would do so from now on, for her children, for her husband, for her health. You’re a fighter she told herself, and a champ, the late afternoon sun on her back.

It had been wonderful to be able to bring the dogs too, and both of them were stretched out, asleep, twitching with the chase in their dreams, loyal to a fault on the veranda with Josephine.  Looking down the valley, the Mediterranean gleamed in the distance some ten miles away, beyond the jumble of red roofs and white hotels congregating along the shore.  They had walked on the beach on their second evening, and her husband had held her hand and pressed tight, as if to say things are going to be alright.

‘The mind rules the body’, Josephine’s doctor had told her back in the immaculate little consultation room of his Harley street practice, in an effort to motivate her to think more positively.  Wear long sleeves and the bruises won’t show thought Josephine.  But life had continued to beat her, until at last her exasperated husband had decided to take her out of it all.

When Josephine was a child, the south of France had been her playground, holidays were there each summer.  It was the obvious place to retreat and alleviate the pressure of London living, a place she romanticised about, a place she felt was her spiritual home, where the ever so small voice of calm could be heard and heeded, a refuge where she could rediscover the child within – the tough, fun-loving, innocent creature, who still lurked inside her, albeit cowed by the brashness and cruelty of adult life.

Josephine’s husband in his own strange way had been true, and patient; her children, she decided it were best not to let know.  Life, she remembered, up to a certain age seemed endless, full of wonder and possibility – why introduce her little ones to the real world before time?  She knew her children would find out about the glass in the grass, the bad seed, sooner, or (she hoped) later, or indeed never.  For now, however, the farm was their Eden, and as yet there were no snakes in the scrub.