Mourning
from Berlin morning windows
still alone, chasing ghosts
rattling down a road of my own making
Marching Orders
last orders
real women don’t drink pints
and swear at real men
or forget to comb the curls
at the back of their hair
so there
and anyhow I’m not good for you
and you’re certainly not for me
but I know this
so who cares
My head is full of words, and worries and other people’s questions. Cycling home through the woods, in deep and earnest conversation with myself I suddenly realize it’s The Twelfth of July.ii Fancy that, and I can still remember that one warm 12th thirty years ago, nineteen years of age, home for the first summer break from university. I fancied myself in love. With Rodney. A bad guy, not even a very clever one. But a beautiful one. Warm grass and kisses, grown-up drinks and blushes. In a hurry. Always in a hurry. The cows strung out along the foot of the hill, going home for milking. Sheep feeding and bleating on the blue-green Sperrin Mountains deep into the night.
In those days you could still cycle down the main road and survive. In the evening traffic was minimal, cycling to the cawing of the late evening crows, retracing the tracks of my first secret Catholic friendship. Calling in on my gran, playing cards with one of her slightly crazy sisters or my other gran sitting in front of a turned-off telly watching for signs of life outside the window. How often did I push my bike to the subway entry, turn round and wave at my gran still standing there anxiously waiting? And how I would love to do it now, then turn round, for one last wave. Before I am swallowed up by that subway entry.
Visiting Gran
Granny clacks her cameo rings, gnarled knuckles gripping scored and burn-marked surfaces. She’s dealing cards onto her coffee table.
„Can I maybe open the window?“ Me, small-child conscious, tries to prise, unpermitted, the window latch open. But it is stuck with years and years of smoked-out Silk Cut. The china dog guarding the plastic fireplace seems to be mocking me as I sit back down in resignation and am promptly swallowed up by a too-big mock leather sofa. It farts me out again just in time to stop my son from hitting his head against a chipped edge. He is trying to pick up cards, which have tumbled out of his hands, uncoordinated in anticipation, onto a deep-pile carpet which needs a good shampoo and conditioning.
„You’ve dropped your cards. Be careful.” Granny admonishes. „And there’s still one there!“
„Where?“
„There. By the poof. A Queen of Spades.“ she snaps. And I had been told that she was almost blind.
“Here. Let me.“ The card is greasy, smudges my fingers. I try to wipe it on my trousers before putting it back into the nervous grasp of my son.
„Mind ye don’t bend it. I’ve had those cards for ages.“ Granny sticks a Silk Cut in her mouth and squints over a lighter.
We’re going to play Blackjack. Granny goes first, looking for all the world like a dragon with a perm, she slaps a card down on the table.
„But I don’t remember the rules!“ I protest.
„Aye.“ she replies.
„No! I mean how does it go again?“ I glance quickly at her ears. She’s not put her hearing aid in again.
„THE RULES! HOW DO YOU PLAY IT?“
„Sure ah taught ye.“ she says.
Thirty years ago I think, but don’t say it.
„I’ve forgotten, Granny. Just tell me again, please!“
„Och!“ Her eyebrows snap at each other in annoyance. „Them aul things.“ she mutters under breath. Then louder:
„Yer aim is to get a hand of twenty one. Two to nine at face value. Ten, Jack, Queen and King are all worth ten. An Ace can be one or eleven. Blackjack is when you get twenty one with just two cards. That’ll be of course an ace and a ten.” She hacks up some phlegm.
„Er, ok.“
„Was will diese alte Frau, Mama?“ iii
„Dylan, das ist unhöflich. Die ist deine Ur-Oma!“
„Ja, aber ich weiß nicht was sie will!“
„Die Regeln erklären, natürlich.“
„What‘s that? What does he want?“
„For me to explain the rules, Granny.“
„Eh? A biccie. Does he want a biccie?“
„Oh Mama, darf ich eins haben?“iv
„No Dylan you had enough earlier!“
„Aber Mama, nur eins, bitte.“ v
„No, Dy-“
„Och let the wee cub have a biccie! Would you like a wee biccie?“ She slaps her cards down in delight. She gets up before I can stop her and shuffles over the shag pile onto the dirty carpet and out into the kitchen.
My son’s face is glowing with victory.
„Don’t get too excited.“ I say and feeling mean, add „They’ll be stale and soft and nibbled at the edges by mice.“
„Eeeh, Mama!“
„Oh shut up and look here. The aim of the game is to score twenty one. These cards here are worth......“
Visiting the Past
And so, I am lying in bed. In almost darkness. In between. I let them come. Images and whispers, snatches of thoughts and associations, just as suddenly snatched away again. I am tense. So tense that my right arm begins to go numb. I move, flinging my arm at some silly angle above my head. Free, blood assaults my veins. It hurts. A swollen sack of pain. Concentrate. I must concentrate. Images and whispers, snatches of thoughts.
It´s you – my namesake. Twenty nine years ago. July 1983. The second time we took up our friendship. In the mess of your parents’ house. Too much furniture, a pile of tyres, bin bags full of God knows what. The family dog, a young Alsatian, pisses in the hall against the telephone table.
„Shall I get a cloth?“ I offer, me, the good girl, the nice visitor.
„Och
