Berberis' World

“It’s all bollocks, all of it; astrology, numerology, palm reading, tarot, iridology… All total crap. Don’t believe a word of any of it.”

“You are so cynical! Not even in a slight, could-be-persuaded kind of way, just plain old sceptical through and through.”

“That’s me… don’t believe in any of it.”

“Is it the randomness of it that bothers you? The ‘how can this apply to so many people’ kind of thing?”

“Well, it’s that with the astrology. I mean, how many people are there in the world? Ten billion? Ok, let’s assume it’s six billion for argument’s sake. Now, six billion people, who are all born in an even spread over the twelve months of the year, so we’ve got half a billion people who are born under the sign of … oh, let’s say Aries, just to pick one.”

“And because you’re one.”

“Maybe, don’t interrupt. So, there are half a billion people born under the same sign, all of whom are supposed to have the same personality traits, the same behavioural characteristics. The same physical shape and stuff like that. Are you telling me that if you were to read the daily forecast in the Sun or the Mirror or the Daily Star or whatever rag you read, then every single one of those half a billion people are going to be facing the same kind of day? I think not.”

“Yeah, but the things are so vague that they could apply to any one of them and, depending on how you interpret them, they could apply to all of the six or ten billion people in the world.”

“Your point?”

“Just because it doesn’t apply to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t apply to some of those half a billion. It depends on your interpretation.”

“Which is why they can’t possibly be accurate, because if they were anywhere near the truth they’d have to be about three pages long and cover every single birthday in that month.”

“You’ve had too much to drink and you’re rambling.”

“I’m stuffed. I think we should have stuck at two. Eyes bigger etcetera. Never happened before…”

“Oh, of course not. Like the beers have never happened.”

“Quite. And I think we should avoid the pub on the way home and not go in and drink several more pints of lager.”

“And them we should not go home drunk and put a film on and finish the contents of our drinks cabinet.”

“We don’t have a drinks cabinet.”

“I know that. Perhaps we should have. A pink and green luminous cocktail cabinet, maybe. Filled with the most revolting drinks we can think of.”

“Eggnog and ouzo. Brandy and… oh, let’s see, washing up liquid…”

“You’re disgusting. Can you imagine what that would taste like? Eeeeewww.”

“Yeah, but you wouldn’t have to wash the glass afterwards, would you?”

“Well, on that basis you could have red wine and meths. Or white wine and white spirit. No need to clean the glasses there, either.”

“Exactly. Besides, after two or three of them you wouldn’t actually be able to find the glasses to clean them.”

“Or give a fuck.”

“Or give a fuck indeed. Shall we have some more tea?”

“Yeah, and a couple of fortune cookies. I feel in the need for some papery sugary stuff.”

“Which stabs you in the mouth when you bite into it.”

“Of course. The taste of blood combines so well with the cookie itself.”

“A pleasurable eating experience all round, then.”

“You could say that.”

“I just did.”

“I know. Don’t be so only child.”

“Whaddya mean?”

“You do that only child thing. Whenever I make some off-hand comment about anything you have to analyse it to death and somehow the fun goes out of being sarcastic.”

“Ooooh! Excu-use me.”

“I should think so too. Taking everything so literally. It’s not normal.”

“Well that me, not normal. You’ve met my mother. How can I possibly be normal?”

“Hmm. You said it.”

“Which means that you can’t be normal ’cause you’re here having dinner with me.”

“Good God, so I am! How the fuck did that happen?”

“I got you drunk and got you on a bus.”

“You filthy old sod.”

“Do they have cameras on the upstairs of buses?”

“Chances are, knowing our luck, yes they do. And they are, as we speak, editing the film down for Police Camera Action, or whatever is currently showing the nation how fucking stupid people really are.”

“Police Camera Bollocks, more like. Some of those people on those videos should be sterilised to prevent them breeding.”

“I didn’t have you down for a eugeneticistic.”

“A what? How much have you had?”

“I’d like to know what they put in this tea…”

“It’s gunpowder green.”

“So, gunpowder them. That’s nice. Tastes lovely. Yum yum.”

“Let’s have some more.”

“Okay. Make mine a double.”

“Are you going to finish that duck?”

“Fuck a duck.”

“No thanks. Can I have it?

“You can indeed. It’s out of luck. It’s a fucked duck.”

“Stop it, they’re watching us. We’ll get kicked out.”

“We’re their best customers at this time of day, on this particular day.”

“For eating crispy fucked duck, we are.”

“Here, can we have some more of this?”

“You could say please.”

“Pleeeeeeeease?”

“You’ve embarrassed her now. Poor girl. I’m sorry about him, he’s an idiot.”

“Ah, but you love me.”

“According to our star signs we should be hideously incompatible.”

“We are.”

“Shut up. Now let’s see what that fortune cookie has in store for us. ‘Your destiny lies with a short man with green teeth.'”

“‘Made in China’.”

“Oh right. Like it’s not been brought in from Birmingham or somewhere. Why import these from China?”

“They get a good deal?”

“With the cost of sending them from Birmingham they probably do. I reckon it would cost them less to fly them from China than to send them down the M6.”

“And they’d get here quicker.”

“Of course.”

“So, you still think astrology is crap?”

“I do, and I’d be willing to stake my reputation on it.”

“What reputation? You don’t have one.”

“I could have. I could have a reputation as… ooh, the biggest twat in the world.”

“No you haven’t. I’ve seen it.”

“Gah! Stop that. Maybe I’m the nicest person in Poundstretcher on a Friday afternoon.”

“How hard would that be?”

“That’s unfair. Some of them are alright.”

“Your destiny is to be the most coherent person in the pub in about half an hour’s time.”

“We can soon put a stop to that.”

“As we ought to. You’re brilliant when you’re pissed.”

“You don’t half talk rubbish. How brilliant is anyone when they’re pissed?”

“You get all chatty and flirty and sexy. I like that.”

“You’re just a pervert.”

“Your point?”

“No, don’t have one.”

“Open that bloody cookie then. Let’s have a look. A lookie. A lookie in your cookie.”

“It says…. ‘Made in China’…. no it doesn’t. It says, ‘Made in Brumigham’… no! It actually says… ‘Help, I’m trapped in a fortune cookie!’…”

“No it bloody doesn’t. Don’t piss about. Gimme…”

“Oh go on. Give me that one.”

“Pig.”

“Oink.”

“It says… ‘Donkey’s lips do not fit onto a horse’s mouth.'”

“Eh? Now what the fuck does that mean?”

“It means a donkey won’t kiss a horse.”

“Like bollocks it does. I reckon it means that you can’t… you shouldn’t have botox injections. Or Angelina Jolie’s lips would look stupid on Jeremy Clarkson.”

“Well duh. She’s got nice lips, mind.”

“She’s gorgeous. I’d have her lips. She should give them to me.”

“Then her face would fray. Ugh. Let’s see what this one says… ‘No wind, no waves.'”

“No wind, no bad smell under the duvet.”

“Hmmm. Let’s have a handful more.”

“‘Vicious as a tigress can be, she never eats her own cubs.'”

“Lions do, y’know. If a lion finds some other lion cubs in his pride, he’ll kill them. Did you know that?”

“I know everything.”

“Then why isn’t your brain the size of a planet?”

“It is. Just a very small planet.”

“Liar.”

“I know.”

“What does that one say?”

“‘He who asks is a fool for five minutes, but he who does not ask remains a fool forever.'”

“It depends what you ask, I would think.”

“How about ‘Can we have some more tea’? or ‘Another portion of crispy duck, please’?”

“Would you like me to be sick over the table?”

“That’s not one.”

“Might well as be.”

“Eh?”

“Might as well be, I meant.”

“Fair enough. Here’s one. ‘To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.'”

“Very deep.”

“I liked that fool one, kind of reminds me of something.”

“Oh? What?”

“I wanted to ask you… will you marry me?”

“Where does it say that? Gimme that…”

“It doesn’t. I’m asking you. Will you marry me?”

“Umm… are you serious? Is this the drink talking? Or the duck? Quaack…”

“No, it’s me asking you if you will marry me. Trust you to take the piss…”

“You’re serious. Fuck!”

“Not here. But yes, I’m serious.”

“This one says ‘Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.'”

“Yes, but what do you say?”

“Yes.”

“So there is something in this astrology lark then.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You’ve made a decision based on the contents of a sugary papery thing. Some rationalist you are.”

“I never mentioned fortune cookies. I believe in them…”

“That’s fortunate.”

“No, that’s fortune, cookie.”

“That is so bad.”

“But you love me.”

“I do indeed.”

“Shall we toast our good fortune?”

“I thought you’d said yes…”

“Very funny.”

“More tea?”

“No, let’s go to the pub and get really drunk.”

“Sounds good to me.”

“Cookie. I like that. I’m going to call you that from now on.”

“You dare.”

“You pay and I’ll take a pee. Meet you downstairs?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Fuck off.”

“Duck off. Duck’s off.”

“That’s why I feel ill.”

“You do?”

“Don’t be so only child again.”

“I can’t help it.”

“I’ll live with it.”

“Hopefully.”

“I’ve said yes, haven’t I?”

“The fortune cookie said yes. You just agreed with it.”

“I’m bursting. We’ll continue this in the pub.”

“Take your knickers off too.”

“Bollocks.”

My September song is ‘Message In A Bottle’ by The Police.

I can remember where I was the moment I first heard it; in the back room of the house where I lived in Bristol, trying desperately to find an excuse to not revise for my O levels. I was sitting in the bay window which looked out over a courtyard of perhaps fifteen foot by twenty, now paved in cream and pink tiles – quite as awful as it sounds – where there was once a patch of worn turf. Certainly not enough on which to play football, or tennis, or any other sport interesting to a teenager. Tennis was mine. I couldn’t play that in such a confined space, either.

(Just a castaway, an island lost at sea-o…)

We’d moved to the house partly because we needed more space. Three adults and three children in a chalet bungalow was proving claustrophobic, and when one of those adults was keen to relocate in order to avoid village gossip, the excuse of needing more space was the one which was quoted to those who asked why we were leaving behind our 200′ garden with its two pears trees, two plum trees and an apple tree, its vegetable patch and its laburnum, and its seemingly endless privet hedges.

(Anuzzer lonely day, with no one here but me-o…)

Don’t get me wrong; we were in no way rich. We were lucky to have such a marvellous garden, although, as with much that you have and take for granted, you don’t miss it, really miss it with a part of you that never forgets and never quite forgives, until you look out of the bay window and see a cream and pink paved courtyard with no space for even a bonsai tree, let alone a full sized specimen. Small gardens breed pots. Usually plastic and garish, and in no way an adequate substitute for a double-dug bed stuffed with rhubarb. Small gardens have no time for compost heaps, the festering, rotting, multicoloured pile of potato peelings and carrot tops and pea shells and grass clippings  They do not accommodate swings and heavy iron rollers and miles and miles of washing line for the Widow Twankee amount of laundry done every Monday, as regular as clockwork.

(More loneliness than any man could bear…)

Courtyards require washing to be hung high, on display to all who care to look out of their back windows and purse their lips at yet another load of jeans and tee-shirts and sheets and pillowcases. Where other households dried their washing was a mystery. Perhaps they all took it up to the launderette. Courtyards are no place for bicycles and motorbikes and dustbins, there is no room for sheds and workbenches and other things that a large garden can hide in its lush foliage, or conceal behind tree trunks and bushes.

(Rescue me before I fall in to despair-o…)

At that time, Radio 1 ended transmission at 5.45 pm, following a fifteen minute news programme called ‘Newsbeat’. The DJ for the final show before this, in September 1979, was ‘Kid’ Jensen. I don’t remember his first name, but he was called ‘Kid’ because he was young. He came from Canada, and his was an exotic voice on what was still a RP-filled station. I’d heard the song before but not really taken much notice of it, not the way I do now with songs that catch my ear. Then, if it sounded good, the words didn’t really matter. Now, the words matter more than the tune and even the most perfectly structured melody in the universe will not redeem lyrics which speak of anger and violence and abuse.

(I’ll send an S.O.S to the world…)

I don’t really know what it was about this particular day, about this particular time it was played, but something in the lyrics, something in the tune, touched a nerve and I can see still the old sofa bed – dark green and rough-textured – that stood under the bay window, cushions which didn’t match it or each other arranged, diamond-like, along its back. It was the same sofa that had stood in the front room of our old house, against the wall opposite the window, the heavy, clunking, hard sofa which was used by my father whilst my mother took the bed in the back room.

(I hope that someone gets my message in a bottle…)

Anyone who really knows me will know me now. I’m not sure if I’m still on that island, lonely, sending out an S.O.S, my message in a bottle, hoping to be rescued before I fall into despair. I like to think that I’m not, that my message was received and understood. There are times, though, as the days grow shorter and the leaves begin to turn and the air carries with it the unmistakeable chill of autumn, that my September song comes to mind and I’m back in that room, looking out onto that courtyard and seeing, in my mind’s eye, 200′ of grass and green and fruit trees.

And I send out another S.O.S. Just in case no one was listening the first time.

I wouldn’t have hurt him. Ask anyone. I’m really good with little ‘uns. I can cuddle them and smooth their little heads and they go all quiet and sleepy and I wouldn’t have hurt him, I swear.

I didn’t mean to hurt her. Ask anyone. But she left him alone and he was lonely and upset and crying and all and I just wanted to make him stop. And I did. And then I thought he wanted to go for a walk so I took him for a walk. He was good. I was good. I pressed the buttons on the thing and waited for the green man before I walked across the road, and I made sure he was warm and not too tired and I talked to him all the time.

And I didn’t hurt him, did I? Ask anyone. I left her the other one. That was fair, wasn’t it? She had two and I had none and I wanted one, so I took him. I would have taken the two of them but someone would have noticed me with one in each arm, someone would have stopped me. No one stops anyone with just one, do they? One is normal. Two is not.

I had two, a long time ago. It seems like a long time ago now. I was very young and it scared me each time, so they decided to take them away, each time.

My babies. I’d had two. I wanted two again, and I would have taken both of them. She left them alone and crying and I would have taken them both. But I know how it is to have two and then have none. So I took one when I wanted two. And I’m sorry.

Were very definitely false. No question. It wasn’t as though the rest of her was any less false. Her meringue dresses, her pampered pooches, her powdered complexion; the woman had been a walking advertisement for some kind of ageing process which led to decay and foolishness and ridicule.

Then there were the books. Best sellers in a hundred languages. Millions sold to the unsuspecting. All the same plot. Same characters. Same dialogue. All crap.

That’s my opinion, anyhow. Anyone who’s watched ‘Little Britain’ will know about Sally Markham and her 7 pages of blah blah blah, and how she churns out book after book with no real thought whatsoever. I used to live in Catherine Cookson country, and I can’t say I read any of hers either. Books for old women.

But then, I think, I’m getting towards being an old woman. Ok, on current demographics, I’ve got a while to go, perhaps another span of the years I’ve already lived (like I’m going to tell you how old I am!) but I am still older than I was. I don’t feel it though. I’m doing the kind of things now that perhaps a 25 year old might do – getting very drunk and chatting up strangers in pubs – even though I’m not 25.

A friend of mine said I was finally going through my teenage years, long after I should have. And I guess I am. I do things now that I wouldn’t have dared to do then. I express my opinions, I read the books I want to read, I watch the films I want to watch, I listen to the kind of music I want to listen to, I sing very loudly at the top of my voice in the car… I could wear false eyelashes too, like Barbara Cartland.

The impact sent her reeling. One moment, she stood calmly waiting for her bus, the next she was hurtling through the crisp December air at 40 miles per hour, towards her destination: the newly laid red brick pavement. What blood there was – surprisingly little, considering the extensive injuries she was found to have suffered – blended into the rough crimson blocks, seeping slowly from the cut at her left temple. Witnesses reported that, for all the violence of the crash, she had not made a sound the entire time. She never said another word again.

In hospital, she lay unmoving as they cut off her clothes and exposed her bruised and battered body. She always took great pains to keep her skin soft; sensitivity to sunlight made it impossible for her to wear the latest fashions, the midriff baring tops, the hip-skimming min skirts and low rise jeans. Not for her were the strappy tops and the gauzy blouses which would float against her skin were she able to wear them. She adopted the style of a Goth, wearing dark, sensuous fabrics, silks and velvets, swirling around her ankles, draped around her shoulders and swathing her thighs. However, instead of the blacks and deep indigos worn by Goths, she would wear crimson and purple velvet, moss green and sea blue silks.

Such opulent fabrics were meant to be peeled from a body, slowly, like you might peel a ripe banana, or a sweet orange, slowly, revealing the delights inside. They were not meant to be ripped and tom, rent asunder by frantic hands, discarded as so much useless wrapping on a gore splattered floor. Not meant to be trodden on, like a child steps on the paper in which its birthday presents have been lovingly wrapped, stamping on bows and folds, heedless of the damage. Velvet was to be caressed, not crushed, not torn. Never torn.

Having unwrapped her, they manipulated her, tested for any response, attached and inserted tubes, applied tapes and gauze and strapping and pronounced her alive, but critical. Under the watchful eyes of half a dozen machines, she lay in the bed, her body broken and bloodied… only the smallest fraction of her mind keeping her in the world. The soft bleeping of the machines, the swoosh of the ventilator as it inflated her lungs, sending oxygen into her blood, penetrated this quiet corner. As though from nowhere, she stood by the bed, looking down at herself.

“That was quite a ride,” she said to herself, touching a fingertip to the livid bruise which haloed her left eye. “Matches your skirt.” She looked at the length of material which hung on the trolley at the other side of the room. “What’s left of it. Still, when it’s a choice between velvet and living , I think I’d choose living.”

The ventilator stuttered then swooshed. A dark haired doctor pushed through the doors and stepped to the side of the bed. He scratched his head as he cast tired eyes over her chart, seeing how her blood pressure had begin nearly non existent but was now climbing, how her pulse, thin and thready when they laid her on the table, was now steady, if weak. He made some notes in handwriting only legible to other doctors, lifted her eyelids and waved a small torch in front of unresponsive eyes, making some more notes. He clattered the chart onto the end of the bed and left the room.

“He’ll be back in a while. Every five or ten minutes, someone comes in, has a look, scribbles something, goes away. He’s been in twice. There’s a shift change in a while. It’ll be someone else then. He’s nice though, sweet. Good looking in a plain kind of way… you know, all his features are ordinary but put them together and they make a prettier picture than you might expect.”

*

Twenty four hours passed. Still the machines beeped and swooshed and someone would come in and scribble and then leave. The body on the bed was still unmoving, presenting a picture of calm… only slightly disordered order in the cuts and bruises. Inside, all was chaos. White corpuscles raced through her system, patching up, even as their scarlet counterparts sought to ease themselves from between the torn edges of her once velvet soft skin. Her heart, shocked back into life once, twice, three times, fought to keep the blood flowing, but it too was bruised. The valiant effort it was making to keep her in the world was weakening it. Even as she appeared to be rallying, even as the machines told of her winning the battle to remain alive, her heart was tiring.

“He should have been here a while ago,” the figure beside the bed told her sleeping double. “His shift started at eight.” She walked around the bed, back again, and around and back, her stockinged feet sliding on the tiled floor. “Where is he?”

As though on cue, the doors opened. A light haired woman in green entered. She frowned as she looked at the chart, rubbed her nose as she studied the machines, scratched her neck and then pressed a button. Within moments, another woman joined her, leaning over the bed, pressing and prodding and kneading and checking and comparing and contrasting and looking and examining. Within minutes, the figure in the bed was being wheeled out of the room, the portable machines now hung from hooks on the bed, tubes and wires draping across her legs.

*

The dark haired doctor peered around the door.

“Where have you been?” she asked him angrily. “You should have been here hours ago. They had to take her away. The machines were going crazy.”

He disappeared.

*

The chaos was subsiding now. Her heart was no longer racing, struggling to pump the blood around her battered limbs, through her vital organs. Her breathing was no longer ragged and forced. Her brain was no longer struggling to make sense of the blackness into which it had been plunged, even as she had flown through the crisp December air. She lay unmoving, still, on the bed, the tubes and wires removed, the machines now silent, their screens dark.

The figure at the side of the bed sighed, touched a gentle fingertip to the bruise which haloed her left eye. “He came to say goodbye, I think,” she whispered, and then all in the room was calm.