HEROES


Seamus and me, we're meeting Vince today, going over to the port,
shoot a couple of ships, do the rounds.

I say to Seamus, 'You know, he's better  these last few months,
more like his old self.'

We're doing 110 on the A12, passing eighteen-wheelers sucking
at us and I'm now absolutely certain that white car up ahead is the
dawn patrol on a late shift. My foot sinks deeper and deeper into the
carpet but we're still doing a ton, and Seamus says, 'He was always
fockin mad, sure, why would he change?'


"There's no answer to that," I think, "fucking mad the pair a them, and
me with this one about to die."


We hit the brakes and shed sixty mph in three seconds, dive into the
roundabout, the Jag squatting hard, squealing gently, squirting fast out of
the exit past the white car, not Old Bill but a new Beemer full of ladies
who lunch, in hats, and Seamus waves.


'He sounds cheerful enough on the phone,' I say.


'Would we shag 'em all if they asked, what?'


'He said he was thinking of going back to work, nothing heavy, maybe
local.'

'I could find him something, sure,' Seamus says, as we pull up outside
Vince's place. His old mum lets us in, kisses all round, tea and hot
toast, and packed lunches for the boys.


"Nothing changes," I think, "Only Vince, every day."


He doesn't say much, never does now, but he looks really well today, eyes
quizzical, and Seamus flirts with Herself, "No, just like old times," I think,
and Vince says, 'Come on, let's be going.'


More kisses and we leave, the three boys, again, and Seamus throws the
keys to Vince, "Jeeezus Fucking Christ," I think, "They are fucking mad."
It's four miles to the port, and Vince drives like a vicar doing his rounds
only slower. Seamus is in the back and I catch them looking at each other in
the mirror, eyebrowing.


We spend the day out on the river, and it's like it used to be, like it was
when Vince and Seamus and me came down here to shoot ships, riding down
from London at five in the morning, death defying, the bikes screaming louder
than us and Vince taking risks you would hardly believe. I looked over at them,
heads together, doing talking about me, nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Fuckers,
if it wasn't for me they'd be dead, nearly.

They were fast. Oh, I could ride, don't get me wrong, but I'm sane. We'd ride
out to the coast maybe, early start, and they'd be 3,4,5 miles ahead of me most
of the time. I'd catch up at cafes and they'd be downing the last of their drinks,
coincidentally, just as I rode in. They'd wait for me, checking watches and when
I finished we'd mount up and they'd loiter so I'd take off first into the traffic.
Yeah, you know it, couple of miles and I'd clock them in my mirrors, flashing.
They never just overtook me. Opportunities would go by and they'd be there,
in line, in my mirrors. Ahead would appear a ten year old Sierra in the outside
lane doing exactly 70. I don't have to tell you, do I?

The crash happened one summer evening. They were gone, and I would catch
the occasional glimpse of them on straights. I leaned into a long right hander and
straightened out to see a big Merc van across the road rammed into the barrier,
a fire taking hold in the engine, both bikes under it. I stopped, dropped my bike
and ran towards the accident. I could see Seamus' boots and as I pulled them
a gob of oily flame dropped onto him. I got him out and rolled him until the
flames went out. It was raging under the van. Vince was on his back, fire sputtering
on his melting visor. I dragged him out and wrapped the helmet with my jacket.
Police and ambulance guys appeared and I passed out.

I was discharged the next day, Seamus a couple of days later. Vince wasn't so
lucky. He had burns to his hands, his upper body, not too bad, but his head and
face needed a lot of work, and a lot of time. Three years later, when he knew
what his face was going to look like, he began to change. He spent most of his
time gaming, put on weight, stopped answering his phone. He's getting there, sure,
and he's OK with us. Plastic surgery is sorting him out but he's never going to be
as pretty as he was. Mind, he's going to be a pain when he realizes, as his injuries
are healing, that he's taking on a certain heroic, dashing mien . . ..

I felt in my pocket for the spare keys. It's always me drives us home. I'm the oldest.

SLIM VOLUMES


I'd spent the morning at the Commonwealth Institute. Well, not all
morning but let's not dwell on it. So, having an hour to myself before lunch,
I thought I would wander over and take a look at Albert, in his new coat.

The High Street is always a good stroll, into Kensington Road and
then along Kensington Gore, with the Gardens on your left, and there,
the Royal Albert Hall looming, across the road. I was about to turn
left into Alexandra Gate when I was astonished to see my old friend
... call him 'Eustace' - he's one of those Englishmen, getting out of
a cab opposite me. I wasn't that surprised, sure, just that he looked
absolutely bloody marvelous, which was in itself a shock. He had on
grey slacks and a blazer in that stuff Jaeger sells to the tourists,
cashmere, nearly.

We shook hands and I saw that his were quite exquisitely manicured. I
could hardly believe it. The last time I'd seen him he was crawling up
the down escalator at Leicester Square wearing one shoe and a tall hat
with 10/6 on a card in the band and he was shouting obscenities at the
theatre crowds until he rolled over in a dead faint and I helped him
onto the train to Highgate slipping a fiver into his pocket for cab
fare.

The Albert Memorial has just been restored, as you know, newly gilded
and given a thorough makeover. Not before time, you might think, if you
cared about these things; anyway, there we were, me and 'Eustace' on a
bright Autumn morning looking up at the Prince Consort in all his new
glory. I didn't say anything to 'Eustace' about his own renewal but it
was in the air - you know? Your man was a vision. I mean to say, he put
the Prince Consort to shame.

I could hardly say no when 'Eustace' offered to buy me lunch. We took
a bracing walk along the Serpentine, past the restaurant, and made our
way across Hyde Park Corner to Piccadilly and down to Soho. It was odd
that neither of us mentioned the recent tragedy, 'Eustace' especially.
He had always had a lot to say about the Poet Laureate, none of it com-
plimentary, and he knew I was no admirer of the fellow's work. Turned
out 'Eustace' had a new book out, in time for Christmas, another one
of his slim volumes of gentrified verses for the new genteel. He had
found his niche, his hollow, let's be honest, and he was stuck in it.
He taught at one of those glass menageries in North London, contract
lecturing he called it. He had a big house on the wrong side of Highgate
Hill and a small wife whose civil service salary kept them in comfort.
He'd given up the drink, on doctor'd orders, he said. Overnight, he said.
Six years ago. Fuck me, I said.

Today, we had a good lunch, a sober lunch, and talked about the old
days. I reminded him, I always did, about how he was the one who had
introduced us all to the IBM Golf Ball, all those years ago, and how
we changed the world overnight, only nobody knew. We parted about
three o'clock, promising to write, like we used to, and I walked away
down Shaftesbury Avenue. I couldn't help thinking that poetry can just
about ruin a man, if he isn't careful.

WRITING AMY 


The beginning was inevitable. Amy sat down at her desk to write. She
had a groovy leather chair and sometimes she sat in it naked, most often
when she was a little drunk. She could trust the chair. Not like some
people. Some people were rats, they fucked with her life, as only rats
can fuck with a twenty eight year old life. She liked to tell herself
that, even though it wasn't true. Life is just a bowl of cherries for
a twenty eight year old and she was only blaming the rats because they
were men. Amy knew how to have a really manic hangover. It was one of
the things she did well, that and PMS. She smoked too, but nobody's
perfect.

 So, Amy was at her desk, writing - writing poetry because she thought
that was all she could do, she had no idea how to write a short story.
Nothing seemed to happen to her that she couldn't cover in a poem.
Sometimes when she was out drinking with her friends, not all of whom
were rats, she had ideas for poems and they swam around in her head,
like ideas do. Life has its compensations and sometimes Amy maybe got
laid. She was twenty eight years old, after all, and it was at these
times she thought that life was the bowl of cherries she'd heard about.
This was one of those times. This has to be one of those stories because
this is one of those times when Amy is sitting naked in her leather
chair sipping cold beer from a glass in the middle of the day. Sometimes
a poem is not enough.

Amy sat naked in her groovy leather chair writing poems about vege-
tables she had known. It was as though the rats didn't exist. She was
alone with her thoughts, at her desk, sitting in her groovy leather
chair. She could feel the chair, warm as blood, soft as lips, and as
smooth as the insides of her thighs. She watched as a bead of moisture
started to roll down the side of her glass. When it was half way down
she picked up the glass with her thumb and middle finger and raised it
so it was about so far from her face. Then she gently pushed with her
naked toes gripping the carpet. The chair rolled back. Amy sank into the
leather, her legs stretched out, the glass exactly centred as the drop-
let grew minutely, becoming heavier, and at last it stopped, quivering
and flashing light. It was warm in the room and Amy could hardly bear
the waiting. She closed her eyes, leaned back a little. Her hand trem-
bled. It was enough to break the tension. She didn't see the tiny globe
leap from the glass, but she felt it burst, just below her navel. She
couldn't tell where it disappeared to, her skin was so hot, but she
didn't mind. She wrote a poem about it in the end.

The Buick

East to West the island rises, a lighthouse surmounting broken headlands.

Birds nest in the cliff face and below, a breakwater where a million crabs

commune. At low tide, pools in rockfalls bloom with anemone and seaweed,

simple fish and shell things. There is music when storms blow from the North

accompanied by drumbursts of waves, and in the season, whalesong.

Ragged dunes contain shelving sands and where marshes reach to mainland, a

cluster of huts among odd boulders fallen from the island's spine. On the

shore are fishing boats drawn up, a careened dhow, and a rickety jetty from

which urchins dive. Fishermen mend nets and a carpenter works beside the

dhow.

Round the promontory comes a sharp destroyer gathering speed toward the

horizon where a tanker stretches. A liner in the roads makes a lee for a

cutter approaching - at once a uniformed pilot leaps to the ladder depending  

overside, swings up and is ushered to the bridge.

Next to the lighthouse is a flagstation and from its low roof a boy watches

through binoculars as the liner passes below the cliff. Jumping down he  

returns the glasses, checks time with the signalman and mounts his bike. A

made road begins descent on the South side of the island and here he waits

until TILBURY reappears in the centre of the channel into port. A moment,  

then the boy is off, flying down the hill past the The Deputy Conservator's

Residence, The Senior Pilot's House, bungalows, dispensary, a cantonment of

marines until he reaches The Harbour Master's Office, skidding to a dusty

stop. He goes to a doorway, checking time with a clerk within. He sees the

liner, attended now by tugs, passing the window, passengers leaning over

rails, sailors fore and aft ready and at the bridge languid officers in control.

The Harbour Master's Office overlooks East Basin and there the boy waits by

a launch tied up. Soon a coxswain arrives with the duty pilot for a departing

vessel and the boy asks permission to accompany them. The launch would pick  

up The Senior Pilot from the liner. They set off, weaving through moored

launches, idle lighters, the water carrier HATHI and three frigates at bouys.

Alongside one of the frigates is a whaler crewed by cadets, oars shipped.  

A Petty Officer harangues the boys through a loudhailer. Laden dhows squat

at the harbour entrance waiting to discharge. One has a shiny black motor

car lashed on deck, a Buick. Another is a castle of kerosene cans.

They leave TILBURY astern now, tugs grunting around her, winding hawser for

the tow into her berth. At Grain Wharf the pilot boards an American bulker

in ballast and the launch lays off as the tugs bring up TILBURY short of her

berth. She drops a bow anchor then two tugs come onto her stern quarter shore

side so the great ship swings a hundred and eighty degrees. Leads are thrown

and cable dragged ashore to static winches that draw her into the berth. All

fast, the tugs sign off with brazen toots and the liner acknowledges - a long,

loud, steamy blast. The launch idles alongside the wharf. The boy checks time
with the coxswain. Satisfied, he looks up to a lowered companion where
The Senior Pilot shakes hands with a deck officer and descends, turning to
exchange salutes with the Captain on the bridge wing before boarding the
launch.  

The dhows too have berthed. A tall crane has the Buick in a sling, up and

across, lowering it to the ground. A fat man waits with a Customs officer.  

The launch makes its way back to East Basin. HATHI passes, high on the water.

Two more whalers are lowered, all three circling the frigates, C.P.O. in a  

motor pinnace bawling. The launch eases into the basin and ties up, the boy

ashore, gone to retrieve his bike while The Senior Pilot completes paper

work in the office, then he and the boy walk homeward.  

That evening the boy finishes packing, dismantles his bike and stores it

away. He collects a jarful of pens and pencils, sheaf of foolscap, a pair of

battered plimsolls, a cricket ball, fishing hooks and a photograph. He

leaves this parcel outside the kitchen door and joins his parents on a

verandah overlooking the channel.

Next morning his effects are taken down and loaded on a launch and he makes

his farewells. He wears grey flannels, striped blazer and tie. His mother

insists on a hankerchief which he stuffs out of sight and when the launch

leaves The Senior Pilot throws a salute. From the harbour the boy is taken to

the Palace Hotel and he checks in at B.O.A.C. where a stewardess recognises

him. He joins passengers for the London flight on a smart coach and they

soon leave city bustle behind. Near the airport, ahead, half a dozen

vehicles are stopped at a road block, armed soldiers grim - beyond, smoke

dissipating in the heat haze. An officer waves the coach through. In a

ditch, on its side, doors awry, glass strewn, bullet holed, is the Buick.

Two bodies lie covered with gunny sacks. One has a drivers cap laid on it,
the other, gross, seeping blood.  

The flight to London is a long one and the Stratocruiser drones comfortably

between stopovers. The boy reads and dozes. A stewardess takes him up to the

flight deck where the Captain signs his log book. He is met at Heathrow by

his aunt who fusses him to her home, gives him supper and sends him to bed.

In the morning she drives him to Waterloo Station where he joins boys from  

his school. He has added a tasseled cap to his uniform and he and Biggs Major

shepherd the spots aboard their carriage.

'Good Hols?' Biggs Major asks.

'Oh, you know,' the boy says, swatting Chapman Minimus.

Supermoon Sunday

I'm doing a couple of hours on the lightship today, giving O'Neil a lunch break. It's a Bank Holiday, white cloud, cool, breezy in the open, not too many visitors about. I settle down with the paper. Sarkozy's had it, Boris is in, the Empire is out, Leveson drones on and on. It's the same old, same old world, no worries, mate. Well, there's war, pestilence, murder, famine and the usual bunch of nasty mayhem going on, sure, but not here, not on the lightship. Here, it's tranquility itself.

A couple of your man's tranquil friends arrive, wondering why they haven't heard from him, which is normal. I occasionally get texts from him three weeks after the event. We talk, as you do, about everything and nothing, all the while taking in the view. The rivers are stirring up a nice chop this afternoon, wind against the outgoing tide, miniature spindrift flying off in all directions. Yachts in the seaway crisscrossing and amongst the ubiquitous Bermuda rigged plastic bathtubs, a pretty little gaffer tacking nicely. She turns into a broad reach, heading our way, tight as you like, everything on presenting a nice three quarter view, passes us showing off her counter stern. Soon she arrives in the rivers' confluence, tries a tack but it puts her in her no-go zone, her way falls off and she turns back with the flow, and out of sight.

Himself back from lunch, I get ready to go, do goodbyes, but I'm called back. He needs to give his phone number, which he can't remember, to his friends. I get out my phone and pass it on. I'm his bleeding P.A. now, or what? Our yacht has found good wind on the far side of the haven and is making steady progress upstream. It's what we can all hope for, don't you think?  

WITNESS

One day, Boulnayele the Navigator, then but a young bull, swam with his family, Everine the Dancer and her mate Boulanoure the Scout of the tribe of Darcane the Mighty. The whales were nearing the rich waters of Broken Sea, Boulnayele exploring among frozen islands when a spine of ice gashed his flank. Hanoloure the Healer was called and pronounced the wound more blood than body, prescribing rest and slow swim, and it would heal itself.

So it was that the tribe swam on, leaving Boulnayele to follow in their wake, though not before Everine admonished him send his call at each tide, that she might be assured of his safety. Boulanoure protested, with unseemly pride, surely no harm would befall his son, for had he not already mastered many of the skills of his sire? Boulnayele enjoyed his slow solitary swim, feeding from teeming life brought down to the sea by glaciers, resting in the lee of ice giants which hung below the surface in jagged spears. There he sheltered one still night when faint throbbing echoed and he sensed the approach of a large vessel. Manwhale.

His father had warned of the threat and he remained alert, monitoring the ship's advance. There were icebergs about but the ship maintained a steady course, its beat undiminished. Boulnayele scanned the vicinity and located a lone berg on directly opposing track to the manwhale and he knew collision was inevitable if it came on as it did. Surfacing, he sighted the ship. Bright lit, it bore down on the converging iceberg. At last the ship appeared to check its momentum and began to veer away, but too late.

Boulnayele felt the tremor of the glancing impact, heard a tearing sound, and the ship was mortally wounded. Stopped, it began to sink, and from its heights dropped tiny figures, some to cling at wreckage, others frantic in the deadly waters, a few in small boats which had survived the crash. The prow of the ship submerged. It broke apart, roared and steamed, and at last slipped away to the deep. Drowning people quickly succumbed, food for sea life, and pathetic flotsam drifted.

Boulnayele swam on, remembering, when at gatherings of The Great Tribes, he had listened to stories of Man and his mastery of the seas. Boulnayel dreamed of swift vessels which reached all corners of every ocean and deepships that plumbed darkmost trenches. Yet, this night he had witnessed the killing of a giant manwhale, stricken by the lightest touch of a passing iceberg, just such a cut as he had sustained in his careless idling. He had much to learn.

Talking Minds

Years ago I was involved in a robbery . . . being robbed. Two men in masks, one armed with a knife. It was a frightening experience. The knifeman demanded money, "Give me the money," he said. No, really. For a minute there I thought he wanted my autograph. I won't go into detail, only tell you that, realizing the weapon was one of those long thin kitchen knives, that it would bend, I grabbed the blade. As I say, I won't describe the bloody outcome of our little dance, back and forth, me losing my hold on the knife as it sliced fingers, scraped bones. It ended when I took advantage of the momentum as he pulled back trying to wrest the knife from me. I let go of it, spun round running, claret everywhere, and, well, I escaped.

All these years, the experience has been fucking with my head. Post Traumatic Stress. It changed my life, and my lifestyle. I was never the depressive type, and I didn't curl up and feel sorry for myself, but it wasn't long before I began to have some pretty extreme anxiety attacks. That's the perfect phrase for what happened to me, "anxiety attacks". I was in hospital for five days, came out strapped up, an Out-Patient, getting physio at the hospital, and then, a couple of weeks into my recovery, my physical recovery, I was walking in the High Street when I saw a couple of lads on the opposite pavement. They were of that ilk - you know? Samish age and manner of dress as my attackers. I "escaped", and when I was sure in my mind that I hadn't been spotted, followed, that the danger was over, I slowly began to relax, letting myself believe that it was only my vigilance that had saved me. I became "normal" again, never questioning the irrationality of my behavior. That's how it's been. Recurrences of incidents like that, anytime, anywhere.

For years I tried to put the thing from my mind, tried to avoid day to day anything that might bring back that fearful memory. Those masks, the desperate eyes, the flickering tongue of the knifeman, the blood. I might be watching TV and a trailer would pop up for some thriller or other and there'd be a shot of masked men in action. Click. I'd go and make coffee, calm myself. Almost worse than irrational fear was the private shame I felt about that fear. Me, jack the lad in a lad's world, frightened by one and a half junkies (no idea why the little guy turned up, all he did was . . . wear a mask). I relived the fear whenever an incident triggered my anxiety. I relived the shame. I never "escaped" and thought what a prat I was being. I always put it away in that recess of my mind and locked it up.

Two years before retirement, I asked my G.P. (he had put me on Citalopram when I'd finally told him where my head was at and it had helped me by perceptibly calming my headlong reactions to incidents) for advice about getting professional help. Out of all the bumph he laid on me I saw a possible path. I joined a weekly therapy group. I attended several sessions, mostly listening, but I did manage a couple of references to "my trauma". Out loud, the gist, not the details, but I felt something was changing. I was thinking about it. Health in Mind, the Service overseeing all this, mentioned "talking therapy". I hadn't talked to me about it for twenty years, so the idea of exposing myself to some hippy trippy graun reading sandal wearing dogooder did have a certain appeal. I was about to move to my retirement home (!), a flat I'd wanted for a long time, and as soon as I'd settled in I got in touch.

July last year, I arrived at a local venue to meet my talking therapist. I expect she has one of those official titles like Certified Mind Control Operative but to me she was just right. Let's face it, she could have been a bloke in cords and a jumper, with clever spectacles. I knew she wasn't, obviously, from the correspondence but she might have been. I'm not sure I could have "talked" to a man, however sociologically appropriate. So, there's Sue and me, sitting at a table on that first morning. I'm thinking, well, this should be good, I shall indulge my friend here in the biker jacket and delicate frock, let her think her script is doing the trick then go home and contemplate my navel. That's what I was thinking, for about five minutes. Then I began to talk. I had once before talked to a shrink attached to St Georges Hospital, the tape of which I'd been given, but which I only listened to once before I destroyed it. I couldn't cope with my description of the fear, I think.  That was the last time I'd talked about the incident, to anyone.

It's a new year, and a new cliche. Or new me as we call it in the talking game. I have no idea what Sue did to get me at it, but I talked and talked, and she listened and listened. Every session I'd go in and talk. There was some exchange, certainly, Sue had questions, gave me encouragement, advice, brought in a picture of a man in a mask (FUUUUUCK!!!) but mostly I talked. She gave me a couple of assignments as we went along and I wrote stuff. That's easy, but the talking was hard, at first. I got all of it out in the end and my mind began to feel airy, containing those frightening memories, sure, but they were like all the other memories, the good and the bad. I began to do stuff I couldn't manage before, like taking the train to London  without having to arrange with my son to meet me. Those two junkies disappeared (Old Bill said I needn't worry about them, and my friend Tyrone said what junkies). Probably had an accident. 

They changed my life. They could have changed me terminally, but they didn't know about Sue. I know about Sue. We had a break when she went on holiday, and I did have a wobble when it came to the first week without a session. I knew what was happening, though, and I sorted it by thinking about it. I can think about "it" now, and understand about myself. I can even laugh about it. And Sue, it cracked her right up.