Through the line.

A little bit embarrassingly I put this as an addendum on one of my writer job CVs  to show that I could write. It certainly isn't the best thing I've ever written, but I was in the awkward position of having to find something quickly (the deadline for the job was fast approaching and as an idea of adding a story only came to me at the last minute) and that it would be sufficiently decent despite my having no long term literary ambitions  for it. I might have been a misjudgment not to have added a better piece of work on the CV as I had absolutely no response (though I did note that there were well over 100 applicants for this particular job).  Anyway *flexes fingers - hears the cracks and lets them fizz expectantly over the keyboard.* And...                   

When we were about 8 and 10, always at bedtime, and providing she left her door open, I’d watch my older sister sitting on the side of her bed with her legs crossed, hunched like a crab, writing something into a red leatherette covered book. I'd watch her peering through her little Gandhi spectacles, writing in that round curly lettered handwriting of hers as her plaits dangled in front of her. Then she’d dart the page before locking the book with a little in-built padlock and attach the key to her constantly worn charm bracelet. My interest in this item grew from bored curiosity to a maddening need for answers. It was the lock that did it.

She had a money box too; like a miniature bank cash-box – an ugly black square thing that looked like it had been made from left over armoured plating from a tank factory, totally immune to the hairgrips and paper clips I’d used to try to get it open. But I knew the contents of the box amounted to little more than three apple snail shells, a folded picture of Cliff, and a couple of defunct farthings. Compared to the book, this was only of passing interest, fuelled mainly by brotherly menace.

 After several attempts at stealing this mysterious book thing from her desk and prising open the pages, nearly breaking my finger nails; and a failed attempt to obtain the key once by slipping her charm bracelet into my pocket after she’d left it lying around outside the bathroom, she informed me that it was her 'secret diary.’ After allowing for this exotic fact to sink in, I dug out my ongoing Christmas list and looked at the items listed, staring at it with new eyes. I then scratched out the number one entry: ‘Magnetic Robot ‘and inserted the words ‘lockable diary’ in its place.

            That Christmas, I got one. It wasn't lockable; instead it was a ‘Scout’s Diary,’ full of kids doing stuff I didn't do like tying knots and earning merit badges for good deeds. But it was a diary. My initial disappointment that it wasn't lockable waned when I found a loose floorboard in my lair and a secret cavity in which to stow it. I could now record my life in complete secrecy; I’d write in it every day and one day show it to an astonished world.

                                             The Diaries Begin

Thursday 18 October 1968.’ Dear diary, I felt poorly at school today and had to sit in the assembly hall with my sister. She was made to sit with me until I told the truth. Spangles is always suspicious if we say we feel ill in class.’ (Age 12)

     My sister sat and glowered at me. Her hair now brushed moodily forward, tumbling over her suspicious face where her girlish plaits once hung sweetly. I was her brother; therefore I was a liar as well as a thief. And here I was, lying my way out of lessons. She was relieved and skipped off to her friends when Mrs. Spangler, who made no pretence of her dislike of boys, exasperated, sent me home. The hobble home wasn’t a tough, sports injury limp, it was one of those clutching belly, ‘I feel fragile’ hobbles. I felt sick and depressed. One light however shone my tortured route home: it was a Thursday, and my new Tiger comic would be waiting for me.

              Very little interrupted my comic obsession, whether sadness, illness or pain. I’d stuck with my Tiger through crippling migraines, breaking off only to stumble to the bathroom to release the headache demon by inducing warm, sour, throat-scoring vomit that filled my nose with the sore-stink of acid. But, eyes still fizzing, my mouth sluiced and sweetened, I’d be back to the comic. Even when the words wavered, and the superheroes looked like smudges, I’d carry on. Comics were my solace and my comfort, a sublime private entertainment no matter how I felt. On new comic delivery day, I’d be almost paralysed with delight.

              Home at last, stumbling through the door, I looked across the hall and saw my Tiger, sleeping on the worn mat in the porch; pristine, lit by a dusty ray of late autumn sunshine, shimmering with seductive newness. I took it to my private lair, slinked away with my prize as a real tiger might, then sat on my bed to inhale the inky flavours of its print, its pictures and its promise. Wrestler Johnny Cougar would face another terrible adversary, Skid Solo would be racing against cads with superior technology, and the opposing football team would be out to nobble Roy of the Rovers. It didn't matter that I knew this. It was the familiarity I craved the most.

             And then the unthinkable happened. My interest waned. I was page flipping, not getting to the end of the stories. Suddenly Roy of the Rovers didn't seem quite as captivating. I closed the comic and lay down. Put on my pyjamas and sat in bed clutching my belly. I looked at the comic. The strength of my feelings for the comic now locked in battle with my pain. I picked it up again and read the cover. Then I was flipping again, backwards and forwards.  Finally, I dropped the comic to the floor and it flapped lifelessly to the carpet like a flattened hero. My eyes felt full.  Fluid rattled in my nose. I didn't feel like being brave. Further down, my appendix grumbled, preparing itself to explode and fire poison into my blood.

                                           Starting Work

     ‘Monday 11th August 1972. ‘Dear diary,  the reason I stood today in a carpenter’s workshop wearing my new blue bib and braces overalls with four corned beef sandwiches and a flask of tea with sugar, stowed in a tartan duffle bag slung over my shoulder, was because this was my first day as a proper adult.’ (Age 16)

          ‘Am I in the right place?’ I said to a fat man wearing a brown overall as I wandered into the yard. This turned out to be the foreman, a notorious hater of new apprentices, due to, as I later learned, their callowness and youth being disruptive to the old guard of grizzled ex national servicemen who preferred to work grumpily alone. The scrappy remains of his hair were tar black but greying bits were fighting through and looked as stiff as wire wool. Filaments of hair poked from his collar showing despite his bald head, hair was thriving everywhere else. Spiders legs crawled from his eyebrows and his heavy-lidded eyes were as brown as the bundles of teak stacked by the door. I noticed a stumpy pencil behind his ear, conveniently placed, like a cigarette stub.

        ‘I’m Mike,’ I said, putting out my hand as my dad had said I should.

       ‘Good for you,’ he said, ignoring my hand. ‘Stick that thing in the grub room and meet me by the mitre saws.’ I nodded. The 'thing' was my duffle bag. I was never that keen on it myself but never thought of it as a 'thing'. I looked at it now in a new light, my old PE duffle bag, a reminder of the recent cross-over from childhood. I didn't know what a grub room or a mitre saw was, but didn't want to ask too many questions so early on.

       I guessed the grub room was the place I first went into where two old guys were sat slurping muddy looking fluid from dirty looking flask cups and reading red topped newspapers. What the Hell a mitre was, was anyone's guess. The only one I could think of was the tall hat I wore in drama when I stole the role of Archbishop of Rheims from Melvin Foreacre after auditions, due to being slightly taller, and impressing Miss Strummer with my high, flat toned diction when reading aloud.  But now I was 16, with no school kids anywhere,  just old guys slurping coffee and talking about mitre saws and grub rooms and pursing their lips at pictures of naked women.

On my way home I’d mused about my strange first day in the timber yard. ‘It’s not wood,’ I was told, ‘It’s timber, it’s always timber’. I thought about those workmen and their odd insularity, particularly their Page 3 obsessions. If I’d wanted to see a naked female body, I thought, I only had to ask Samantha to take her top off, which she would, if her dad wasn't home, and if she was in the right mood. Sometimes I was even allowed to take her bra off, a devilish task of finger trembling complexity that reminded me of those obsessive travails with my sister’s lockable diary and money box about eight years earlier. I’d thought about my diaries as well. I was an adult now and thought perhaps I should end them.

                                                         Today…

         I’m sitting on the floor of my lounge reading through a box of really old diaries. There are boxes everywhere with some that date right up to today.  I’m reflecting on my obsessive nature and my need to write.  Once those story plots that burn within me are vented, I’ll make a start on my autobiography. Everything I need is right here. 

             

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