Silver Lining

En Train

l had forgotten about trains. Forgotten the painlessness of moving through the countryside, unfettered by jams or the need for ceaseless attention. The woman opposite me is asleep, slack jawed. The couple over the aisle variously texting or rustling their newspapers

I am reading - Notes From An Exhibition - while the other half of my brain idly dreams. Walking with you on the Cornish coastal path, the sun casting sparkles off the sea, far below us. It must be off season for we encounter few others. We are in the air, caressed by the breeze and sunlight, walking, talking, holding hands.

We pause occasionally, to watch a bird, or a seal bobbing out on the open sea. Or simply to entwine, wrapping ourselves in each other, tasting the salt from the air on each other's lips, losing our hands under the other's clothes. We are torn between the sheer, exuberant pleasure of simply being: part of this place, this time, each other; and the insistence, urgency of desire.

The countryside slips, backwards, past my window. Oxford's manicured lawns and occasional swimming pools give way to fields, and then to conurbation. Still green, maintaining the illusion of connection with a landscape. Houses more and more infrequently interspersed with fields until the greenness ceases altogether: replaced by urban grittiness, and a settling uniform of grey conformity.

Trees struggle up through pavements, their roots dislodging the unnatural flags, insisting on their right to reclaim the city - straggling leftovers of anciently forrested history. Even these tenacious rear-guard soldiers are nearly defeated: their leaves tainted with a patina of exhaust fumes and weary resignation.

The Cornish coastal path struggles to hold my imagination, as it competes with my bladder and the incursion of the city. I can still taste your mouth over mine, and I am remotely envious of the hills that hold you now.

The underground is unnaturally, impossibly warm and I am over dressed. The chill misery of this morning's early, rain soaked run taunts me from the depths of memory in my calf muscles as I swelter in my too late, too posh raincoat. The trains cast a gloomy aura on the tunnel roofs, and the buskers mime engagingly along with Leonard Cohen in my ears. The next station is Stockwell. I have nearly arrived, in a press of sardine bodies and the muffled shout of strangers' children.

We all just wanna be big rock stars

I love the little insights into childhood innocence that my children give me.

The other day, in the car, we were discussing what we wanted to do over the weekend.  Daisy was outlining her plans, which involved building a hamster assault course as far as I remember, when Dan piped up:

"I tell you what *I* want...."

"You want a kingsize tub big enough for ten plus you?"  I venture

"No, Mum!! I haven't got 9 brothers and sisters!!!"

Silly me.

In other news, I have booked myself on a reiki course next month.  Very exciting.

Diff'rent folks...

There's an old man.  You know how, with significantly elderly men, you can tell at a glance which ones have wives who are still alive?  Well, this old man lives alone.  Probably has for some time.  He's not a withered, shrunken chap.  On the contrary, he's quite big - tall and well filled out.  I see him as I pull into Kenilworth in the mornings.  He catches your eye because of his bright, green cardigan.  It's cheery.  You look closer.  It's cheery and ragged.  The elbows are worn through, and there are buttons missing.  The green is patched with darker stains.  His trousers are baggy at the knee and haven't seen the inside of a washing machine for a while.  His fly isn't always fastened.  The cardigan is topped by a shaggy, grey beard which you suspect contains remnants from whatever he last ate.  You hope it was a good meal; he looks as though he'd appreciate a good meal.  His eyes, above the beard, are small and furrowed away, and his eyebrows echo the hair on his chin.  Atop his head is precariously perched a cotton, quilted tea cosy.  It is grubby and doesn't fit him well.  It is white,with green piping and sprigs of pink flowers, overlaid with a greasy, grey patina.

There's a woman at the Uni. She's a student, of oriental extraction but not wholly.  She carries a Business School laptop bag, which means she's paying fees at the highest end of the spectrum.  She wears a candy pink trench coat, smartly laundered and always fastened and belted, accentuating the slimness of her waist.  Her hair is cut in a glossy bob.  She wears slim, black suit pants and high, kitten heeled slingbacks with pointy toes, and jewels in the heel strap.  She walks briskly and with an air of confidence to her bicycle, where she snaps a black helmet over her groomed hair, unlocks her bike, and wobbles across the carpark towards the exit ramp, right arm extended.

I have felt for some time as though I am a performer.  I'm in a big venue, smart.  Tickets were very expensive, and the sizeable auditorium is full.  Very full.  The audience are looking to me for significant entertainment.  They are dressed in their best clothes, have eaten fine food, and are filled with expectation.  The auditorium lights are dimmed; the spotlights are shining in my eyes.  I can taste the anticipation in the air.  All eyes, all lights, all attention is on me.

I am performing a plate-spinning trick.  I have a series of sticks stretching up, up and beyond the lights.  I keep all the sticks turning.  The audience gasps in amazement as I run up and down the line of sticks, tending to them frantically, spinning them madly, adding first one at one end, and then another at the other.  My line of sticks becomes longer and longer, spinning more and more frantically.  The central sticks wobble and teeter.  The audience is leaning forward in its seat, as a single body.

I, alone, know that there are no plates.  There are only sticks, extending up, up, out of the spotlight.  I run frantically, ever more manically, up and down my line of sticks, hoping against hope that my industry will distract the audience's eye.  There is menace in their expectation.  Soon, one of them - all of them - will notice that there are no plates atop my sticks.  They will bay in dismay, demanding a refund, decrying me for the fraud I am.  I run, to keep the baying at bay.  Up and down, up and down my sticks.

This is my professional life.

I have a sinking feeling that I'm not alone.  That there are several of us, tending our sticks, perpetrating our fraud, dodging the baying of the audience.

Bracken

My name is Bracken.  That's not a pseudonym, a pseudo-anonymous red-riding-hood cloak of a name, it's my real name.  I get some stick about it, in these days when footballers and other minor deities in the pantheon of celebrity insist on naming their kids after the place they were conceived in.  But nonetheless, that's it.  My name is Bracken.

Some names are granted at whim by your parents.  Some belong to you from a time before you were born.  And some are granted, bestowed on you by unseen powers.  Those names carry special privileges, special powers, and special responsibilities.

The tree dragons are my responsibility. 

Knights in shining armour did for the tree dragons, in much the same way that the Brothers Grimm and medieval mythology did for the wolves.  We started a breeding programme, five years ago, but it was set back when nest robbers discovered the site.  They thought they were eagle eggs.  Well duh!  Those would have been mighty big eagles, wouldn't they boys?  Still, they didn't get all the eggs.  Some survived the nest robbers' attention, and some of those hatched!  Imagine!  Little, baby tree dragons, living in the wild in Britain, for the first time for centuries!  It's such a huge responsibility.

Some people think I'm mad.  I mean, I don't go round bragging about it, obviously.  They'd never survive if everyone knew they were there.  Imagine the hysteria!

They're quite small, the tree dragons.  And obviously, they have camouflage down to a fine art.  I mean, you think an iguana's good?  You should see how a species that's been actively persecuted for centuries can manage to hide itself.  Of course, they're not very big, which helps.  I mean, nothing like you'd imagine from all those pub signs of Saint Bloody George sticking it to a fiery lizard.  We're not fond of Saint Bloody George, us dragon watchers.  The man's a lot to answer for, frankly.

So no, not big.  Not much bigger than a large bird.  A buzzard, for example.  In fact, although they have four legs, tree dragons have more in common with birds than you might think.  The wings are largely unused - mostly, they prefer to jump.  They're excellent climbers; like squirrels, and can fling themselves from branch to branch with amazing accuracy.  Their claws are phenomenally strong.  They spend most of their time in trees, coming to the ground only to forage for food, and to get materials to line their nest.  The nests are big, and scruffy.  Man, are they scruffy!  But lined with bracken, and when the eggs hatch and the young are still in the nest, the mother will change the bracken regularly to keep the nest clean.  So scruffy, but not dirty.

They're not scaly, either.  Not like a fish is scaly.  Not like the fiery lizard in your pub sign, at all (I mean, what *is* that all about?).  They have rough skin.  You wouldn't want to stroke them.  Oh, who am I kidding?  They wouldn't let you stroke them!  They have sharp teeth and short tempers, my little tree dragons.  You wouldn't want them curled up on your lap of an evening.

But it's downright unreasonable, how a tendency to grumpiness can translate into a damsel-threatening, fire-breathing, bona fide threat to mankind.  I mean, let me make this perfectly clear.  Dragons don't breathe fire.  At least, not tree dragons.  And they're the only type in this country.  I think there really are bigger ones in Romania, I don't think the Harry Potter lady entirely made that up.  But tree dragons - my dragons - don't breathe fire.  They live in trees, for goodness' sake.  It'd hardly be sensible, would it?  I mean, survival of the fittest would very quickly see the end of them if they did that.

Acrylic Nails

Leaves flurried off the trees in gusts and skittered across the road.  In the beam of the headlights, it was hard to be sure they weren't little animals, and I was nervous about what my tyres were eating.  It had been a hard day, and even though I was leaving on time, I was anxious to get home.

My mind drifted as I negotiated the familiar twists and turns of the lane home.  Familiar, but not in darkness.  I had only driven this route since the summer.  It was a quiet lane, twisting its way alternately through ancient woodland and open fields.  The woods were reputedly populated by a herd of muntjak deer, but I had never seen anything more unusual than a dead badger by the roadside.

With half an eye open for oncoming headlights reflected on the canopy of trees arching over the road, I applied my mind to such pressing issues as whether I might have acrylic nails put on; and what I should cook when my mother came to visit in a week's time. 

A runner hove into view round a bend in the road.  I admired his reflective tights.  They would be a useful thing to track down.  I wondered where the nearest running shop might be, as I hugged the opposite side of the road, allowing him plenty of space.  Lights illuminated the trees ahead of me, a way off yet; just around the sharp bend.  Nonetheless, I returned to my side of the road, catching the edge of my tyre on the banked earth at the side of the narrow highway.  The car passed me just as I reached the bend, travelling quickly into the straight of road I had just negotiated.

I settled on chilli.  I make a good three bean chilli, not too hot but pleasantly spicy and not too obviously a meat substitute meal.  She'll expect a dessert, too, never mind that we have to eat this meal before we set off for the theatre.  Still, I can get away with buying a dessert.  She knows I don't have time to make fancy meals.  I can make the chilli the night before - it'll benefit from 24 hours of flavours seeping and melding into each other.  It'll be rich and delicious.  Yes, so if I leave work early, there should be plenty of time to finish it off, eat it, and get to the theatre in time for a drink before the curtain rises.

I reach the T Junction, and am irritated by the fact that there's traffic on the road I want to join.  I have to wait for five or six minutes.  I reach forward and put a CD into the player, and tap my wheel impatiently in time to the music.  The traffic forces my attention to return to the driving, and as I join the stream on the busier, bigger road, I am focussed on the vehicle in front of me, and the minutes ticking past.

I am two thirds of the way home before I can relax again.  The traffic is inexplicably thick for this time of night, and I'm slightly peeved that I've been forced to devote my entire concentration to it for all this time; time which I usually spend clearing space in my head before the evening's activities.  Still, I think the acrylic nails are winning.

Once home, I struggle into my running gear and whistle the dogs.  We set off, out of the house and heading towards the canal.  It should only be a short run this evening, but the dogs are explosive after their day alone, and we cover some good ground.  I get home, pleasantly sweaty and with the satisfying sensation of work well done.

A hot bath, a glass of wine, John Martyn on the CD player in the living room.  My phone rings, and a friend announces that a group of them are considering a spontaneous visit to the Odeon to see the new Jude Law thing.  Do I want to come along?  I agree, provided food can be involved, and go upstairs to dry my hair.

The doorbell rings ten minutes later.  "Bloody hell!"  I yell, as I jog down the stairs  "You're early!  Couldn't you wait?? I haven't dried my.........Oh"  I tail off, as I open the door and register the uniform, the peaked cap, with its slightly ridiculous black and white checked band.  "Umm... Hello.  Sorry.  I thought you were going to be my friend." I babble, aware of the ridiculous playground tone of my words.

"Miss Davies?" 

I nod. A knot is forming in my stomach.  I can't imagine what's going on, but picutres are flashing through my mind and none of them are good.  Fear is gnawing at the back of my throat, and my mouth is suddenly very dry.

"Miss Davies, I'm PC Pickering, and this is WPC Dodd.  May we come in?"

I nod again, and trip backwards, holding the door open.  The dogs bounce excitedly at the strangers as they walk through into my living room.  "Sit down please, Miss Davies."  He's taking charge, and I'm powerless to take it back, somehow.  I sit, mutely.  A dog bounds onto my lap and the other sniffs at the feet of the woman.

She sits down, too.  I realise I should at least try not to appear a  bumbling fool.  "Um.  Sit down" No, too late.  She has. "I mean, er, would you like a drink?"  I half rise but she shakes her head. 

"No thanks, Miss Davies.  Sit down."  He's authoritative.  Slightly intimidating.  Hell, I'm completely intimidated.

"Have you been drinking, Miss Davies?"  He gestures to the bottle of wine, open on the side.

"Um, no.  Not really.  I had one glass earlier, while I was running my bath"  I'm going to be late for the cinema.  I'm beginning to be irritated, as well as intimidated.  It's an odd combination, and I feel slightly sick.  "Um, sorry.  But what's this about?  Why are you here?"

"Can you tell us what time you got home, Miss Davies?"

"About 6.30, I think."

"And did you come straight home from work?"

"Yes"

"You didn't stop anywhere first.  Didn't go for a quick drink, perhaps?"

"No!  No, I didn't!" I'm indignant now.  What's he suggesting?  How bloody dare he?  "I don't drink before I drive.  Ever. Look, what is this about?"

"Just bear with us a minute, love"  the woman advises, quietly.  I look at her.  I'm not her love.  But the reassurance in her voice is welcome, all the same.

"Can you tell us which way you come home, Miss Davies?"

"Yes.  I come down the Lane, onto the A753, and into town"

"Do you always come that way?"

I nod

"Did you come that way this evening?"  she presses the question.

"Yes.  Yes, I did.  Why?  Why are you asking?"

"Miss Davies."  He's standing behind me.  I have to turn, to twist on the sofa and look upwards at an odd angle to see him.  It's uncomfortable, and I have a suspicion he meant it to be.

"Did you pass any other cars on the Lane this evening?"

My mind is blank.  I don't remember.  Did I?  Suddenly, my journeys home merge, one into another and I can't remember.  I'm frightened, but I can't remember.

"I don't know.  I can't remember.  Um..."

"Come on Miss Davies", she cajoles "Surely you remember.  You hadn't been drinking, had you?"

I feel that they are closing in.

"No! No I hadn't been drinking!  I absolutely hadn't had a drink!"

"But you have now, haven't you?"  I turn behind me, towards him. I want to look at him.  I think if I can see him, I might be able to guess what he's insinuating.

"Yes.  Yes, I have now.  I had a glass of wine just before you arrived.  Look, is that what this is about?  Do you think I've been drink driving?"

"No, Miss Davies.  That's not what this is about.  This is about the body of a young man we found on the Lane about half an hour ago.  A runner.  He was found in the ditch by a woman walking a dog.  He'd been hit by a car.  A car travelling quite fast.  The woman lives in the farmhouse on the corner of the lane.  She only remembers seeing one car this evening.  Your car."

My blood is chilled.  My head spins.  My tongue is fuzzy and heavy in my mouth.  I think I might be sick, actually.

"So, Miss Davies.  Think hard.  Did you see any other cars in the Lane this evening?"

But I can't remember.  I can't remember what I saw on my drive home.  I think so hard I'm screwing my brain up, trying to wring every last drop of information out it.

But all I can remember is three bean chilli.  Three bean chilli, the theatre, and acrylic nails.

Invincible

There was a time when youth was invincible.  A time when clouds were all high, white, and made the shapes of dragons or starships.  When the sun never stopped shining, except for at nightfall, which simply heralded another opportunity to party, to laugh, to love.

There was a time.

An unexpected opportunity for a holiday presented itself.  An activity holiday, based around a bunkhouse in deepest Cornwall.  A holiday Trixie would share with strangers, and during which she would explore the limits of her physical abilities.

She took the train from London.  It was full of soldiers, businessmen and families.  She managed to find a seat at a table, and eyed the carriage around her.  Trixie took great delight in speculating stories for her fellow travellers: that couple had just got engaged and were going to announce their news to his parents; the woman with the small children was stressed, locked in an unhappy marriage; the soldiers were travelling to a new barracks and amongst them was one, at least one, who wasn't a drunken lout and who found the collective aggression just a little frightening.

She wondered whether anybody else on the carriage was heading for her holiday.  How many of them would be fellow travellers.  She took a particular interest in everyone sporting a rucksack, idly delighting in the fantasy that she might make a friend before she ever arrived.

As the train passed through Devon, the inhabitants of the carriage began to thin out.  She looked through the window, awed by the track which ran alongside the seafront, breakers spraying over the side of the carriage.  It was a drama she hadn't associated with train travel.  But then, she had never been to Cornwall before, and her expectations were shaped by Daphne Du Maurier novels and Poldark.

Finally, after an indecent length of time, they pulled into Penzance.  Trixie wondered out onto the platform, dazed by the provincial smallness of the station.  She had expected something bigger, more impressive, more......  metropolitan.  Consulting her map for the umpteenth time, she turned right and headed across a car park to the bus station.  The timetable indicated where she needed to wait, and she settled down in the correct shelter, hoping the bus would arrive soon.  She was hungry and she didn't want to be too late for the evening meal.  There were two or three other young people with rucksacks in the bus shelter, and Trixie was initially hopeful they would be going to the same place, but  they drifted off, muttering about being at the wrong stop and she was alone.  She pulled out a battered guidebook, and began to read.

"Excuse me" 

Trixie looked up.  A tall, blonde man with a Germanic accent and a rucksack.  A rucksack!

"Is this the correct stop for the bus to Porthleven?"

Trixie nodded.  The man dropped his rucksack beside her and sat on it.  "Have you been here before?" she asked.  Goddamit!  That wasn't exactly an original invitation to sparklingly witty conversation, was it??

"No, I am here on holiday. Actually, I was going to go diving, but I forgot I had booked this, so it's a bit last minute" 

She couldn't place the accent.  It was like German, but not.  "Where are you from?"

"Amsterdam.  You?" 

They fell easily into conversation. His name was Ludo, and he was going on her holiday.  It was exciting!  She hadn't expected there to be an international flavour. 

They chatted happily onto the bus, through the journey and then off again.  They arrived companionably at the bunk house, to discover that only half a dozen souls had got there before them; most of those Dutch, too. 

By the evening, the bunkhouse was full.  More men than women, but that was to be expected on a holiday of this nature; Trixie was only pleased to find she wasn't the only woman, and that the others in the girls' dorm were friendly and giggly and approachable.  And Dutch, but that was by the by.  There was only one other English person there; a DJ from London with a dry wit and a refreshingly cynical attitude.

They worked hard, the first few days of that week.  They pushed their limits, stretched their muscles, grazed their hands and knees and drove their bodies generally to the brink of exhaustion.  And every evening they would all arrive back at the bunkhouse and swap tales of the day's activities; comparing notes over bottles of beer (Dutch, naturally).  By the end of the second day, they had exhausted the limited potential of the bunkhouse and needed to find a pub.  An expedition set off: Trixie, Ludo, another of the women, an older couple who were fast proving the hardiest and most resilient of the group, and Tom, the London DJ.  The pub was half a mile from the bunkhouse, and the group spent the walk laughing and joking, their companionship and exhaustion preventing them from noticing the chill of the evening.

It was a week of blazing sunshine.  Tom got sunburnt on his ankles, and had to miss a day's excursion.  The scenery was dramatic; cliff tops overlooking the crashing waves of the Atlantic; routes picked over rough crystalline granite, unforgiving to your clothes and even more so to your skin.  The course leader had them all abseil to a small ledge, halfway down a cliff and showed them a herb which grows only in this part of Britain.  In turn they all broke a piece off, and grimaced at its buttery bitterness.  They watched insects scuttling off the rockface in front of them; picnicked in exhausted heaps, vainly trying to shoo the seagulls away from their hard earned sandwiches.

The group broke into two; those more experienced and the novice section.  Trixie wasn't surprised to find herself amongst the novices.  She was more surprised to see Ludo packing his kit to join them the next morning - she had watched him the couple of days before, and admired his experience and technique.  They spent that day at Bosigran, an atmospheric zawn with towering cliff faces, one side defined by a famous ridge and the other by a chaotic tumble of cliffs, fractured into a plateau halfway.  It was on this side that they worked that day, exploring chimneys, negotiating the impossible walk down, and laughing and joking in the sunshine.  Sinews were beginning to accept the exercise, and muscles were recovering from the original shock.  Everyone began to feel that their movements were flowing, and their enjoyment grew alongside.

One evening, Trixie wanted to go down to the beach.  There was a long stretch of pure, white sand curving for a mile along the coast just down the hillside from the bunkhouse.  She suggested to the group that a trip to the beach might be rewarded with a chip supper from the chippy on the front, but most people were put off by the prospect of a long, steep climb back up to bed.  Ludo and Trixie set off alone, racing each other down the hill, laughing and sharing stories from the day's outings.  The chippy was closed, so they walked down the beach and sat with their backs against the sea wall.

The sun was setting, throwing a spectacular fiery display over the Atlantic, which swelled peacefully at their feet.

There comes a moment, in the relationship between man and woman when a stillness falls.  A moment when each savours the anticipation of what is happening to them, and what will happen to them next.  A brief interlude when possibilities stretch before them, undefined, unexplored, but welcome. Trixie sat on the beach next to her tall, blonde Dutchman and savoured that moment.  They turned to each other, smiling, and their fate was sealed.

The rest of the week passed in a haze of delight.  At every opportunity Trixie and Ludo broke away from the group, stealing time alone together.  They would leave the pub early to walk alone back to the bunkhouse, exploring the fields and alleyways along the way.  In the manner of young people who are very quickly smitten, they shared their stories; outlining their separate past and exploring the options for their shared future.

Ludo was exciting.  He was kind, and gentle.  He had a ready sense of humour and an eagerness and openness that Trixie had never encountered before.  He was honest with her and treated her with respect.  The prospect of an entirely different experience was unfolding itself, revealing itself to her slowly, piece by piece. 

At the end of the week, Ludo travelled back to London with Trixie.  The journey was short.  Much shorter than on the way down.  She prayed for the train to break down, for time to stop and leave them together in the golden glow of their holiday.  To allow them to look one more time at the clear sky and spot the dragons and starships in the clouds.

They made plans.  Ludo would come back to the UK in six weeks.  It might as well have been six lifetimes.  Trixie would go to Amsterdam three or four weeks after that. He would apply for a secondment to the London office of his company.  They would find a way.  They would be together.

There was a time when youth was invincible.  A time when clouds were all high, white, and made the shapes of dragons or starships.  When the sun never stopped shining, except for at nightfall, which simply heralded another opportunity to party, to laugh, to love.

Madame Butterfly

Of course, not everything is bleak. Everything in the world has its lighter moments.  On its good days, James's soul was a sere, barren place lit only obliquely through heavy clouds.  But mostly it was a dark, sulphurous, suppurating pus-filled boil.  As a child, he had enjoyed averagely unpleasant activities: petty theft; tormenting other children; pulling the wings off butterflies.  Growing older, he learned to disguise some of his more unpleasant traits under a superficial charm, but even so he was a solitary man.  His friends were mostly people he met in the pub.  People whose interest in his well-being extended only to the depths of his wallet and the price of the next round.

James's existence was characterised by mediocrity.  He got an ordinary degree from a second class university, plodded his way through a series of unremarkable jobs, in each one failing to gain promotion, and each time moving on when frustration got the better of him.  For a short while, he moved to the capital city, but quickly returned to the anonymous northern town he grew up in, feeling more comfortable in the less challenging environment.

Over time, James became aware of a hole in his existence.  Even he began to notice the stasis that infused every atom of his being.  He needed light, he needed movement.  He needed a butterfly to fertilise the barren desert of his soul.

He saw a girl.  A girl, in the pub.  He'd seen her before, years ago.  She was quirky, wiry, brittle.  She had a ready laugh and an open, trusting nature.  She was a butterfly.  James decided he needed the girl.

He exercised his superficial charm. He opened his wallet.  He employed all the tricks he knew, to make the girl like him.  She knew nothing of his habit of pulling the wings off butterflies.  She didn't realise that the only way James could make people stay close to him was to cripple them, to prevent them from running away.

Tonight I was mostly going to

go climbing. I love climbing. It's 6 years since I've been climbing - not since I was pregnant with Daisy. So I guess one more week off won't kill me, though I'm surprised by the depth of my disappointment! Moo was going to cook tea, so I could come in, eat, and go straight back out. The climbing wall where I was going to meet people is a 45 minute drive away, and they'll all be there at 7.30. Unfortunately, Moo forgot and didn't start cooking until I got in. And I could eat a scabby horse. So at this rate, I'll be going to my regular meeting tonight, which won't involve scaling any heights or conquering any mild terrors.

I'm not saying I was ever any good, mind - I was always a lousy leader, although I'd do some pretty ambitious following (none of this will mean anything to you unless you've ever tried it!). And one of the things that's kept me out so long is the worry about how frustrating and humiliating it will be to be even crapper than I used to be before! While everyone else, of course, will have improved. Because nobody has *started* climbing in the last 6 years, have they?! Nobody else could possibly be less good than me!

In fact, I find climbing truly and utterly terrifying. I remember one route at The Roaches, which was technically very easy - graded Hard V Diff, or at the most Severe. But halfway up it ('twas at the Skyline end of the Roaches, if memory serves) there was an enormous step over the top of a crack so wide it was essentially a chimney, onto an ordinary jamming crack on the opposite wall. ie, you climbed up one face, stood on a plinth, stretched a step out over a chasm, and locked your toes and the tippy fingertips of your hands into a crack on a wall facing you, but about 9 maybe 10 feet away. Perhaps more than that: it was wider than my legs would comfortably stretch without feeling I would do the splits. Capiche?

Now, because I was seconding, my partner at the time (a big, burly bloke at least 8 inches taller than me) had already done this, and put some protection in the rock some way above the initial crack on the facing wall. Which meant that if I fell, I would at least not fall down. However, in the event of a fall, the rope would pull me into the rockface opposite me. And just to complicate matters further, the rock at The Roaches is called gritstone, a virtually featureless rock which relies on friction and small, often wind-smoothed and well rounded holds. And it was a hot day, which means the friction was virtually nil. In good weather, gritstone can be almost as grippy as highly polished glass. Fun, fun, fun!

I got to the plinth with relatively little trouble. I'd been climbing well that day, and this was our last route before the pub. I was relaxed, well exercised and perfectly, totally happy. I tried the step over a couple of times. Each time I tried, Mike took in a bit of the rope, and so each time I tried I was drawn inevitably closer and closer to the edge of this gap I had to step over. And each time I tried, I realised that I couldn't easily reach across this gap - it wasn't a question of simply stretching my legs apart to their full extent and stemming the gap, the way I'd seen Mike do it - my legs were too short. The only way to do it was to commit to extending my full weight over the edge of what was rapidly becoming a yawning chasm, and hoping that my lead toe hit the facing wall at just the right point to grip. I had to commit my full weight to my leading foot in order to have any chance at all of getting the friction I needed. Insufficient friction, and I'd lose my grip on the rock and slide, and as soon as it was on track for the point I was aiming at, I'd have to let go with my rear foot. There were no handholds in reach. It had to be the lead foot, or fall.

I seriously considered jumping. That way, at least, feet and hands would hit together. But I realised the rope would pull me in to the wall, and I didn't know how to control the velocity of my jump so I didn't simply smash into the facing rock in an uncontrolled and altogether disastrous fashion.

Mike was beginning to get impatient. I'm a renowned jess, but I'm also usually impatient to get the terror over with. He couldn't understand why I was hanging about. And to make matters worse, the top of the crag is quite exposed, and the wind was beginning to pick up, so we couldn't easily hear what each other was saying.

The more I thought about the how and the when, the more terrified I became. My mouth was dry. This is the kind of phrase you read without actually appreciating its meaning until it happens to you. My mouth was so dry that my swallow reflex wouldn't work. Not that it mattered, since I had nothing to swallow anyway. It was so dry, that the idea I might throw up in sheer terror became quite appealing; at least it would moisten my mouth. And to make matters worse, my left knee began to tremble uncontrollably. This is a muscular stress reflex, and is quite common in climbing. It's called variously Elvis knee, or disco knee.

Abseiling would have been appealing, except that I'd still have had to get off my plinth and that would still have involved hitting the rockface opposite with rather more force than I would have chosen!

What do you do with disco knee? In this case, if I'd have led with my left leg, I'd have hit the next stance with a shaking leg. And if you remember, it was critical that I had my full weight on the lead foot - less than ideal. And if I'd have led with my right foot, I'd have had a shaky rear led as my only stability, my only hope of reversing a move halfway through and escaping.

This is what I love about climbing. It's totally piss or leave the pot. It strips you down to the very core of yourself. Even when the danger isn't all that great - it wasn't a huge fall we're talking about here. At worst, I'd have ended up with cuts and bruises and *maybe* a broken ankle. And a severe fright, of course. But even so, I had to remove everything about myself that was extraneous to that moment, surplus to that single move. I had to regain control of my head, and then my body, and focus on the precise spot opposite me where my foot was to land. This was one of those moments, when time goes into very, very slow motion. Where you can analyse and anticipate each fractional micro-movement. Where you can almost see the breeze rippling the hairs on your hands, your attention and senses are so heightened. Where concentration has to be so intense that there is no room for anything other than the heartbeat in your ears and the movement of your limbs.

Of course, I made the move. And about halfway up the remaining wall, resting now on massively windswept curving ridges of rock, with the sun baking my back and the wind chopping through my hair, the saliva came back into my mouth; my legs stopped shaking; my senses lost their intensity and a grin broke across my face. It wasn't a difficult climb, it wasn't even a particularly difficult move. But the satsifaction I felt in conquering my fear, in stripping myself back and regaining my control was immense. And the high when you've made it! The whoops and yells and dances I've had on the top of crags - the hugs and kisses with men and women with whom you've shared moments of such pure intensity!

This is what I love about climbing. This is what I'm looking forward to getting back into my life.

This, and the men in lycra and harnesses, of course.

Tractor

Home again, home again, Hat!

Well I was right about the knickers - entirely unremarked!

Too tired to write, right now. Have had a lovely weekend, and I'm a very, very happy girl. Just in case anyone's reading, and (more to the point) so that I don't lose it again, here's a story I wrote a couple of years ago...

Oh, actually in July 2000 - so that's more than a couple of years now, isn't it?!

*********************************************************************************************************************
Tractor
His head nestles, inconveniently hard and round, between her shoulder and neck, and his breath whispers quietly across her throat. For a moment she is almost at peace with herself; but then he stirs.
“Tractor” he says, leaning back from her and pointing out of the bedroom window.
Even now, the faintest hint of normality brings the tumult of her emotion rushing back in, relentless and unforgiving.
“Yes, it’s a tractor.” She agrees, swallowing back tears.
Christ! This is her child – her baby boy. She is Mummy. Mummy, which is the baby’s word for God. And yet, not only has she witnessed this thing, and been powerless to prevent its force breaking (literally) over his head; she has been the agent of its happening; she has betrayed and broken their perfect circle.
Until now, she had never appreciated the ebb and flow in the movement of time. How, ordinarily, life cruises along, one day melding seamlessly with the last and the next; emotions forming a continuum even in their extremes; a steady, even pace so taken for granted – so missed. And then something happens. In hindsight everything, the whole day, rushes up to the accident – time impatient to reach its climax – as though some unseen eye had read ahead to the denouement and was keen to skip over the intervening details.

She recalls vividly – it isn’t recollection, even: she can still live the moments; hearing the birds in neighbouring gardens; feeling the sun warming and languid on her neck as she finishes mowing the lawn. He’s stirring in his cot. The baby is gurgling in her playpen. Their big sister won’t be home from school for another hour. It’s a lovely day – the first day of sunshine after weeks of spring rain, and she doesn’t want it to pass unmarked. A trip to the park appears in her mind and she moves, suddenly purposeful, to his bedroom.
An empty car park – which she doesn’t use in petty protest against the newly installed ticket machines. Instead, she joins the cars parked nose-to-tail along the kerbs of neighbouring streets. The park is quiet. She promises him a turn on the swings, and then a visit to see how the ducklings have grown on the ornamental lake. A tractor is cutting the grass on the field – she supposes it used to be a lawn – outside the big house and they pass close by it. The baby is sleeping now, happy to be in her pram; the boy is excited by the tractor and the swings to come. They manoeuvre the pram awkwardly through the gate strictly too narrow to accommodate it, and the baby is parked against the far wall, her sleep undisturbed.
The boy – her son – her baby boy rushes from seesaw to wobbly horse to racing car climbing frame. Curtailed renditions of “Seesaw, Marjory Daw” and “Horsey, horsey don’t you stop” delight them both. His appetite is immediate and insatiable. He needs to be four or five different children and do everything all at once. Other mothers – two? three? – supervise their children and chat.
The tractor engine starts again. She hasn’t even been aware until now that it had stopped. The boy is suddenly focused. The splinters of his activity reunite and he is possessed of a single purpose:
“Tractor” he says, moving toward the gate.
She is checking the baby. Still sleeping.
“Yes, it’s a tractor – mowing the grass. A lawnmower” She agrees.
“Tractor”.
He’s at the gate, opening it. The fact impinges on her conscious mind. He can open the gate. It doesn’t have a latch. She is moving across the playground. Is she running? She must be – doesn’t walk this fast. Gets to the gate. Gets to the baby. One in each hand. Shuts the gate and holds it shut with her knee:
“No! “
Crouching: “No. You mustn’t go out there without me. You’re too little. The tractor’s too big. Stay here.”
He’s determined. Wailing. Thwarted. Angry. Determined to open the gate. He won’t be diverted, so she picks him up.
Even now, two days later. Only now. Only two days later can she see it. Not see – feel it. Carrying her son, her precious baby boy. His body arching in anger away from her and his voice loud in her ear “TRACTOR!” Down the incline from the gate and, with each step downhill, time is slowing, slowing – lingering lover-like over each anticipatory second – into a painful, instant by instant, freeze-frame slow motion which can (and does) replay time and time again in her mind, in her imagination.
“TRACTOR!” And the bastard uneven paving. She can feel it now, through the rigid, inflexible wooden sodding sole of her bloody shoe. Her ankle bows outwards and her knees buckle. She is aware now, then, always of the sensation of her leg rolling outwards and down – away from her body, out of her control. The desperate feeling of her son, unaware of the importance of the change in his mother’s stride. Her son – her baby – in her arms. The ground. Concrete. Inflexible. Rigid. Her baby. Her baby. Her knees, thumping on the pavement. Sensation ripely remembered from the impacts of knees on pavements, playgrounds, school yards countless times over time. Her knees thump on the pavement. Her body arches forwards. Her baby. Her baby arches forwards. His head thumps on the pavement.

He wriggles off her lap.
“Tractor”, pointing through the bedroom window.
“Yes, it’s a tractor, sweetheart. A blue tractor. Mowing the grass.” She shivers at the echo. “Would you like to go and play in the garden, and watch the tractor?”
He would. He moves out of the room and towards the stairs. She lingers, picking up, tidying away, attempting to remove the lingering tangle of frozen images of the day before yesterday. Finally, she leaves the bedroom. Last week – three days ago – he would have been down the stairs and out of the back door, in the garden and waiting, impatient, for her to lift him to see over the back fence. Not today. Today, he’s waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Today, he’s afraid of falling. He knows. He remembers pain and fear and he’s waiting for her, his small fat hand outstretched. She smiles into his bruised little face and leads him down the stairs. Carefully, one step at a time, holding on to the banister rails, he follows her. He wants to hold her hand. He wants to be carried. She wants to go back to the time before he was afraid.
He’s in the garden. She’s in the playground. He’s lifting the lid off his sandpit, happily burbling about buckets and bees, one eye on his mother, making sure she’s close.

She’s crying: “I’m sorry. Oh, I’m sorry. Oh, sweetheart, Mummy’s so sorry”
Picking him up from the ground. Holding him. Holding him close. His little body rigid with terror and pain and incomprehension. His mouth open, screaming. Tears and snot and saliva running down his face and mingling on his chin. She’s aware that the other mothers have stopped talking: are staring. Neither offers to help. Neither asks if they’re alright. Bitches. She’s moving again – rushing to the pram. Must calm down. Must be calm. He will take his lead from her. Put him in the pram. His face! His sweet, precious, little round baby face. White. White from temple to cheekbone. She notices the edges of blue already appearing round his eye, and the striae of red, bloody graze vertically streaking his skin. And the angry outline where his head hit the ground. Pictures flash through her mind. Watermelon. Pumpkins. Explosions. Her baby. Her boy’s head ripely thumping on the ground. The younger baby is awake and crying, too, alarmed by her brother’s pain and fear.

“Mummy, look. Bee”
She smiles at the boy, happily pottering round his garden. They watch the bee together: she on her hands and knees, he squatting beside her, buzzing gently.

She remembers little of the journey back to the car. Struggling to get the big twin pram through the little, single gate without jarring the boy. All the time whispering to the babies, gentle murmurs of platitude and comfort. And at the car, lifting him into his seat. Looking again at his face. Lilac, now – already. A big, livid bruise spreading across his forehead and down his cheek. So quickly. Phone calls are made. Her husband will meet them at the hospital. A friend will pick up her eldest daughter from school.
The bloody pram won’t go through the bloody door of Casualty. Shit! Shitshitshit!! She finds the ambulance entrance – bigger for wheelchairs and gurneys – and enters the department through there. A receptionist tries to tell her she’s in the wrong place and must use the other entrance.
“But my baby!” She indicates.
The receptionist disappears and emerges from behind a curtain with a nurse.
They’re taken to a virtually empty playroom. He finds a helicopter. ‘Helicopter’ is the most complex word he knows how to say, and he says it again and again, proudly. He seems unaware, for the moment, of his injury. Is certainly unaware of the examinations, x-rays, trauma yet to come. The nurse begins to take notes – name, address, date of birth, and so on. Numbed, she lifts the hungry, frightened baby out of the pram and gently fixes her to her breast. She tells the nurse what has happened, fighting for control of her voice, her emotions; her eyes glued to the boy, watching his poor, vivid face; watching, with relief, his normality. Daring to hope. Daring to hope that he might be OK, just bruised, go home. The story makes her cry and the baby lifts her head from the nipple and looks, bewildered, at her mother, and cries too. Her son is staggering across the room towards her, arms outstretched.
“Mummy, cuddle”
She wipes her face on the palm of her free hand, and reaches down to her small son, moving the baby over slightly and lifting him up. The baby protests anew at this development and, as the boy rises over her knee he vomits suddenly, all over his mother and into the baby’s upturned face and open, wailing mouth.
“Oh, God!”
The baby breathes, and chokes. The nurse reaches over and takes her, clearing her mouth of her brother’s vomit with a crooked finger.
Later, her husband arrives and her fragile hold on her composure is shattered when she sees him. Through her guilt and fatigue, through the hollow of her skull and the white noise of her emotions, she realises he is furious. Furious at a ride down the motorway toward an untold, unquantified harm. Furious with the hospital, for smelling antiseptic and being full of sick people. Furious with her for not being in charge. Furious with her for harming his son. Furious with her. Wasn’t she supposed to care for the child, for Christ’s sake?? Furious because he didn’t belong here: they didn’t belong here. Furious. They barely talk, and he takes the baby home.
She is alone with her small son. Sometimes, he plays on the crib they’ve put him on, in a curtained observation area. Sometimes he wants to be held close and still by his Mummy. His Mummy whom he loves completely. His Mummy who hurt him; who damaged him (they think his skull might be fractured, they’re sure he’s suffering a severe concussion); who took the small totality of his soft perfection and threw it, full and hard, onto the concrete paving stone. This is how her mind works.
Her husband returns, later still. He holds her, comforts her. He’s taken stock and removed blame. He panicked – he’s sorry. Somehow – unreasonably – this just contrives to make her feel worse. She watches him holding his son, talking to the little boy, loving him; and she feels a freshness, a rawness in their relationships with each other, with her. The little boy is tearful again now, sore and tired and wanting to go home; to be done with this strange place; to be in his bath, in his bed.

They come in from the garden when it begins to rain in fat, idle spots. He would have stayed out, but her newly edged protectiveness won’t let him. She makes him a simple meal, and sits suckling the baby and watching him eat it.
Finally, here he is. In his bath, in his bed. She watches herself sharing his bedtime routine, watches herself loving this tiny, complex creature. Watches herself being careful, being extra careful with his person now – too late.
It has taken two days. Two days to live through a few hours. The reel has played out and it is over, its intensity is passing. Time is moving up to speed, slowly back to normality. It will take more time: ordinary time; seamlessly melded time – and a lot of it, before they regain their confidence in themselves, in each other. Before they can walk down the stairs without holding hands.