STONE THE CROWS

‘Stone the crows,’ I said quietly to myself as I stepped out from her maisonette into the cold along the walkway led back to my place.
‘Stone the crows,’ wondering if anyone other than me said that anymore, and wishing my Dad had been a different kind of man might have been more use to me both then and now.
She’d texted earlier: Hi it’s me. Do you have any paracetamol (or solpadol, cocodamol, codrydamol or similar) please? I am stuck in bed with arthritis :(
I texted: Yes, I do, I’ll bring some round. Still have key shall I let myself in?
She texted: Yes please!:-)
When I let myself in and said, ‘Hello, it’s me,’ she said, ‘Woof, woof.’
‘Where is he?’ I said.
‘With Kay,’ she said. ‘He doesn’t get out much with me like this.’
‘They alright?’ I said when I gave her the meds.
She read the box. She said, ‘You want some of these?’
I took the proffered box: Tramadol. Took a strip out, ten tabs. Re-proffered the box.


EXPOSED

If only the ground would open up and swallow me whole.
‘Is anyone sitting there?’ she said pointing at the seat opposite where I sat in the Arts House.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘but I’m leaving so you can sit here.’
I stood up. I closed my book.
‘I’ll sit there then,’ she said. ‘In the reading corner.’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘before anyone else does.’
I hated myself..
‘Hmm,’ she said weakly, my fate sealed.
I put my book in my bag.
She put a dog-eared copy of “Catch-22” on the table.
I put my coat on.
Embarrassed, my head down, I left the café, crossed the road, up Ninetree, then left along Dove Street where I felt more than usually exposed.

GETTING CHILLY 230111

‘My partner had some swelling round his throat,’ she said putting her hand there to indicate where she meant as if her words were insufficient.
‘Glands?’ I said.
‘They took him in the other day and found a lump at the back of his throat,’ she said. ‘Actually in his throat,’ she pointed into her now open mouth. ‘He’d come out and then he complained, which he does a lot of by the way, he couldn’t swallow or eat anything without it hurting, so they took him back in and they just phoned me.’
The lift arrived. We both got out. Still talking…
‘Is he going to be alright?’ I asked, weakly…this is a major conversation with her…
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘They called me in so I’m going there now when I’ve dropped this shit off,’ shopping in bags.
‘Well,’ I said, preparing myself, ‘I hope he’s okay.’
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘So do I.’
We spoke once before but since, nothing.
They fight, shout at each other. He’s thrown her out of the flat and she threatened to cut his throat…the one she was just telling me about.
Today, I started the conversation in the lift, saying, ‘Getting chilly.’

OUR WAY OUT 210111

A regular gets in on his regular floor on the way down. It took long enough to come up to me. Two stops, extended for ‘goodbyes.’
He looked at me before getting in and standing at the front on the right. He nodded, I raised my eyebrows.
‘I’d be alright,’ he said, ‘if I wasn’t so broke.’
I laughed but nervous, ‘Shit, don’t tap me I the lift.’ I don’t give to anyone in the flats or who I know or think lives there if they ask me outside.
‘You off for a beer?’ he said.
‘Coffee,’ I said, smiling.
‘Expensive,’ he said.
.It’s my one vice,’ I said, lying.
‘Oh,’ pause, ‘I suppose with all these cafes around,’ a nod towards Broadmead.
‘I go around here,’ I said.
‘Still,’ he said, ‘expensive.’
‘I’m getting out,’ I said, ‘and it’s somewhere to spend an hour or two.’
‘It’s good to get out,’ he said. I didn’t think he was trying to reassure me. ‘Especially if you don’t work,’ he said, ‘like I don’t.’
He held the doors open for me on our way out.

CONVERSATION 180111

‘Thanks. Great. Phew. Thanks,’ he said, as breathless and capitalised as that.
‘Okay,’ I said, keeping my cool.
‘Thanks,’ he said, taking up the position on the right hand side at the front of the lift. ‘That’s great.’
He’d come into view as the doors were closing but on seeing him I pressed the button opened the door, held the lift.
‘It’s frustrating,’ he said, ‘isn’t it, when you come in and the lift is just leaving or just left…’
‘…and it goes all the way to the top or close to it,’ I said, ‘as often as not.’
‘Still,’ he said, ‘it isn’t long to wait, is it?’
‘About a minute and a half straight up and down no stops in between,’ I said. ‘Longer, obviously, if it picks up or drops off a couple or few.’
‘That’s true,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I thought I’d missed the rain but I got out the underpass and whoosh, downpour. I’m soaked, look at me.’
I looked at him.
‘I was on Dove Street after the café and deluge,’ I said. ‘I got wet too.’
The lift stopped, door opened, he got out.
‘Thanks,’ he said. ‘Bye.’
‘Bye,’ I said.
I’ve seen him in the block through the years. This was the first time we’ve had any kind of conversation.

IT'S NOT UNUSUAL 130111

'Oh,' she said,' 'hello.'
'Hello,' I said.
I'd seen the back of a white coat disappear into the entrance of the flats on my way back from Kino and wondered who it might be going in, if I'd want to share a lift with them.
'Bit cooler today,' she said.
We'd always said hello but since our laundry times overlap we pass the time of day, say 'Goodness,' after the caretaker comes in has a moan.
'My daughter,' she said, 'phoned from Greece last week said it was forty-two degrees...'
'That's hot,' I said.
'I said it was sunny here but she got back yesterday and said she started shivering as soon as she got off the plane.'
'After forty-two degrees I can imagine,' I said. 'Talking of heat, is the dryer working properly,' pointing.
She got up from the bench and walked to the left hand dryer, put her hand on the glass.
'It's okay now,' she said, 'but I had to press the lighter switch earlier.'
'How many times has it broken down?' I said.
'I don't know,' she said, 'but it's not unusual.'

IT HAPPENS

He was sitting on the low wall of the further of the two flowerbeds in front of the entrance to the block as I came back from Broadmead. He waved, I nodded.
He followed me in. I behaved like he hadn't not sure he lived here and didn't want to ask. He stood behind me as I stared at the tiles to the left of the lift.
'Hello,' I said.
'How long you lived here?' he said.
'Ten years,' I said. 'You?'
'Six months.'
'You like it?'
'I don't know,' he said. 'I lived in supported housing before so it's different from that.'
'A bit more challenging, I imagine?'
'Yet, having to cook for myself and pay all the bills.'
I got in the lift and pressed for my floor, wondered what he'd do. By the time the door'd closed and the lift was on the way up he hadn't pressed a button.
'Might he come up with me see, where I live,' I thought...
...he pressed...
'I still get help,' he said. 'Not as much though.'
'Independent living,' I said.
'I used to do it alright,' he said. 'I was a plumber but, you know...'
...a moment...
'Yes,' I said, 'it happens.'

COMPANY

- I find out what he's doing by looking online when I get an e-mail saying there's a message for me;
- we have brief encounters when we walk out the door at the same time or one of us is already out there, a conversation develops if I don't run from a friendly, 'Hello;'
- she mocks me because I am a man; I wonder what she might be like to sleep with; her lips are thin but she has a sharp turn of phrase that excites me;
- no matter how hard I try, walking the route three times despite the obvious dangers as darkness descends, I cannot find the tandem he lent me;
- 'Do you want a poke?' he said coming up behind me in the alley way ran alongside the back garden of the cafe whose owner had propositioned me only minutes previous. 'No,' I said, kicking at him. 'But he might,' pointing at the cafe owner who was watching from his garden the scene unfold;
- what I am, except to a few people, is irrelevant, making myself so through unrestrained comments and behaviour at inappropriate times and wrong places; a little containment would go a long way but it escapes me at moments that dilute impact and weaken the desire for my company.

FRIDAY 14TH

WAITING

He was sitting on the floor and leaning against the reinforced glass was outside his flat as I left for my flat the first time.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Alright?’ he said, though I know it’s not a question.
When I got back a couple of hours later he was still there.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Alright?’ he said.
A couple more hours passed until I left my flat the second time.
‘Hello,’ I said, and by way of development waiting for the lift, ‘Still there?’
He smiled and got up slowly pulling his coat around him as he walked toward me.
‘Lost your key?’ I said.
‘What it is,’ he said, ‘is I leant my key to my niece’ – she’s his niece? – ‘and she said she’d be back and I said to her, I said, “Don’t lock the bottom lock,” but she did and now I can’t get in so I’ve got to wait for her to get back and I thought it’d be this morning but she still isn’t back yet and I’ve been waiting the whole day…’
‘I noticed,’ I said, and the lift arrived and I said, ‘I’ve got to go.’
As the door of the lift slid closed I saw him walk back to where he’d wait for how long I don’t know because he wasn’t there when I got back later.

LOVELY

The sun was out, the sky was blue when I did my laundry at eight this morning. The Big O wasn’t there so I had a choice of machines.
I put the washing on and went back upstairs. I had porridge (with tahini and honey) for breakfast, took a bath, and mended the washing stand.
Downstairs: laundry from the extractor to the washing bag without using the dryer.
The door opened and Kay came in.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘A bit better this morning, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s lovely.’

MY DAY, THIS DAY

OPEN WARFARE

The notice in the lift said the communal electrics – corridor lights, stair lights, laundry, lift – would be down, switched off from nine-thirty this morning while a new meter was installed. ‘Sorry for any inconvenience,’ it said, ‘The Caretaking Team.’
When I opened the door to the laundry, half expecting my fob not to work – having read the new rules CT’d taped on the wall above the rinsing sinks, ‘There’s space there,’ I’d said last week pointing,’ that informed users of the laundry that fobs would only work at each persons allotted time, she jumped from the seat, surprised.
‘Only me,’ I said. ‘Thought I’d get in early before the cut off.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘yes.’
‘Not much privacy there,’ I said, nodding at the bench where she’d sat back down.
The bench had been moved a few weeks ago and she said the last time I’d seen her here and asked her if she knew why it’d been moved.
‘Someone complained,’ she said.
‘How many’d it take?’ I said.
We agreed that the bench’s new position was both exposing and inconvenient as being where it was now meant it was in full view of the fifth floor entrance and a folding table had been moved in the far corner from the dryer.
When I got back later to pick up my washing Olive was still there even though she’d said, ‘I’ll probably be gone,’ when I said, ‘See you later,’ when I’d left after checking the wash had taken. She was folding her mostly pastel coloured clothes, though she wore her usual dark polyester slacks.
‘I put it in the dryer,’ she said of my wash. ‘It’d finished, so I thought I’d put it in the dryer,’ slightly defensive, concerned…Had she done the right thing?
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Thank you,’ reassuring.
I started taking my damp clothes out of the dryer and dropping them without folding into my laundry bag.
Behind me Kay, with the hennared hair and facial piercings, was loading a couple of the washers.
‘You do know about the electric going off at nine-thirty?’ I said.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Oh, no, are they?’
Olive got up having finished folding and packing her wash in her trolley and said, ‘I’m off.’
‘Bye now,’ I said, then turned back to Kay. ‘You’ll have time for the wash,’ I said, ‘but you’ll have to mke your own plans for drying.’
‘When’s it back on?’ she said. ‘How long’s it off for? I could come down after…’
‘If you do you’ll have to stay with it because you’ll be in someone else’s time and they might take it out or worse,’ I said, ‘I’ve had things nicked form here before.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘You take someone’s time it’s like open warfare.’


AFTER BREAKFAST, BEFORE LUNCH

On my way out down by lift, CT was there wiping the walls.
‘Getting out before the electric goes off?’ he said.
‘I’m off to work,’ I said. ‘That’s why I was in the laundry earlier, get it done.’
…a couple of floors passed...
‘How long’s it off for?’ I said. ‘A few hours?’
‘I don’t know,’ he said, and turned to read the notice. ‘It doesn’t say,’ what I knew already, ‘Inconvenient though.’
They do apologise for that,’ I said.
‘Even so,’ he said, ‘why couldn’t they do it after everyone’s at work and after the kids are at school?’
‘Indeed,’ I said, what I say when I don’t know what else to say.
As I walked out the block I thought that from nine-thirty for a few hours was minimally inconvenient for the civilised amongst us flat dwellers as it was both after breakfast and before lunch.

A GREATER WHOLE

The creation of an object that can be passed to another and held by them, left somewhere to be found or lost forever, is, nevertheless, an offering from their interior of its creator to the world outside.
The schizoid artist, and the schizoid mind lends itself to artistic pursuits as it favours attention towards what lies within, either seeks to maintain possession of or disparages the completed work, so as to minimise the trauma of what was once inner and a part of being outer and apart from.
For the work that’s made it’s not so bad but for the child born of the schizoid mother who turns from indifferently from them after birth or who cannot let go of them sufficiently for their progeny to fulfil their potential, it is mostly a disaster.
She occupied herself with a novel as the cord was cut. He said they called for him quickly when they saw her reaction and credit where credit’s due, he came running.
I'd known Ruby a while, knew she was genetically male, that with time and effort she'd achieved the convincing appearance of a woman.
Today, as I was sitting in the Arts House café, having chosen to work there rather than Kino, which was crowded, and anyway I don’t like the seating so much, it’s a bit rigid and affords becoming trapped in a corner having to ask strangers, ‘Excuse me,’ to get out, Ruby sat down opposite.
I was reading Fairbairn and she said, ‘I read a paper of his about schizoid personalities,’ and we got talking.
The schizoid personality employs splitting as a defence which means cutting is involved and that’s how we got to…
…Ruby said she’d wondered about her defences against her gender confusion and had been thinking at one time of resorting to reassignment to solve her dilemma. But, instead of consigning herself to less than she was, she decided to keep her penis, and extend, as she put it, her masculine and feminine parts into a greater whole.

LOCATION LOCATION

Reich says we construct an armour of muscle and bone that mirrors personal trauma and psychological defences. That our body expresses through posture, gait, skin, hair, teeth, and other meaningful parts, a history of individual experience within a cultural context.
Because everything is connected everything is a communication.
She touches my body and a specific memory comes to mind. The tender place by my right scapula is a somatised issue I haven’t yet put into words.
When I say what’s on my mind, psychic toxins are liberated from me. To keep silent is to be vulnerable to becoming the location of a symptom of social discord.
What is true of my body is true of where I live, is true of Stokes Croft.

PARALLEL THINKING

The horrors arrived towards the end of my sleep. They came out from there, hung around until a few hours after waking.
Three separate lines of thought running in parallel.
She spoke, 'Didn't you hear what I said? Weren't you listening?'
'Did you say something?' I said.

SKIMMING

The therapeutic frame, attachment in relationship, sitting on the sofa, reading, in the Arts House cafe.
Four people walk in. A woman young enough to be my daughter/me to be her sugar-daddy. Two women looked like in their fifties a man the same. They sit down in the corner window seat the other side from where I sneak discrete a regular glance. The older women either side of the young and the man at the end nearest the counter from where he gets up to buy drinks a few minutes after sitting down.
The young woman cries. On and off. Why's she crying?
- could be someone died
- could be she just broke up
- could be she didn't get what she wanted
The women put hands on her shoulders, round her shoulders. The man leans in wanting a piece, wanting a part, a few lines to feel okay - surfing, skimming off her tears.

FALLING

‘I’m still in bed,’ she said when I phoned at half one.
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ I said, ‘I didn’t get up til twelve.’
‘It does,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
It was snowing lightly when I looked out the window after the sound of the text saying, ‘It’s snowing,’ arrived and woke me.
A little later sitting in my front room having left uneaten half my breakfast bowl of porridge and unusually drinking a coffee before tea was when I phoned her.
‘I’m watching Downton Abbey,’ she said. ‘They’ve been showing the whole series in one go.’
‘Nice binge,’ I said.
We talked TV and films a while. I stood up from the sofa, walked to the door opened to the balcony and saw Easton in the mist of the light snow she said was still falling.

THE PEPPERDINE

'Look,’ I said as we pulled into a parking space at Slimbridge. ‘It’s Vicky Pepperdine.'
A few minutes ago she said, ‘There’s a space there, go there, don’t park on the mud. Why are you parking there when there’s a space there?’
‘That isn’t a space,’ I said, ‘that’s the way into the overflow.’
‘Oh.’
Now she said, ‘Who’s Vicky Pepperdine?’
‘She’s in that hospital sitcom with Jo Brand,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘the one who shags the male nurse?’
‘No, that's the sister, she’s the uptight doctor…’
‘The one always plays by the book?’ she said.
‘Yes.’
As I paid, ‘My card’s taking a hit today,’ I said having filled up with fifty-three pounds worth of petrol, ‘You may as well,’ she said, ‘before the increase,’ and I said, ‘That was the headline on the Post just now.’
I entered my pin, turned, whispered, ‘Look, there she is.’
‘How do you know it’s her?’
‘I recognise the voice,’ I said. ‘And she’s wearing a lime green puffer jacket, stands out a bit. Thank you,’ to the woman handed me a receipt, ‘No, don’t look…’
‘You just said…’
‘Ok, but be discreet…’
Round the site she took photographs of swans, geese and ducks, ‘Listen to the crows,’ she said.
‘No sign of the Pepperdine,’ I said as we sat drinking coffee bought from the kiosk near the Zeiss Hide and ate the sandwiches she’d made earlier. ‘I’m going to call it “The Lesser Spotted Pepperdine,”’ I said, ‘should be easy to spot with the lime green puffer.’
‘Why do they call them, “lesser”?’ she said. ‘Is it because they’re smaller?’
‘Probably,’ I said. ‘In this case not seen as often as expected considering the lime green puffer.’
We walked round some more then made our way to a place to view the four o’clock feeding but changed our minds about going in because it was so crowded.
‘Let’s go up the tower,’ she said.
On our way I said, ‘I’ve just seen the Pepperdine,’ she wasn’t that interested and kept walking, ‘she was in the café, obviously her feeding time as well, we could watch her instead of the birds.’
We didn’t of course. I’d turned quickly away when I spotted the lime green puffer having thought during the afternoon, ‘What a drag being recognised and stared at by people like me when you’re out and about…’

MOVING ON

Experience has taught me that age and wisdom don’t always walk hand in hand down Stokes Croft.
Standing at the top of the stone steps that led down to a rain wet cobbled market square, I heard what sounded like angels singing. When I got to the square I saw the singing wasn't angels but a choir sitting outside a derelict pub partly obscured by a low mist. A little further on in the shadow of a Chinese takeaway she was waiting for me. I waved and walked over to her.
‘I can do it,’ I said when she asked about the offer'd been made me. 'It'll just take some effort and organisation, is all.'
I'd answered the phone when it rang late last night.
‘You available?’ a man's voice said.
‘Yes.’
‘Then I’ll be in touch when it's time,’ he’d said.
‘Is that all?’ she said. ‘Didn’t he say anything else?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘that was all he said.’
I woke thinking about what I’d achieved and if I might achieve more and what it might be...
‘Don’t you know what it means?’ he said from across the table in the new Café Kino’s as I flicked through a small children's book had Danish words above pen and ink illustrations on each page.
‘I can understand everything just by looking at the pictures,’ I said.
To one side of me on the right of the table was a rack of back issues of a magazine I’d written and published a few years ago.
A young woman put a cup of black coffee in front of me before taking the rack of magazines away.
‘Where are you taking them?’ I said.
‘To where they belong,’ she said, ‘with those memories of yours we keep out back.’
‘Oh,’ I said..
‘Oh, indeed,’ she said. ‘It really is time you moved on.’