Two sides of the moon

Another fitful night. Awake at 2.07, again at 3.00am. And then again. And again.

I flip from side to side and back. I get too hot and throw aside the quilt, then turn the pillow to find its cooler face. I lie back down for what seems only minutes, before I’m up again to shed my clothes. Yet seconds later, I'm cold again and reaching for the quilt.

I look at you, lying there unconscious. I want to wake you, shake you, haul you from your dreams. How dare you lie there, deep in sleep and peaceful?

I listen to your breathing, try to time mine to the ins and outs. But I can’t find the rhythm,  I only feel discomfort as I hold my breath too long, or can’t take in enough to fill my lungs.

Then as I watch and listen, your gentle inhalation becomes a rasping snore. I tap you lightly on the shoulder, hoping that might be enough to bring me peace. But no, the grating sound continues. My push is harder, and still you don’t wake up, yet somewhere in your deep unconsciousness you hear or sense me, then you turn away.

And I am still awake, and lying there, and helpless, as all the crowding, rushing, scaring thoughts roll in. 

----

It’s 2am and I am here awake. The room is dark but warm and reassuring; it holds me safely in the arms of night and peace. From a distance comes the faint drone of the motorway, beside me, the slightest sighing of your breath.

My eyes adjust and focus in the darkness, the shapes become the furniture I know. Their solidity a comforting reminder, of who and where I am, that I am home. I know that, until tomorrow, there’s no harm can come to me, or you, nothing I must do or say, no solutions to be found or problems fixed.

So I lie here and begin to count my blessings. The firm mattress that supports my back, the pillow that cradles my head. The man I love, sleeping at my side, and the night-time hours that are mine alone.

From Charing Cross to Sevenoaks

It's late afternoon, the end of a summer Sunday and the train is full. We sit quietly, each a little tired, each perhaps thinking about the film we've just seen.

I look out of the window, watching the jumble of office blocks give way to the backs of houses, seeing the concrete yards become gardens that gradually get longer and greener. I wonder about all the people who work in those offices, live in those houses and play in those gardens. I think about the girl from the film. So many different lives; chances taken and missed, opportunities grasped and squandered, promises made, words spoken and regretted.

A woman sits opposite me, leaning against the window. Her arm is loosely draped around the daughter who's half sitting, half lying across her mother's lap . Next to the girl is a young boy, maybe six years old. He sits cross-legged, tidy, taking up hardly any space. I imagine him sitting on the carpet at school, listening closely as his teacher reads a story, trying hard not to miss a word. He's holding a small bag of sweets, slowly licking and nibbling at each one, as though trying to make them last the whole journey home.

Across the aisle are three teenage boys, each wearing the football strip that betrays how they've spent their afternoon. They're talking at each other, across each other. One bites into a burger, another shovels in a fistful of thin chips. The third takes his shoes off, and rests his bare feet on the empty seat opposite. I try not to think about the trace of adolescent sweat they'll leave behind.

"I want Mummy to sit in the middle" says the six-year-old, pulling my attention back to our side of the train carriage. "Then I can have a cuddle."

"You can have a cuddle when we get home" his mum offers. "And I'll read you a story."

She looks across at me and smiles, and I wonder if she realises how lucky she is.  I glance again at the football fans, their shirts tell me they support the same team as my sons. I try to remember the last time I sat on a train with my boys, or walked along the street holding a small hand in mine.

And I want to tell her to cuddle him now. I want her to know that all too soon, her tidy little boy will be six foot tall and too embarrassed to hug. I want to urge her not to miss her chances, but I don't. Instead, I look at the boy, who gives me a huge grin, and then I smile right back.

Making it up

When the lace is torn, the elastic's gone loose and the bones of your bra stick into your sides, you know it's time to buy some new underwear. When you bring home the new lingerie and can't find anywhere to put it, you know it's time for a clear out. And so, there I was, tipping the contents of my knicker drawer onto the bed, trying to work out what was worth keeping, wondering what might fit for a little while longer.

When I was young, my mum always lined our clothes drawers with paper. Not with those scented liners you only seem to find on a bric-a-brac stall at the village fete, but with brown paper, carefully cut to size. Or at least, I think she did, though I can't remember why, and I can't remember ever asking her the reason. Part of me is certain that's what she did, part of me thinks that when she reads this she'll tut under her breath and declare, "she's making things up about us again..."  Memory is a tricky beast, but if she didn't line our drawers, why would I think now that it's the proper thing to do? How would I know that you take the drawer out of the chest and mark round it on the paper to get the right size? And how could I see so clearly that when you do just that, the paper will always be a little too big, so that the sides curl up as you lay it in the drawer?

So there I stood, looking at all the underwear tipped out on the bed and, just for a moment, I thought about going downstairs to try and find some brown paper, a pen and a pair of scissors. Then, as so often happens with my vague attempts at housewifery, I decided the effort was more trouble than it was worth, especially when I still didn't understand what the paper was for.  Much better to start sorting through; throwing the oldest scrappiest clothes into a plastic carrier for the bin, selecting the better ones to put back in the drawer. 

And then I saw it, the white cotton handkerchief, roughly folded into a square, with its neatly hemmed edges not quite lined up. I opened it out, tried to smooth it flat, but the folds had been there too long. I tried to remember if I'd ever seen it open before, if I'd ever seen it used. Part of me is certain that I saw my dad pull it from his trouser pocket, just in time to catch a sneeze. Part of me thinks I'm making things up again.

In my memory, I can see a long flat box, with a paisley pattern on the bottom and a clear plastic lid. Inside the box lie three cotton handkerchiefs, each with a letter B embroidered in dark red silk. The box is sitting on some thin green wrapping paper, and I'm learning how to fold the paper over, making the ends into triangles, fastening them with sellotape.  Or at least that's how I imagine it was; that I took my pocket money to Woolworths and picked out his Christmas present: that he opened it and smiled; that he put the hankies carefully away in his underwear drawer but always made sure he had a clean one in his pocket.

I carry on sorting out my undies, putting the good ones away, lining them up neatly in the drawer, at least for now. Last to go in is the hanky. The fabric is thin now, old and worn. The centre is still white, but the edges have turned yellow with age. I think about showing it to Eddie one day, telling him about his Great Granddaddy Bernard, who used to write stories and sing us songs, who used to take us for long Sunday morning walks to collect conkers and long rides into London on the no 3 bus. For a moment, I wonder if Eddie will think I'm making it up. Then I fold up the hanky, with the neatly hemmed edges not quite lined up and put it carefully away in the drawer.

Time takes a cigarette...

It's been two months since my last post. I stare at the screen and the curser flashes back at me - challenging, accusing - "where have you been?  How do you account for yourself?"

Two months... So much and so little. An interval, an aeon, a blink of an eye.

Last night, we ate cherries from our allotment; the first crop, the ones we'd managed to protect from the birds. I chanted as I lined up the stones at the side of my plate "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Sailor, Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief", the rhyme rolled off my tongue as though I'd said it only yesterday. My delight in ending at Rich Man just as strong as the last time that happened, more than forty years ago, in the kitchen at Croxted Road.

This morning, as I dressed for work, I remembered the green pleated skirt I'd bought with the first wages from my Saturday job at Woolworths. I pictured the small clothes shop in West Norwood High Street, imagined myself once again sliding the hangers along the rail, picking out the skirt and taking it into the tiny changing room. I saw my younger self trying it on, twirling and circling in front of the mirror, watching the fabric spinning out wide.

A week ago, a letter arrived. Addressed to The Householder, it came from an insurance company trying to find the family of a man who'd once lived here. I wonder what that would be like, to live and die, distanced from family, leaving no mark.

Two months... Birthdays, a wedding, a weekend in Reading. Formula 1, football, a Wimbledon champ. Sunshine in Greece, fields filled with lavender, working and reading and digging and weeding.

On Thursday it will be five years since the day Philip and I stood side by side in a Dartford registry office, promising to love til death do us part.

Time flies so quickly, and yet not at all.

Saying goodbye

Being English, we don’t talk about death. We moan about getting old, about aching and forgetting things, about going to work and wishing for retirement, but we never discuss the alternative. We just pretend that it will all go on for ever. And we always think there’ll be more time. Time to spend with friends and family, time to laugh and cry, time to find out a little bit more about that man you never knew well, but who always made you smile.

Except that sometimes there isn't more time, and it’s only when it’s too late that you find out that a man you admired, is really called Keith and not Dobbin; that he liked steam trains and fishing; loved holidays in Scotland, and that he once dressed up as a woman to play in goal for a ladies’ football team.

And then you learn something more. You begin to see that sometimes it’s possible to do so much more than work and sleep and pass a life away. That it is possible to live a life that builds meaning around family and home; that counts laughter and friendship as more important than money; that brings out a whole village.

Shoreham is a special place; it draws the best of people into its heart and cherishes them. And when it’s time to let someone go, it does so with dignity and pride; with laughter, tears, and more than a little drunkenness. Shoreham was exactly the right place for Dobbin to live, and, on Friday, as I stood on the bridge over the river and watched 52 blue and white balloons soaring into the sky and floating away down the valley, it was also exactly the right place from which to say goodbye.

The watch

It's early evening, and we're side by side on the sofa, each of us at our habitual end, with just enough room for Martin the cat to sneak in between if he wants to. Tonight though, there's no cat, and it's Philip's arm that fills the space. I glance down at the pale, faintly freckled skin, and smile to myself in recollection of conversations we've had, more regularly than you might expect, about the way his arm hair shines in the sunlight or moves in the breeze. It's a long time now since I first declared them 'kindly arms', but that's what they've always seemed.

For a tall man, his wrists are surprisingly thin; small enough for me to enclose between finger and thumb, and there, just above his left wrist, is the watch he always wears. No fancy metallic timepiece, just a simple clear dial,with proper numbers and a no-nonsense leather strap. Perhaps he's seen me looking, "I got a new battery for my watch today" he says. Maybe he's realised I'm in reflective mode  "I've had this watch for twenty-five years now."

Twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, more than half his life. I think about the young man he must have been back then, way before I knew him. A man prepared to leave his home town to find a job, leaving behind so much but never quite shaking off his political passion or his northern accent. A man who worked his way gradually southwards, making new friends, trying new experiences, keeping James Stewart as his moral guide.

Twenty-five years, a quarter of a century, less than half my life. I think about the woman I was back then, way before I knew him. Newly pregnant with my fourth child, excitedly planning the move to our dream home, busily building castles in the air. I never left the south of England, never lived more than twenty miles from the London suburb where I was born and grew up. My journey was a different one; circular steps through love and friendship gained and lost.

It's early evening, and we're side by side on the sofa, each of us at our habitual end. I glance down at Philip's arm, at the watch he always wears. The second-hand clicks forward and time moves on. Silently, persistently, through  the minutes and the hours and the years.

Nicholas Nickleby - a preview

I wasn't there for the conversation, many months ago, when the committee of the Shoreham Village Players sat down to discuss forthcoming productions, but I like to imagine it went something like this.

"So.. any ideas for our next play?"

"Well, I was thinking, perhaps Nicholas Nickleby"

"Mmm.. sounds interesting. Can't go wrong with a bit of Dickens. Anyone staged it before?"

"Oh yes, in 1980, The Royal Shakespeare Company's production became a theatrical legend, and nearly thirty years later the Chichester Festival version took the west end by storm."

"So nothing much to live up to then, tell us more."

"Well, it's got a cast of over 70 characters; all ages from malnourished children through to doddering theatricals; heartbroken Nicklebys, heartbreaking Smike, the evil Squeers and the frighteningly bad Crummles Theatre Company."

"oh...."

"And 36 scenes that range from London to Yorkshire and on to Portsmouth; including a roadside inn, a run-down school, a gentleman's parlour, a milliner's showroom, the open countryside, and a travelling theatre stage."

"I see..."

"And you were thinking we could put this on in the village hall?"

"Oh yes, we can have it ready for March."

And now, suddenly, it is March. And tonight Nicholas Nickleby Part One will open in the village hall.

Scheduling the rehearsals, to bring a huge cast to the hall for the right scenes on the right day, would have baffled even the logistics specialists at Eddie Stobart.  Creating the costumes that could take us from Dickensian London to Shakespearean Verona, would have had even the wardrobe ladies of Strictly Come Dancing quaking in their sparkling boots. Sourcing the props and assembling the sets, a design challenge that no Sixty-Minute-Makeover could ever have achieved. Above all that, casting 40 people and steering them through from faltering incoherence to confident eloquence, with only encouragement and support to keep them on track, was something that only the bravest director would have attempted, or achieved.

Never can it be said that the Shoreham Village Players lack heart. For those of you lucky enough to be there tonight, you will see what happens when a brave woman decides to take that heart and send it beating through the village.  If you don't yet have tickets, get down to the village shop and snap up the last few, not only will you get to experience a fine night at the theatre, you'll get to see what makes Shoreham the very best village in the world.