9/7/06

Travelling again; back to Winchester - length and breadth - on the coach to Penrith, the rain hammering down once more, a group of four twenty-something American boys in so'westers and huge rucksacks and looking like AWOLs from the US Army jabber constantly mid-bus - They look like clean cut Harvard types beneath the rainwater and layer of dirt, roughing it for their gap year - at the rear of the coach an old man coughs overly loud as if making a point; he's riding the bus back and forth, a proper Crow Charlie type in his rural lunacy and bedraggled jumper and hair (I love 'em) - he pushes his cough, forcing it out, like a parrot in tone, grating just behind the heads of these four boys, signaling the fact he doesn't like them; and best of all he plays on a hand-held video games machine that spouts out directions to the player in an accent not dissimilar to the four Americans: 'GO LEFT! GO LEFT! YEAH! YEAH! AAH! - it then repeats an eerie tune, a haunting synthesized piece like a soundtrack to the journey - the Yanks are talking about church - they attended a service this morning as they have in every stop they've made through Cumbria so far, but today they say they were let down; they wanted the 'full church experience' (I hear one say), the intimacy of sermons, the high mountain need - I assume they are evangelists of some kind from the bright revelations they are looking for, nothing humble about their desire for faith - and I gather they are from Los Angeles so linguistically speaking they are ev-Angel-ists!

Is writing fiction, storytelling or is it simply staring back at life through a window at whatever happens to be passing by? Shaven-headed pranksters caught between the reflections of whatever they see without? Perhaps it is just the transfer of language from one to another in order that disparate people can communicate, generate growth, ideas, charm?

Penrith on a Sunday is a time-trip back to what I remember of Sundays in the '70s and '80s - nothing moves except the bartered few making their way to, or arriving at, some bleak eatery or dark steakhouse - the only addition between then and now is the omnipresent McDonalds which despite warnings is still apparently the most popular place to eat on the day of rest - I am aware of charity shop windows like the eyes of the dead, plastic items and mothballs, dusty toys -

I think some more about writing - god knows why this is happening today but there you go - and wonder what purpose I have, and whether a purpose is necessary? Maybe this is a bigger question reflecting my life as it stands at present? Art imitating, and all that. But the joys of the page and the creation therein are with me more often than not these days - I've conquered some discipline in terms of regularity of writing, though my daily word count could still be much bigger - yet a regular pattern occurs which maintains a lack of sustenance: basically, I chop and change from one story to the next with no idea where each is going and just as soon as I've developed one another calls, waylaying me and the previous one is left for a while - this means that a first draft takes a hell of a time to complete -

I end up on the station platform (see what I mean?) - a long, sweeping area of space and possibility; so many people crossing paths, breaking out of old lives, rushing into new ones, bored, excited, tired, alive - filled, in this case, with bright red furniture and pillars marking the perspective, and a deep set flower bed spilling over with wild and tended plants -

The alternative is to surf around in a metaphorical T-shirt under a hot sun humming bars of 'Louie Louie', a glass of something cold at your fingertips - all of it in your tiny, tired mind - the one that just got a year older - keeping boredom and providence at bay - or waiting on the hilltops for the right moment of light, that perfect illumination that will record for eternity the correct nature of place - where old men have to explain their actions for fear of being misunderstood - all the gambling and the drinking, maybe the odd affair under cover of blitz or rocket attack - all the cigarettes, all the boxing, all the unutterable ignorance of a life they chose that did not lead them into learning, to gaining knowledge - their huge regrets carried on a long train through the uplands, weaving its way face on into the driving rain, the low cloud moaning in there, tired and wondering at the weight - a first class ticket on the Regret Express - but one man believes there should still be an opportunity to change minds, unambiguously; to provide mothers with a reason for all the bloodshed and agony; to let harrowed siblings have their grieving time there in the palms of their hands (which in reality should be filled with melted chocolate or the sticky residue of sweets or apples) - meanwhile Walden calls; Conrad suffers in London; Pike has sold all his possessions in an auction, all his effects gone on credit card repayments; and Crow Charlie is left gazing out at the fells and wishing he could get back to 1968 and watch The Who once again - He dreamt of being Keith Moon, with a wide open face and sense of dangerous fun - if he could have had that much opportunity - instead of which he settled for rugged warmth and security in a chair upholstered by his aunt and the hammer that shod horses and fixed fences and which he still carries in his belt loop -

The monochrome view from the farmhouse window, sometimes so simple, so beautiful he wants to weep; at other times so bleak that suicidal thoughts creep in - too much space and life disappearing, passing by -

His mother asks him: 'where is Kabul?'

He tells her and she asks: 'where is Afghanistan?'

He feels cheeky, something in him wants to shock her, scare her; so he replies: 'Not too far away, Mother. Close to Norway.'

He doesn't know why. It is in fact the howling effect of the train passing close by at the top end of the valley - the fallout of grief having this result on him - something sweet in his mouth might placate this feeling -

'D'you suppose a toffee?' his Mother suggests and he nods suddenly feeling like he is ten years old again.

A little later his mother asks why they are fighting out there in Afghanistan.

'Haven't they all had enough?' She is becoming semi-conscious, her monochrome tiredness overtaking her sat there by the unlit fire. Charlie doesn't answer, letting her drift off.

He is thinking of the time he waited for Mary Wakefield at Lancaster station. That night they went to a dance on the hill near the castle in an old Nissen hut decorated with lights and playing The Kinks and The Beachboys. She told Charlie that only a few months before she had boo-ed Bob Dylan while he was on stage in Manchester. Charlie had been impressed. At the end of the night they had promised each other that the following week they would go to the sea in Morecombe Bay or somewhere like that. But once he had got home he realized he would never call her again, he was too scared to see her again for fear of what he wanted to do with her. She telephoned the Post Office at Greystoke two weeks later and left a telegram message for him, it said:

'Hope you are okay stop Are we going to visit the sea question stop Meet you at same Sunday afternoon the twelfth stop Under the clock again stop Mary Message ends'

Brave woman, he had thought then. Still did.

Dad was alive then and he had been impressed with Charlie's luck, but he never let on and sent out warnings via Mum -

It was then that Charlie had foreseen the future and knew he did not have the courage to change it, to move against the inevitable - he looked into the crystal ball of his parent's eyes and stayed - he never mentioned Mary again - Dad 'celebrated' three weeks later by going on the drunk that led him to a shattered arm and fourteen stitches in his head - the beginning of the legacy and Charlie's inheritance - Mary had probably gone to university or to the sea, he never knew and never tried to find out.

Even so, he thought of her many times in the quiet moments like this with Mum asleep and nothing doing for a few hours. His courage had boarded the train and now form time to time aimed for fourteen stitches of a Saturday night falling asleep on the sofa with his mouth wide open and his arms crossed over his chest replaying the generations -

Trying to remain upright in the wind.

'Silly situation isn't it?' His Mum was waking.

And Charlie wished he did not feel so keenly; that he were more stupid, a regular buffoon - that would have been easier on them all probably -

For the killing of sheep, the guts and blood in the mud, the squealing of lambs and pigs were sights and sounds he wished he knew nothing of; how had he become immune to this pain? Mary wouldn't have let him.

It had been the end of that week that Dad was laid up in bed, groaning in sufferance that Charlie had learnt he could talk to crows -

And what of it? Now, what of it?