Tabula Rebellus

RobertKH238

Gran, you know gran, would sometimes mention a former tenant, a woman who 'had
stuck her head in the oven.' Her cooker was gas too. The same one for all I knew.
I always felt there was more than a hint of grim satisfaction in her tone each
time she mentioned it. She would never elaborate and I never asked, probably
slightly repulsed by her tone, which was just as disturbing to me in its way. For
a moment I wondered if she had known her, that maybe the unfortunate woman had
done something to foster such apparent resentment. But it was before she herself
had lived there. I probably doubted my own interpretation at the time, but
intuition stayed with me as it does with kids, and on some level I knew she was as
nuts in her way as most every other adult I knew. My mother seemed to have much
the same attitude of a friend of hers who had done the very same thing some years
back, only she had a more bitter tinge or slant, mentioning it only to remind us
she very well might do the same thing one day. The implication was always that we
were partly or as much to blame for her feeling like this and saying it as well as
if she ever carried out her ambiguously veiled threat. In the meantime she could
have us believe, however subconsciously, that whatever we did, or I did, was
already there, driving her to what may well be a foregone conclusion. It was all
very clever and twisted, impossible for me to articulate or articulate the mixed
and conflicting emotions it aroused in me, as intended, even if I'd wanted to.
But gran flattered me. The very fact that she seemed to look on me and treated me
as sensible, responsible, made me feel I had to live up to that image she had of
me. I suppose I knew by then at the age of twelve or thirteen, that she was still
a child in her way. I felt closer to my brother as always, only eight or so. Ours
was a more 'streetwise,' humorous, and vastly more informal world of constant ad-
libs and ready observations, riffing off each other, usually instigated by me, and
often at her expense; this partly because we knew she wouldn't 'get it' and would
be hurt or offended if she knew what was going on. A realization that served only
to reinforce the generational gap. The humour was how we interpreted the real
world as we saw it. Living in an out of date dream-world of sorts was her lookout.
That was the basis of the jokes as I understood it. And also a way of amusing
ourselves – literally; otherwise the option was semi-boredom. Intelligence had to
stay at its own level, and express itself. Nor were we intimidated by her in the
way we were by our mother and her ways. I say 'we,' but I mean me, when violence
was still very much an option for her. Life was a serious business around her,
the acceptance of guilt, of being always in the wrong for no reason, a given. I
was a non-person, my personality a cipher, as personalities are in the face of
tyranny; only, as I had only a vague idea what the word meant, I'd never have
thought to apply it to my own situation – or hers, come to that. But as it was a
way of life, I must have experienced it as a like a holiday when we were dumped on
grans' for a while. The constant humour was a reflection of my high spirits,
stemming from an unacknowledged sense of relief and freedom; that and natural
ebullience along with my younger bro's. We could have some fun. That it was
sometimes at gran's expense was as much a way of dealing with her silliness,
idiosyncrasies and quaint, 'old-womany' ways. She was still in her fifties.
Otherwise it was all a bit dull and depressing, or would've been.
In later years it would grate on me. But right now we were alone and free agents
to an extent, and still too young to let anything truly get us down, or of it had,
I'd survived and gained from it. There was too much to live for. I had my comics
and the bro and he had me, nor could I imagine life without him, or imagine him
going through life without me. He was surrounded by crazy people. We both were.
We needed each other. Or that's how it seemed to me. Perhaps I couldn't control
the sense of guilt or the feeling my personality was negated in their presence; my
mother and other crazies and guilt-trippers, but as soon as they weren't around
and I was alone or with my brother, I could enjoy my own thoughts again, revelling
in how inventive the mind could be; more morose speculations and considerations I
could keep to myself, and explore in moments of leisure and quiet. I loved my
brother. Laughter came naturally.
Sometimes I would even try and have our gran enter into the spirit of things,
bring her into the fold so to speak, of my makeshift world, where everything could
be light-hearted, fun, real. But it never took, so to say; a form of wishful
thinking, as was my relationship with bro, but it was a happy fantasy. He was a
microcosm of the whole world; the world as I felt it should be. The foil for my
most ingenious and convoluted wit, a blank slate of sorts on which I could try and
express the best part of myself as simply as I could, and humour was the way to
go, my natural expression. To have taken advantage of him intentionally, treated
him badly, would have shattered the connection I had made in myself with him, and
coloured everything I thought and said or did. He symbolized my ideal
relationship with the world. To undermine it would be tantamount to betraying my
only real connection with it. Everything else was abstract. It was true I
sometimes felt an odd connection to a deeper reality, through reading, and
especially music, but as a kid, life was dominated by apparent outside forces,
routine, demands for my time and attention, and when it wasn't I'd have my face
stuck in a comic or was out exploring the world or as far as I dared, making
mischief. I wasn't up to seeing the patterns in things yet and putting them
together. Life was to be experienced, however inexplicable or exasperating, and
my younger bro was an indescribably poignant and invaluable part of that
experience, as was everyone else I knew, to varying degrees and I wished my gran
could be a part of it, because it was obvious she loved us, or believed she did,
only the temperamental difference seemed to belie it; almost that if she really
did, then we'd be magically on the same wavelength, just as I was with my bro, or
the comics and novels I enjoyed, whether Voyage To The Moon, or Doctor Doolittle.
My mother lived in another world entirely, emotionally and psychologically alien
to me, or so I believed. When I was with her, it was her world, while mine would
seem to shrink, along with myself. All of which was subconscious. I would never
have thought of describing it in terms of my self, but I knew all wasn't well with
my world as it wasn't well with the world when I was around her. The problem was
I wasn't sure whether what was wrong the world, my world – my perception of it,
was due to me or to her. Oh I knew she seemed intent on making me miserable, but
as she was so adept at turning it on its head, making me to be the cause of her
apparent misery, I was seriously confused and split on the issue. Which partly
explains why my younger bro came to be so important to me, a lodestar of sorts, a
lifeline to sanity, and a direct link to the world; someone I could interact with
without fear, of betrayal, of ridicule, of being a cause of more confusion in me.
The split with my mother, and due to her, was that on some level, I knew that she
was anti-life, even unreal somehow, yet in everyday terms, all too real,
oppressively so.
Gran looked on me as the responsible one, as I was the oldest, the surrogate
guardian for my brother, an ally of sorts with her, in unspoken collaboration
against my mother, and, for all I knew, in case she screwed up, or got the blame,
as an 'old' woman might.. We weren't even allowed out alone, except to send me to
the local newsagent, McColls or some other close errand. It was absurd. But
McColls was an Aladdin's Cave of comics. Naturally, I would stay out as long as
I thought I might get away with, as if I had never been in town before. The
contrast was in being able to nip out as if I lived there rather than getting
there from uptown where we lived. It felt oddly exciting to be able to walk
straight out into the busy street. Union Street street was thronged with shops,
pubs, and a nightclub at the top of the street. There was The Rendezvous directly
across the road that did cabaret. An unknown and impossibly adult world to me.
Even being sent to the butchers for sausages was interesting. It was all a break
from home and the usual routine, a change of scene, and for all the noise and
congestion, almost claustrophobic in a way, hemmed in as Union Street was, by old,
high tenement blocks, it was exhilarating, compared to the relative dullness of
Gardiner Street where the nearest shops were the ones on each corner at the end of
the street. And Union Street had the wide road that centres of towns do. The
knowledge that we were surrounded by as many thronging streets and business' made
if feel like the centre of the world and to all intents and purposes it was, as
provincial-minded as my gran could be. Wherever I was I prefered to get out and
wander, explore. Sometines just me and the world. It may be an incomprehensible
and often exasperating mystery but that didn't negate enjoying the experience of
it as often as I could. That meant exploring anywhere and anything I could get
away with, whether literally or metaphorically, but I never took the risk of
trying to steal anything locally such as comics, when we stayed with her over the
weekend, as I knew my mother would find a way for it to reflect badly on gran
who'd have felt hurt and betrayed for that reason. And anyway we'd have some
money, or she'd give us some and we'd spend it one of the rags for us kids by D.
C. Thompson such as the larger format Topper or Beezer. I was well into the UK
editions of Marvel comics by now, but the locals were cheaper and amusing; perfect
reading for the distractions of gran – she never really 'switched off;' none of
them did – and anyway, I would buy the Marvels' closer to home and that's where
they stayed.
I could open up Topper and Beezer, stretching my arms out as if reading broadsheet
newspapers. When she asked what they were called she'd repeat the titles, amused
by them, then strategically repeat them. 'It's a Beezer, she'd say. 'It's a
topper.' Not brilliant, but she had a sense of humour. It was an experience of
semi-normality I would usually only experience at school or with aquaintences.
And my brother of course, It was possibly in these moments I liked her the most.
Because there was momentary feeling of being on almost the same wavelength,
however illusory. At the back my mind there was always the thought of what the
world would be like if we all understood each other and did live on the same
wavelength. It seemed a natural enough feeling and it was no mere speculation.
It could eat away at me. Of how the natural order of things would be if everyone
liked what I did and found it just as interesting or amusing, rather than feeling
constantly separated by skin and bones and a small-minded outlook. My happiest
moments were when the illusion of separateness seemed to be dissolving or falling
away.
One afternoon she said she was going out to the shops and wouldn't be long. It
was understood I was the one in charge, responsible for keeping the fort, reliable
and sensible in taking care of my younger bro and not doing anything stupid. That
she never remotely criticized, in the way my mother did and put her trust in me
instead, virtually guaranteed I would try and live up to this slightly fanciful
image of myself she had of me in her quaintly innocent and somewhat naïve old
woman world. She was right of course; I did care about my brother, nor would we
run amock or throw stuff out the window or set the place on fire. Or even find a
way for either of us to fall down the centre of the stairs on the landing outside
like the young paper-boy had, way back when. As we were on the top floor, what we
did do as soon as she was safely down the stairs – all eighty steps (I watched
from the top until she passed by the gap between the small section at the bottom,
to turn left into the close and the main door) – was make a beeline to the flimsy
old door just outside the flat, behind which a small staircase led up to the roof.

I undid the latch and went up first while my brother waited at the foot. The
wooden boards felt hollow beneath my feet but were solid enough. There was only
the light from the landing, so I was in semi-darkness until I pushed at the trap-
door above me. It was light and opened easily. I had almost expected it to be
inaccessible somehow but there we were, the stairs now bathed in sunlight, dust
hanging in the air, feeling as if I had liberated Dracula's Castle. What
fascinated me was the combination of the age of the building and that we were
where I knew we shouldn't be – out of bounds. There were fewer things more
exciting. Life was for living and living was for investigating, not behaving like
docile or dumb animals happy and contented in our ignorance. An inquisitive
nature was normal. Most of the roof was flat, covered in a tough black substance,
probably tar I thought. Asphalt. It was all pretty solid enough. The first
thing to do of course was walk over to the main road side of the roof. My brother
stayed back a bit while I did my usual 'semi-kamikaze' skirting too close to the
edge of the building. It sloped down, as seen from the street. And felt odd to
see the two bedrooms of gran's flat from the side. I imagined what it would be
like to try clamber or crawl down the tiles to get to the window of one of the, A
risky business, though there was a large ledge. The windows were closed from the
inside anyway, in case we were tempted to open them and lean out. These were
centre of town buildings, not your average city block tenements. When I was
younger I'd had to crane over the sill to see the people in the street. They
looked even smaller from the roof. Periodically I would nip down the stairs to
see if there was any sign of gran. I wasn't really thinking ahead, too interested
in what we were doing. Inevitably she got there first, just I had decided we'd
been there long enough. As the bro reached the bottom of the small flight of
stairs, I heard her voice, a tone of consternation, asking him 'what he was doing
up there,' then asking where I was, while I stayed back out of sight in the semi-
darkness as she shouted my name up the stairs. Then listened as she put the latch
back on the door and they walked into the flat. I was almost expecting her to
come straight back out again but she didn't. Bro already knew I wanted to deal
with it in my own way. Either that or he wanted to see how I'd get out of this
one. A virtual impossibility on the face of it as he knew. And if I had to give
up and knock on the door to be let out, I'd give the game away for him too. He
was trusting me, probably assuming I'd find a way to undo the latch. I had no
idea. It was impossible, unless you were Houdini.
There was always the possibility he might get outside again and gain enough time
to open it without her noticing. But there was even less reason for him to go out
by himself as there was for me. I was stuck. It was a problem without a
solution. I was very reluctant to let gran know her trust in me had been
misplaced, almost irrationally so. I knew, at the back of my mind, I would never
hear the end of this, however 'subtlety.' She and my mum weren't so different,
they just had different ways of making you feel guilty. It was guilt that kept me
there, sitting on the wooden stairs, mulling over my options or the lack of them.
The jig was up. There was no way out, round, or through this. My cover was
blown. Now the Gran Universe would be even more out of whack than it need have
been. I felt as angry at her in a way. For being so intractable, so myopic, so
unimaginative in her outlook. In short, so judgemental. The stairs, the roof, it
was all only a harmless part of the world unless you were completely stupid, Was I
likely to somehow fall of the roof? Or let my brother fall off? But I didn't
have time to think about all this. The longer I stayed there the more anxiety I
would put her through. Perhaps I felt that was partly her own fault in this
comedy of unnecessary errors. Then she could stew in her own way just as I was
now, until I could come up with a solution. There was also the thought that the
longer I let it go on without coming up with one, the harder I was making it for
myself, all of us. Time was off the essence. I had to either come clean or get
moving. I got up and and turned back up the stairs and opened the trap-door and
stepped out again, closing it quietly behind me. Now the balance had shifted.
It really was an adventure of sorts. The game was afoot. I was literally an
outlaw until I sorted this out or gave up the ghost; a wanted man, if only by gran
at the moment, though I knew my brother must be just as pensive, if less
concerned. Out was out, it was no big deal. True, I was stuck outside on the
roof and behind a locked door, but where was the danger in that? I'd just have to
go through the minor humiliation of being caught out. Not the conscientious and
responsible bigger bro at all, that gran had assumed me to be. Life had its small
amusements.
Maybe I thought she'd tell my mother. Or I wasn't sure. Or felt under too much
pressure to think rationally. But the truth was I didn't want to let her down, as
I say; to be found out. I knew she wouldn't tell - 'your mother,' as she called
her, as my mum would hold it against both of us separately, make a meal of it.
And that would place a wedge of mistrust between my gran and me. Not, like I say,
that I sat there and thought all this out. But the situation was absurd, in more
ways than one. It looked pretty 'hopeless.' And yet I was determined to see my
way through it, though right now I couldn't see how. At least I could enjoy my
temporary freedom and wander afar or as afar as was possible. Perhaps I could
even walk along the length of the street, roof wise; maybe even turn the corner
right at the top of the street. Where would it all end? I felt wildly excited
over the possibility. Of how potentially dangerous it could be. And wrong.
Probably illegal. I couldn't wait, my thoughts about my gran's anxiety forgotten
in the moment; tossed aside morelike.
The mad idea was soon nipped in the bud when after I clambered over a raised part
of the roof, flat and black also, then saw that the block of old chimney''s facing
me on the other side, stretched from one side to the other. I'd been assuming
there would be a gap on either side, or one side. Looking across at the flats
opposite again, envious of the imagined freedom of those inside as well as those
in the street below. They had their troubles and obligations I thought, but they
weren't trapped on the roof through guilt or misplaced obligation. I think it was
students' that lived there. Once when I was at the window in gran's bedroom I saw
a girl, more a young woman, walking into the room on the top floor almost directly
opposite us, her life a mystery to me, another unknown world. Another time, a
young man came in briefly and collected somethng then went out again. I imagined
an independence, a semi-privileged lifestyle and upbringing, picturing his ease
with woman and envying him. Or was he gauche and awkward like me, a bag of
complexes and self-doubt? I'd recently discovered Freud through popular
psychology books and read them avidly. I wished I could jump across the huge gap,
like Spider-man. This situation was for the birds. The wall of chimneys was
inaccessible, far too high to scale in any way. The bedroom windows were out as
the sloping roof was far too close to the street and potential oblivion, as well
as that I couldn't imagine getting in quietly enough even if a window had been
open, That, and I knew how creaky those old floorboards were in the small lobby
that led to the main door and gran had hearing like a tracker Indian. I'd be
lucky not to be caught fumbling at the lock. Did she keep the mortice locked with
a key also? I couldn't recall. Better to keep my distance, risk life and limb to
save embarrassment. Anything to avoid the shame and emotional blackmail of the
guilt that would be laid on me if I came clean. It felt weird to creep along the
raised section of the roof of the kitchen knowing both she and my bro were almost
directly below. I found it impossible to picture the scene, what might be going
through their mind, especially hers, The problem was still in need of a solution.
There was a curious sense of unreality to the situation. I felt a subdued
desperation. It was clearly impossible. And it was partly due to knowing that,
that gave it its quality of semi-unreality. And that I felt a whole mix of
feelings; partly anger, frustration at the silliness and unnecessariness of it, as
well as an equally subdued undercurrent of exhilaration at still being where I
shouldn't be, along with the that there seemed to be nothng to be done. I would
have to admit defeat, wimp out. And behind all of this the dim realisation, that
however indirectly, they themselves brought about the last situation they would
claim to want.
There was a narrow lane on the other side, the length of the whole street. Works
and offices. And Draffens, a large store. It was teatime now; the offices were
empty; everyone had gone home. Just as well I thought, in case some busybody,
some good Samaritan called the cops. I never called the police 'cops' but I
thought of them as cops, just like in the comics, though it was probably the
'villains,' the bad guys who called them that...'Let's scram, it's the coppers!'
No consolation here. The odd seagull flitting by at a distance, eyeing me with
relative indifference. Too big to eat. My gran once told me that when put out
bread sometimes, one would turn up early and tap on the window with its beak until
she fed it. Maybe I could do that, and sneak in. For a moment I thought if I
could get down the sloping tiles on this side, to the side of the window – the
whole section jutted out from the sitting room – then I might see what was going
on inside, where it was she was sitting if she was siting at all, and wait until
she went through to one of the bedrooms for something as she sometime did, or even
if she went to the toilet. (An apt description, as there was no bath or shower,
just an old washing machine that didn't work. It had been there longer than I
could remember, along with a coal bunker. Quite a hike to the top of the stairs
for those guys a while back. The coal office was on the corner of the street).
But it was obvious this was even more impractical as she was even more likely to
see or hear me than if I had tried to get in from the back. I was grasping at
straws. The toilet window was out too, mainly because I completely forgot about
it – a small time, small town tragedy in the making, but again, the latch would be
on or I'd make too much noise anyway.
I moved off carefully to explore the rest of the roof. The chimney stack was just
as big as the other one but a good bit further away. Once again I made an
assumption, this time that the roof covered the whole area, no unexpected holes,
but as I walked along the black wide surface – reminding me of an asphalt football
pitch out in space, I came to a large, square gap; a sheer drop, with windows on
one or two sides part of the way down, along with adjacent pipes that led to the
bottom. For some reason, probably wishful thinking, I was the first window, a
good ways down, was the back of the public toilets of Draffens.' I was convinced.
Yet Union Street was separated by the lane running down the back. There was no
connection between them. During my 'plunking school' – truanting, I had often
helped myself to a tin of herring from their seafood area -it was within the food
section as a whole, and eaten it in the Gents, sitting on the loo, usually with a
book, my salvation. Life would be nothing without books, and yummy tinned fish
was a bonus, a free gift to myself, a consolation of sorts, for how I felt life
was treating me...the potential superdelinquent in the making. I already felt
like a fugitive.
Being stuck on the roof and contemplating climbing down the pipe to get into the
toilets looked as though it might be just the solution I was looking for. But the
more I considered the prospect, examining the pros and cons, it was obvious the
pipe was just too far from the window. The risk was too great. I did take risks
but they were considered ones. Fifty/fifty was never an option when it was about
the possibility of imminent death. The possibility was always there but that
didn't mean one took chances that would make it any closer to a probability. If
you couldn't picture yourself making it if it had been four feet off the ground,
then that made it a certainty you wouldn't be attempting it at one hundred feet or
even twenty feet. And even if I had and had made it, Draffens' and I still
wouldn't be where I thought it was., but somewhere else entirely, trapped very
probably in some other building and in even bigger trouble, and anyway, 'Draffens'
would be closed by now, and I'd be even more stuck and in actual trouble. If less
of a predicament than potential death.
It was time to look over the lane and buildings at the back. It was generally
always quiet as it was closed to traffic, being too narrow. I rarely ever even
saw a bike; the centre was too busy. Just the occasional bloke. Women were more
rare. And, if I'd thought to ask, how many dumb kids had got 'stuck' on the roof?
A whole lot less I'd bet. And how many people had landed a sorry mess at the
bottom? It was the perfect suicide opportunity once you got on the roof, but then
that was the same for any high building. I remembered my mum talking about a
woman who had thrown herself off a multi-story in town. 'That took some guts.'
she'd said almost enviously, I thought. She would say something like that. I
felt sorry for her as she did, whoever she was, but didn't see the point of
making a virtue out of death and despair. I felt obscurely she that was missing
something. That surely it was more worthwhile to think about all the things that
were worth living for, as I felt there was. And if she respected her so much in
her way, that implied she didn't have the guts to do it herself. What if it
wasn't a matter of courage -whatever that is anyway, but a form of cowardice, or
if not cowardice, then just taking what seems to be the easy way out?
What perturbed or niggled me about her remark, and the apparent compassion on her
part, was the awareness, if obscure, that she felt secretly superior over the
thought that someone had it worse than she did; that it made her feel happier
about her lot in life and this was her way of rationalizing it to herself, and
better still, she still had life while that 'poor' woman's was over, left to face
oblivion. A fear as powerful for her I think, as any thought of ever ending it
all.
I couldn't be sure of that the woman's decision to kill herself wasn't justified.
That it was possible she felt so trapped in some situation or let herself feel so
overwhelmed by guilt over something, that it made her life impossible to go on
with. But I felt that even then there must be a possibility of escape, of getting
a breather, a moment's thought, another opinion even, where she could look on the
situation differently, whatever it was. Naïve of me in one sense, but important
all the same. My mother seemed to be determined, some of the time at least, to
dump everything she felt about life that made it not worth living, on to me. I
was lucky she hadn't thrown me out the window herself. If she could without
getting into trouble for it she would have. Little had changed there. I knew on
some level it was the fact that I had my whole life ahead of me she resented.. No
pun intended and this might be her lucky day. That she literally resented the
life in me. As if my very existence were a personal insult to her, a slap in the
face. Rather than feel flattered by any talents and intelligence I possessed that
might reflect positively on her, they were a cause, an excuse only for further
resentment, as if any more were needed. One way or another it seemed, she was
always there at the centre of everything. This situation; if it weren't for the
thought of her there in the background, spreading guilt like a pestilence at
every opportunity there would be less problem in admittingg to my gran I had
betrayed her trust in a sense, but hadn't meant anything by it, and was always
careful my bro never came to any harm. If anything I cared more about him than
any of them assumed they did. The situation was stupid. They were stupid. Only
they behaved as if I were the stupid one. That was the maddening obtuseness of it
and of them. It was all too much hard work. Simpler to solve it in my own way.
Such obtuseness only made things worse. Again the obscure suspicion that all it
did was contribute to bringing about the very situations they supposedly didn't
want. Though if they didn't want them why did they seem to revel in them so
much? Why was it, as I knew, I would be forever reminded of it if they had known
about this situation, and in my mother's case, worse, make a meal of it for all
concerned? That she would make a petty-minded melodrama out of a potential
catastrophe; mine. As if she genuinely cared.
I would bypass it all in my own way somehow, only I wasn't quite sure how yet. At
the moment I was still in a state of semi-denial. I knew I was going to get off
the building in my own way, and that barely bore thinking about. Perhaps it was
an expression of feeling sorry for myself, of my own pent up anger. And feling
sorry for myself. That if I made it, good, but if I didn't, well it would be all
on their own head or rather, her head. Not that I looked on the possibility of my
death as a reality. Oh it could happen, because I knew I was going to get down
somehow, and this height was no joke. I had zero chance of survival if I screwed
it up, miscalculated. And anyway, I cared too much about my brother to screw it
up, and not least my gran. At the moment I felt the most compassion for her as
she would get the most stick if the unthinkable happened. She really would never
hear the end of it and would probably blame herself. Or being blamed for it also,
along with my violent demise would be enough. It would kill her. Maudlin
thoughts. Not that I thought of any of this in any methodical or consistent way.
I didn't have to. It was all there at the back of my mind. I knew what the
situation was and what the odds were or had a good idea. That, and that the
repercussions were incalculable. Or would be. Most of all I knew I had no
intentions of dying. Unlike them and their bonkers crazyapeshit mindset, the
situation had calculable odds. It was a challenge. In a very real way I felt, I
would be outmanoeuvring them, my mother, and her guilt trips, and her not quite
secret wish I were dead. It was a challenge in a way, if an unspoken one, one she
would never know about. Through her I was looking death in the face again and not
for the first time. As long as she tried to undermine any sense of place or trust
in the world I might develop, I would counter it by establishing my dominance over
my environment in any little way I could. But it was really dominance over my own
self, the small self and its fears and uncertainties. By risking my life through
climbing, mastering self-chosen obstacles, I could gain a general sense of control
however fleeting, as if by association it might also gain me some control over
the variables that were beyond my conscious volition such as my mother's
unpredictable temperament and erratic behaviour.
It was the same with challenging any individual, stealing, reading etc. I sought
out clarity and any means I thought might give me it or increase it in me. Girls,
like my mother, like adults, most adults, were unpredictable, an unknown quantity.
I was far less concerned over putting life and limb at risk than I was at the
thought of talking to almost any of them let alone trying to take anything any
further. Clearly, fear could be relative, irrationally so. It originated as much
from within, but it was the inside, the unconscious I had so much trouble dealing
with and no conscious control over at all it seemed Buildings, the things of the
world were inanimate. They had no personal opinion of me. They never made me
feel self-conscious, or embarrassed or envious or ashamed or put me down. The
world was neutral. It was people that were the problem. As always. If only they
would piss off and leave me alone and let me enjoy the world in peace.... But I
needed them for everything that I enjoyed in the world. Books, music, comedy on
TV I liked, eating and drinking, comics.
If only something could be done about the stupid, crazy ones... But they were
also the clever ones, that was the problem. They had me tied in knots; trussed up
like a Xmas turkey. Yet here I was, literally on top of the world, if
symbolically so, in my element. The world was my obstacle. That, I could
handle; probably. There were few things more fun than being where I wasn't
supposed to be, even it it wasn't solely my choice in this instance. I could look
at the world, my immediate environment like an explorer, or an alien, and both
felt like accurate descriptions in a way. The paradox was that the world,
'inanimate' things, were or could be more 'alive' than these people and every
other self-centred arrogant idiot who seemed compelled to torment others. The
world wasn't anti-life, it was impartial, even in earthquakes and other disasters.
These were just accidents, the catastrophes inherent in an imperfect world. It
was nothing to do with God or 'God's will.' Half the shit laid on me was due to
these lunatics believing they were doing God's work on his behalf, pre-empting His
worthy intentions. My mother wasn't punishing me, God was. And 'God' had
decided, clearly, that I was more deserving of guilt and condemnation than love.
Just as he had decided the same for Her previously. Now she could get back at Him
through me, by dumping all that shame and fear and guilt on to me. Not that I
knew that then.

Opposite me, across the lane was a fire escape for one of the office buildings.
And under it, a short drop, the flat roof of a building. A view I'd often looked
upon from the kitchen, recently just under my feet. A thought: If I was on that
fire escape I could make the drop to the roof easily enough, and solving the
problem of getting down from there would be substantially less of an
insurmountable problem than getting down from where I was right now. But first I
had to get across to the other side. As ludicrously unrealistic a prospect as
getting down from where I was. Only, for the moment, it seemed like an exciting
prospect, a good idea, because it was fresh, a new idea, and any possibility gave
me hope. I wished there was a connecting building over the lane between the main
block and a works. Just my luck. But then why would there be a works connection
to a block of flats? A stupid regret. But there was reason for optimism, or so
it seemed. Fortuitously, a length of black plastic or rubber covered wire – I
assumed it was wire; anything else would surely be pointless – stretched directly
over the lane to the side of the fire escape near the top.
It seems remarkable to me now, ludicrous, that I seriously considered the suicidal
high-wire act. I'd never heard of The Flying Wallendas but this would have been
even more ill-considered than the netless effort that brought an abrupt demise to
their act or one of them. Again, it wasn't only the question of the height but of
whether the wire would support my weight. I surmised it probably would but one of
the wall attachments at either side might not. There was no way of being sure.
I'd still have to climb partways down this buildiing to reach it. Scratch that
idea. There was nothing for it. I knew what the answer was. I was
procrastinating. Or, to give myself some credit, envisaging the my options from
the most idiotic or risky, first. It was staring me in the face as I looked down
into the lane from the top. A scarifyingly intimidating height. I'd have to
climb down the side of the building. To consider any further impossibility was
just more procrastination or plain stupid. I'd been dramatizing myself. If I
wanted to get down in one piece or have the best chance of it – without having to
tell anyone about it, that is, this was the way to go; straight down. And
preferably not head first. I'd already had some practice climbing pipes due to my
reluctance to admit it when I'd lost or mislaid my door key. At one point I had
it on a string around my neck. My mother's idea, or so I assumed. A piece of old
folky wisdom that had dragged on too long, morelike. But all it meant was I had
to remember to do that every morning before I went to school (or as was eventually
the case, pretend to go to school). And if I could do that, why have it on a
string at all? Did I forget one day, then also forget where I'd last put it? Did
the knot on the string unravel, and so I lost the key? All I had to do was leave
it in my coat pocket, then I'd always know where it was, or should be, unless
anyone went through people's pockets in the cloakroom. A possibility, but
unlikely, or a smaller risk than going through this ludicrous key on my neck
rigmarole.
But I was in the habit of losing it - them. Everything took its place in the
lexicon of guilt; a means to an end, and a possibility that never occurred to me
at that time. From a 'latch-key kid 'at primary school – not that I minded that
aspect; I was oblivious to the term – she had turned keys, no pun intended, into
a symbol of guilt and terror from then on, though they had less potency now; but
the excuse for putting a big guilt trip on me was as chronic, as potent as ever.
And naturally I did it her way, too keep the peace, to give her less of a pretext,
and to not lose them, but invariably I would. It was partly how it was set up,
overcomplicated. So rather than admit it when I'd lost the door key again, I
would climb up the pipe that went from the bottom to our bedroom at the top floor.
Even she didn't bother locking the windows as only an idiot or an acrobat would
risk their lives to climb up to that height. And people in council flats were
relatively poor, so why bother? Sometimes I would come home at lunchtime –
'dinnetime' - with Mark, who lived directly opposite and he'd wait at the top of
the stairs until I let him in. One afternnon there was a melon in the cupboard so
I set to it with a kitchen knife and we scoffed the lot. Funnily enough my mum
never said anything about it, unusual for her. She'd have seen the peelings in
the bin, so she knew it wasn't wasted, that at least it had been eaten. Had she
thought I'd eaten the whole thing by myself? Maybe she'd thought her Bo might
have eaten it and didn't want to say anything as he was a temperamental fucker.
Or was it possible she already knew I didn't have a key and was leaving it to me
to own up. Ever the fatalist, it was unlike her to not keep an eye on things even
when they were going okay.. But it would be equally unlikely for her not to quiz
me if she'd known and had thought it was me. Some things will forever remain a
minor mystery. What about the possibility she knew I was climbing into the flat
from the bedroom? A neighbour could easily have told her. And by that, I mean
some busybody watching from the council flats opposite, 'concerned,' while just
willing me to drop.
But if my mother had already been told.... Still, if I was dead or injured, who
was to say I hadn't been repeatedly warned? And anyway, I was an inveterate
liar... I couldn't be trusted, and by extension, neither could anything I said. A
situation she had contributed to herself to the point of a subtle programming
through constant intimidation and subtle little set-ups. Necessities became
pretexts for a convenient and selective from of private terrorism. She had it
down to a fine art of sorts. That it was successful was reflected in the extent
of the guilt I felt, reinforced and compounded over the years. It was a
methodical programme of psychological destruction. But it became as clear her
good guy Bo, the life and soul of the party, everybody's pal, Mr false Bonhomie,
precticed the same on her.
It was also just as possible her Bo knew about the key and had instructed her to
not say anything about it and wait and see if I did: i.e.; wait and see what
happened. They were two of a kind, in hatred, only he could be as subtly sly as
she was. All of which could be adeptly and expertly obscured by dumping it on to
me. Now I was the 'sleekit' one, the liar etc., especially when he'd had a few
drinks. A potentially volatile situation. But in essence there was little
difference between them, except that he knew better to disguise his deeply
unpleasant side when sober. Sometimes my mother might go through the motions of
standing up for me, or maybe she could for once see how it looked to an outside
observer. As for the latest key being lost, chances are she didn't know anything
about it at all. But I can't recall her ever asking about that either. And
that's far too easygoing for her. But it's possible she was preoccupied with
other things.

And here I was, locked out again. Or faked out again. Or, depending on how you
looked at it, locked in. It came to the same in the end. Taking silly risks for
the sake of avoiding having childish adults feel bad about themselves and me.
Would the horseshit ever end? The pipe stretched an impossibly long way to the
bottom and solid ground below. Looking at it, I was feeling something almost akin
to nostalgia. As if there was something almost familiar about it. Not deja-vu;
I knew what that was, if mainly only as an idea. But as foolish as what I was
about to do was, it seemed just as silly to think I might not make it. That
something could go wrong. I could slip. The answer to that was not to. That
meant paying absolute attentionm to each footstep, every move. It was all matter
of concentration, of focus. And being absolutely certain in the knowledge I
wanted to make it to the bottom. That I was worth the effort.
The pipe jutted up from the top then curved out into a half U shape. I bent down
carefully and sat on my backside, then edged over until my legs dangled over the
side, the top of the pipe to my left, as I was left-handed and that was what the
focus of my effort would be with; not that it was a concious decision; it came
naturally, as I imagine the focus on the right comes to a left-handed person.
(though I still don't understand why we hold cutlery in the same way; it seems
natural to me to focus on the fork while the knife is secondary, similar to
playing a left-handed guitar; but that's not imprtant right now). There couldn't
be any half-measures. I couldn't change my mind halfway through. That would only
bring me back to square one. If I made it. It was a given that when I began I
had to finish. And first I had to get on to the pipe to climb down. That meant
grasping it as firmly as I needed to, as well as not doing anything untoward such
as holding on too tight from anxiety or semi-panic once I let myself slip off the
roof to swing around in an arc to face the pipe then bringing on cramp long before
I was near the bottom. It was an unnerving few moments, but my little Tarzan
swing went without a hitch. If it hadn't, the adrenalin would've killed me before
I hit the ground.
I'd made sure my hands were dry before I began, giving them a wipe on my chords -
trousers. No spitting on my hands and rubbing them for good luck here; not that I
ever did. I'd have slid off that pipe like... a slippery thing. I felt more
confident, if cautiously so, once I had begun; happier that I'd made a decision.
I was feeling more like myself again, if experiencing a new level of tension.
But also of control. Which increased the longer I went on. But there could no
letting up on concentration. And what was a few minutes of pure attention when
your life depended on it? No stray thoughts or fascinating musings here. No
dwelling in the past or mulling over the future. Just one intense, focused
present, a continuous now. Nothing else sufficed. I let myself feel a slight
relief as I approached the halfway point, still far too high to survive, I knew,
if I dropped. Then finally increasing relief combined with a tentative
exhilaration as I knew I was decreasing my chances of serious injury with every
second, every foothold (I always kept the soles of my shoes as far inside the pipe
as possible but not enough so as to get one stuck or jammed in there. Practice
again). Then, down to fifteen feet, then twelve or so – definitely safe unless I
was still unfortunate enough to land on my head – then the cobbles of the lane now
eight, six feet below, then four and I let go as I flipped casually from the wall
and landed lightly, feeling, incongruously, as if I'd just scaled a short height,
but also hugely pleased with myself, the exhilaration growing now unchecked as
there was nothing to stop it. I almost couldn't believe I was on solid ground
again. That I'd done it. I'd solved what had seemdd an insurmountable problem.
I was so excited by this, by the sense of meaning, of implications I couldn't
quite grasp, there on the edge of consciousness – that it seemed pointless to
waste it by going straight back around to the front of the street and to the main
door, of no.40; gran's.
So much so that I took off uptown a bit and walked along the Overgate, still
exhilarated by the abrupt contrast between my previous and apparently hopeless
predicament and now here I was, strolling along on solid ground again in the
centre of town on a sunny afternoon still, surrounded by people, the 'normals',
the unadventurous. They had no real conception of how interesting life could be.
But I felt a sense of kinship with them anyway, most of them. We were all in this
together. It had taken only a few minutes to climb to the bottom of the block of
flats. All the fear, the trepidation, had been in the contemplation of it. Or a
lot of it. It seemed obvious that almost any obstacle could be overcome with
enough determination - combined with a judicious snese of caution if need be. And
if there was ever to be any obstacle I couldn't surmount, then I would have to
accept it philosophically or stoically, and accept that life meant well by me
whatever happened. That there was no need to confuse it with the stupidity of
people and their small-minded acts and intentions and silly self-deceptions. I
wondered why I had ever taken them seriously, any of it. But what I wanted most
of all was for this conviction to last. That the was the fear, the nagging doubt
that lay at the back of my mind, as always. To know for a certainty I would never
be discouraged again. To know that that would always be a miscalculation, a
passing 'mood' due only to discouragement. 'Dehumanization' I knew something
about. I had yet to learn the experience of demoralisation and how that could seem
to seep into ones very bones.
But, however unintentionally, – or for unconscious reasons, this had been the goal
all along. I didn't quite know it yet. But the realisation was slowly sinking
in. Too slowly. In the meantime I knew it was all a matter of degree, of gaining
clarity and keeping it by holding on to it. By never allowing oneself to be taken
in by repeated, negative thoughts and emotions, from oneself as much as others.
There would always be something to be said for 'snapping out of it,' taking
positive action. Giving into passivity and despair could never be the answer.
That was the queer thing about anger – and determination. Sometimes it was a way
of cutting through the shit, that only though habit had I allowed myself to put up
with it. On the face of it, nothing at all had changed, except that I was still
around. My circumstances were exactly the same. I'd have the same old crap at
home and school with the usual fear behind it all that it could get a whole lot
worse; the fear of the future unknown does that. But at least now I knew I
needn't take it at face value if I didn't want to. When it came ot it I could
through caution to the wind, and sod the consequences; let them deal with it. I
had tried doing things their way and all it led to was unnecessary complications,
further insanity. Do it their way, and these people would be the death of me.
Even the best intentioned of them could'nt interpret the world, a situation as I
might need to. Somehow, subtely, almost imperceptibly in a way, they tricked you
into a kind of madness, of idiot choices, and stupid acts. That was my mother's
mantra after all, forever instilling in me how stupid I was and different from
every one else. And not in a good way. All the more to convince herself her life
wasn't the desperate, despairing, sorry mess it was. That she didn't have a clue
who she was, what to do, or where she was going. Guilt and blame came to be
adult, 'mature,' things, the stuff of the 'real' world, without a belief in which,
survival was, apparently, impossible. Having me feel guilty, unworthy, constantly
ungrateful was, it seemed, what being a responsible, conscientious adult, at home
in the world, was what it was all about. They all did it. I had still to see
through the lie. And that anger was only a step in the right direction; beyond
that, true clarity came with forgiveness; of myself as much as of her. Easier
said than done.
I didn't get a hard time from gran either. She was probably relieved to see me.
Maybe my bro had told her I was on the roof and she'd called for me. Steve didn't
seem much surprised. Maybe he had faith in me. That he knew I'd solve it in my
own way. Jiggle my way out thought the latch. The funny thing is, if it had once
ever occurred to me while still on the roof that this was an old building and a
part of the pipe could easily have been loose, I'd never have attempted it. I'd
have spooked myself out of it. Fortunately that possibility never crossed my
mind. And anyway, I was slim and comparatively light, and kids' are forever
climbing all over things.