At nine thirty, I hear the man chanting again. It catches in my skull like a radio jingle.
I climb into my sleeping bag for an early night. I’ve got a big day tomorrow. Camping makes me remember the first time I was attracted to Jordana. It was during Bronze Award Duke of Edinburgh; she showed me what an aerosol can of Mango Madness Foamburst Shower Gel sounds like in a campfire. It whistles at first, before cracking like a dropped dinner plate.
I was camped at the same site as her: Broughton Farm. She came over to my tent and showed me her blisters. She asked me whether I knew the reason why a blister can keep on producing fluid ad infinitum. I said that I had always wondered the same thing about mucus. One of the reasons we are together is because we have similar interests.
I wake up at first light. I add a twig-arrow to the ‘HELP!’, pointing uphill. Then I stick a trail of Post-it notes on trees, fluorescent markers leading Graham deeper into the woods:
GRAHAM!
YOU’RE A
VERY GOOD
ACTOR
THIS WHOLE
SET-UP IS
REALLY VERY
CONVINCING
I UNDERSTAND
WHY WOMEN
FALL FOR YOU
I RESPECT
YOU, IN
A WAY
BUT THIS
HAS GONE
FAR ENOUGH
I stick the last Post-it to a smooth-barked beech in front of a coarse stretch of brambles. A few blackberries are out but they’re not black yet, they’re green and tight as acorns.
I find a break in the brambles and squeeze through; they act as a protective barrier between me and the soon-to-be-raging Graham. I hide behind a swollen, blistered yew tree, waiting.
In South Wales, people say ‘yew’ instead of ‘you’.
The birds are waking up. I listen for the chanting.
Eventually, I hear slow footsteps coming through the woods, twigs snapping. I don’t trust people who walk slowly: headmasters and priests.
‘Dean?’ The voice is far away but I can tell it’s Graham – the hint of Yank in his accent.
‘You shouldn’t litter the woods like this.’
I’ve already got him riled.
‘Dean?’
He’s getting closer.
‘What is this all about?’ he says and then, trying to stay in character: ‘Are you okay?’
‘Graham!’ I shout at the beech tree opposite, imagining my voice reverberating off its trunk, coming from all directions: omniscient.
‘You do the sort of group meditation when you are in a room full of cushions and you are discovering each other’s bodies and the women say yes with their eyes!’
I wait. It sounds like laughter.
‘I’d think we’d be a lot more oversubscribed if we did,’ he says.
He is close; he does not shout.
‘What’s going on, Dean?’ he says.
This will break him: ‘I hung your sandals from the highest branch of the highest tree!’
‘Really?’ he says.
‘I hung them from branches that will not hold your weight!’
He says nothing. I get ready to sprint.
‘Dean, Anicca meditation is about getting to understand your own mental and physical processes. It helps you observe the way your mind and body work so that you don’t just react to things, so you don’t just function on autopilot.’
He doesn’t sound angry.
‘Is it good for getting laid?’
‘Please, come out. I can see you’re behind that tree.’
I peek. Graham is standing on the other side of the brambles, looking non-aggressive.
‘Hi,’ he says.
His arms are passive, at his side, his clothing neutral-coloured, his hands covered with Post-it notes.
We talked about meditation and I asked him some tricky questions about equine-sex straps and wild animals. I told him I had jumped to the wrong conclusion. He asked me again whether I needed anything. I said I was fine and that I’d leave by the afternoon.
I decide that, in order to empathize with my mother, I ought to try a spot of self-purification.
In my research, I read that some people use trees for meditation. It explained the importance of finding the right tree. The trunk represents the spine so I look for one with bad posture. The amount of sunlight the tree gets relates to spiritual nourishment.
I find a dark, hunchbacked oak. At its base, two large roots protrude in a V-shape, creating a kind of throne with armrests. Cross-legged, I nestle between the roots with my back against its trunk. Its eczematous bark reminds me of Jordana.
According to the website, you have to ask the tree’s permission to contact it. I try a formal approach, thinking: Dear Tree, my name is Oliver Tate. I would like to be intuitive with you, to learn about myself through your deep connection with nature. The details are on www.forestsangha.org. The tree says nothing. I don’t think it’ll take too long – I know myself pretty well. Still, no reply. I understand the tree’s indifference. If you don’t say anything then I’ll just assume it’s okay?
Okay. Firstly, I have to close my eyes and clear my mind. I think of my mind as my attic bedroom. I throw out the bed, the desk, the books, the annuals, the wardrobe, the Super Nintendo; I tear down the postcards, posters, shelves; I sledgehammer the blue, sponge-painted walls; I crash a wrecking ball through my parents’ bay windows; I authorize an air strike that reduces my street to rubble; I fold Swansea Bay like an enormous omelette and scoff it all in one giant bite…
… the nothingness doesn’t last long. The emptiness unwraps to reveal a memory, a new memory, a memory about a dream.
When I was ten years old, I was in love with our German au pair, Hilde. She studied theology at the university and cooked an excellent chocolate bread-and-butter pudding. She had boy-short yellow hair. Her eyebrows were so blonde they were almost invisible, making it difficult for her to look angry, apologetic or quizzical. She used to call me ‘Olifer’. We used to walk to the supermarket and she would tease me about having a girlfriend, which I didn’t, but I liked to be teased. She stayed in the spare room, next door to my bedroom. I used to put my ear against the wall and listen to her singing along to The Stone Roses.
She was always very polite around my parents and cleared the table after every meal. They sometimes discussed religion and ethics at the dinner table. It was a Sunday, the night before she was due to go back to Germany. I had spent the day writing her a comic book as a leaving present. It was called Warp, and was about time travel. It used multiple-choice endings to good effect. And I remember, when I went to bed that night, I was very upset, plus we had eaten mushroom lasagne for tea. And so I would not have been surprised to have dreamt of my tongue becoming a rat or that everything I touched turned to salt. I remember the dream I had.
I dreamt that I woke up in the middle of the night and got out of bed. My room was the usual version of my room. I was wearing the same pyjamas I went to bed in. Everything was normal. There was a smell of burning plastic, like when Jordana put a ruler in the Bunsen flame. I put on my slippers – who puts on slippers in a dream? – and went across the corridor into Hilde’s room. Her stuff was already gone. Which was also normal because her flight was very early in the morning and Dad was going to drive her to Heathrow.
The door to my parents’ room was open. The bed was unmade and empty. I could hear some noise from downstairs. I went down to the living room. It was not a particularly cold night but Mum had made a fire. She was sat on the edge of the coffee table, blowing her nose into the sleeve of her white cotton nightie, the one that makes her look like a ghost.
I knew it was a dream because she had the bay windows fully open. The smell from the fire was tarry and sharp. The fire was spitting and the smoke was black. Presented neatly along the mantelpiece was a series of five of my father’s classical record sleeves. The sleeves of classical records are designed to look worthless. Dad has some records that are wort
h over two hundred pounds.
Mum looked up from her hands. She looked at me and she stopped snivelling, although she was still evidently unhappy. Classical music is about these sorts of topics: death, sadness, loss. I was only ten years old and I was not yet familiar with Jerry Springer or Vanessa Feltz, but I had played football for my primary school so I said: ‘Chin up, Mum, get stuck in.’
Then I went upstairs, got into bed and, in my dream, I had a little trouble sleeping but I soon dozed off.
I woke up in the real world and my mum had pulled back the curtains and it was a school day. Dad had already arrived back from Heathrow. He was in bed.
Before heading off to school, I went in to say hello. His tiny head was the only thing showing above the bed sheet. He was not asleep. I asked him who he would save first in a house fire given the hypothetical situation that both me and my mother were of exactly equal difficulty and risk to save. He did not hesitate: ‘I would save your mother first so that we could have a better chance of working together to save you.’
I wondered whether he had prepared the answer in advance.
*
I may have slept. The tree smells like my mother’s Faith In Nature shampoo. The bark feels rough as a loofah. I am cleansed. This surprises me. To meditate also means to think deeply, to reflect. I am aware of the river trickling. Meditation is like a long bath.
I polish off the rest of the muffins in the first rays of sun. My teeth feel furry as moss.
At mealtimes, the pagoda is deserted.
I break cover and sprint out across the grass. I run up the grassy incline, along the side of the pagoda and straight in through the open cloakroom door. Monks do not believe in locked doors. Nor do they believe in possessions. The two may be linked.
The door leading to the main hall opens without a creak. Sunlight beams through the wall of windows, heating the room. My trainers squeal on the floorboards, leaving black scuffmarks.
A Sony CD player squats in the corner of the room. I turn the volume down and press play: the sound of the man chanting rises to fill the space. I am disappointed by the thought of the spectacled Asian man chanting in a recording studio. I thought they would have a real-live chanter. Taking my Dictaphone off my waistband and pressing record, I hold it close to the speaker. The chant will never go platinum but it stays with me like a splinter. I want to keep this as a reminder. The man chants to an empty hall. I am on my knees in sunlight.
I pack once the sun is up, but I am not leaving yet. Before pulling on my knapsack I kick and trample the ‘HELP!’.
I wait for breakfast to finish: the pagoda fills up – a full thirty people – the chant is played and the meditators settle down. I give them time to get spiritually involved.
Crossing the lawned area, I pass the waist-high baby trees that have little plastic labels on – pear, cherry, apple – and I approach the windows of the pagoda. Their eyes are all closed. Mum faces out, cross-legged, her palms on her thighs. She has her hair pushed back with a purple band and she is not wearing a bra. Her chest and shoulders rise, fall. Graham sits on the other side of the room, with the men, totally still.
This was going to be the moment. I was going to bang on the windows and reveal my mother’s illicit affair. I was going to point at Graham, then at my mother, then I would have simulated sex with my fingers. I planned to scream into their peaceful, empty minds.
Nobody blinks. Everything is fine.
I put my forehead gently against the cool glass. Mum is no further away than a forward roll, a hop-skip-jump. I watch her breasts gently swell and droop. I see the simple, unfussy wrinkles around her eyes, her faultless neck. Chips calls her a yummy mummy; I made him promise not to fantasize about her.
I breathe in and out, in and out. The glass starts to mist up. My mother disappears. With my forefinger, I write the word ‘Lloyd’ in the condensation and draw a heart around it. The glass squeaks. No one opens their eyes.
I feel like a schoolteacher whose pupils have fallen asleep.
I stand back from the window. The condensation fades, nothing permanent. I think of cartwheeling, of stripping, of wanking. They wouldn’t notice.
One man’s head bobs in tiny circles. His hair is half-dreadlocks, half-normal.
I stand in Graham’s line of sight and concentrate on the dull scar on his forehead. I imagine pressing my thumbnail into the brawny skin. He doesn’t open his eyes.
I start to feel hot. I rub my hands on my face. I look at my mother. I would do anything she told me to. I would throw myself off a cliff if she took the time to suggest it.
It’s a strange kind of pressure – so many grown men and women in a room together, empty-headed. I just don’t believe them. They must be thinking about something. At the very least, they’re thinking about not thinking.
Then my legs have an idea. They are doing it by themselves.
The word retreat also refers to the act of withdrawing, especially from something hazardous, unpleasant or formidable.
I swing round the corner of the pagoda, pegging it along the track that leads down through the farm. The weight of my knapsack propels me. I kick and scuff. The gravel makes maracas but it is not nearly loud enough. I stomp past the stable-cum-shower block; it is innocent and clean.
In the middle of the yard, the gong – dark-bronze coloured, not gold as I expected – hangs from a wooden post. I pick up the beater that lies beneath it. I think I might be on autopilot. I concentrate on a physical process.
The noise will fill their empty heads. This is not the worst thing I could have done.
The only word is gong.
Fastigium
On 5.7.97 wrote
Hellooooo!
Where have you been, mystery man? I rang you and your dad said you were at Dave’s. Who is Dave? You’re not allowed to make any new friends!
Mam’s in Morriston Hospital at the moment. The operation is next Friday. I’m going to be off school to stay at the hospital with her. You better miss me. I got a new word for you: fastigium. It’s the part of the brain where the tumour is growing. On top of the fourth ventricle. After spending three days at the hospital, I feel like I know as much about brain tumours as the doctors do.
You could come and visit her after the operation, if that’s not too weird? Maybe it is too weird…
Anyway, I’ll be in the hospital some of tomorrow but I might be at home for a bit, so anyway… call me! (Who said that?) Call me… !
Jo xxx
12.7.97
Word of the day: monologophobia – fear of using the same word twice.
Dear Diary,
I’ve decided not to reply to Jordana’s email. Either the operation will have been a success, in which case she will be too happy to care whether I email her, or her mother is dead, in which case she will be beyond comfort and, as such, my well-worded commiserations would be a waste of time and talent.
Because I have been away on business, I have not had a chance to do any revision for my forthcoming mock GCSEs. To make up for lost time, I will, therefore, undertake a short comprehension exercise:
The use of the colloquial ‘hellooooo’ and the playful banter of the opening paragraph immediately sets this piece up as a communiqué between two friends.
The narrator mentions the word hospital four times. This is stylistically poor. She could have spiced things up a bit with words like infirmary and clinic. The repetition does, I think, highlight her worries about her mother; she is understandably fearful that her mother might die.
As a symbol of affection towards the recipient, she offers a ‘new word’: fastigium. Sadly, she only lists one of its definitions. Fastigium also means the acme or period of full development of a disease.
It is worth noting that the narrator uses the rhetorical device of pretending to have a split personality. She uses the line: ‘Who said that?’ This is used to make light of her underlying desperation.
She suggests that the recipient m
ight visit her mum in hospital; the implication is that by seeing her mother full of wires and tubes and morphine the recipient will gain a better idea of what the narrator is going through. She wisely preempts the possibility that the visit might be weird.
The overriding tone of this piece is neediness. It strikes me that the recipient of the email is the one in a position of power in the relationship. Perhaps he is thinking of the phrase: ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen.’
Later alligator,
Oliver
PS The truth often rhymes.
Euthenics
Tonight, for the first time in over a month, my parents are going out together. They’re going to see the Welsh Philharmonic performing Bartók at the Brangwyn Hall. My dad has been looking forward to it; the tickets came months ago, pinned to the cork board in the kitchen. He wears a corduroy suit jacket and a cloth tie. He has a handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Mum is still in the shower. Dad wanders around the house, putting things in their places. I follow him from room to room, just watching. He positions the remote control on top of the TV. He moves the unopened letters off the dining-room table and lays them on the third stair. Pulling a towel off the radiator, he folds it carefully into a square, places it in the airing cupboard. He washes out an empty cat-food tin, removes the label, scrubs off the glue and stands it on the windowsill above the sink. After doing each thing, he glances at his wristwatch. Whenever he walks past the bathroom, he looks at the steam curling from under the door.
My mum comes out of the shower. Her towel, tucked into itself above her breasts, hangs down to the middle of her thighs. With wet hair and her cheeks and forehead flushed, she looks like a boy. She goes into their bedroom, shuts the door. The hairdryer hums. Dad examines his watch.
He goes and gets the car keys from the hook, puts them in his pocket. Then he disappears into the cellar and brings out a tray of frozen pork chops. He puts them in the fridge.
‘Dad’s special lemongrass pork tomorrow,’ he says, smiling at me.