Peter’s Writing

Why couldn’t you tell me?

Foreword

Another exercise in the writing class, this time with the instructions to write a piece starting with the line. “I was never allowed to”.

After the recent death of my wife I guess that my mind was thinking around those issues of grieving/regrets/sorrow. Not able I suppose to write my own thoughts I considered the relationships that young people of my generation have/had with their grandparents and wrote in the voice of a child.

Cowardly perhaps

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I was never allowed to know what was in the chest. Now that I had the chance I didn’t think I wanted to. She has gone now and part of me wanted to allow her secrets to go with her. Let someone else clear out the house. Why did mum and dad insist that I come to help?

‘Why do they call this a monks seat Grandma?’
‘Cause they didn’t have many possessions and it served as a seat, a storage space for their private things, and when the top was down it made a table for their writing.’
‘What private things?’
‘Things they didn’t want anyone else to see I suppose. Don’t ask so many questions’
‘What’s in it now then?’
‘Don’t be cheeky. My private things. Not for you to know ’til I’m dead’.

When I entered the room I saw that the top was up, forming a seat, the raised top making a hard upright back. The seat in which I was always made to sit, with knees together, nowhere to rest my arms, and not knowing what to do with my hands. ‘‘He’s a big boy isn’t he, got big knees, he’ll grow into a fine big man’’. I sat in the seat automatically, rather like a dog returning home to his kennel and familiar space. I don’t know why, but I felt a sense of sorrow. The room was just the same as I had always known it. Just as cold, just as dull. The red velvet curtains half drawn across the windows, as they had always been, the two china dogs in the hearth and the mantle piece draped with a tasselled cloth. The same huge picture, of galleons in battle, on a wall decorated with flowered wallpaper, long since faded and dull. There were three other chairs, each identical, with cushioned, but hard seats, straight backs and wooden arms. There were white-laced squares of material on the backs of the chairs, which grandma straightened whenever the chair was vacated. The table, with its solid elephantine legs was covered with a plum coloured cloth matching that of the mantelpiece with the same gold coloured tassels. The gloomy room was so familiar to me, a room I had known, and hated, for all of my life. Three years ago, at the age of fourteen, mum had finally realised the futility of forcing me to visit.

I smiled as I remembered how I had heard her voice calling to me to get up. It seemed such a long way off, as though she was calling from a distant mountain with the sound being muffled and filtered by a morning mist. Even from the depth of the duvet over my head I sensed that it was still dark but resisted opening my eyes, preferring desperately to remain in my dream that was rapidly evaporating. I moved my hands to the warmth between my legs and shut my eyes more tightly. The duvet was gentle as it moulded itself around my bare chest and legs like a swan gathering her chicks into the safe and warm feathers beneath her wings. I discarded my shorts and pushed them with my feet down to the bottom of the bed. My hands returned to my warm groin. I dare not open my eyes, I had to remember the feel of her leg as she eased it against mine when she had chosen to sit next to me in yesterday’s English lesson. That wasn’t a dream, I knew she had done that and I also knew I hadn’t moved mine away. I remember the smell of pine from the freshly laundered duvet like the smell of the trees in the wood where we lay. The grass was damp and cold and I could feel the wetness through my thin school shirt. I shivered and moved closer to her. Her skirt was raised, exposing her thigh, I put my hand on her leg and then, nervously, moved it higher. She smiled and turned onto her side bringing her face close to mine.

The distant mountain suddenly seemed more like a volcano it shook me and my mother’s voice erupted. ‘‘COME ON PETER. I’ve been calling you for the last five minutes. Why do you pull that duvet over your head like that? Now GET UP, you know we are going to visit grandma today’’.
I frantically felt for my shorts, hoping I could find the opening and drag them on, knowing that objection would provoke mum into pulling off the duvet.
‘‘ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I’m coming ’’.
I pulled the duvet off my head and moved as if to get out of bed, hoping that it would show sufficient effort to encourage mum to leave the room.
‘‘Good boy, come on now your breakfast’s ready’’.
She left the room with a parting command ordering me to put on my clean white school shirt and the jumper that grandma had knitted for me.

‘There’s no way I’m going to wear that thing’.
‘You’ll wear it and like it. Grandma took a lot of trouble to knit that for you and it’s made real wool.
‘Big deal. Well she needn’t have bothered, it’s horrible and anyway it’s too small’.
‘It’s a bit small I know but she doesn’t see very well now and it took her a long time to do’.
‘I’ll say it did, she measured me when I was eleven’.
‘I’m not going to argue with you. Do as you’re told, get on with your breakfast. You can wear it in the house and change to that long thing that you pull down to your knees when we get back in the car’.
‘Why do I have to go?’
‘Don’t be silly. Because grandma is very old and she won’t be with us for always. You know she will be disappointed if you don’t go, she is always pleased to see you’.
‘You could have fooled me. In that gloom I doubt that she can even see me, and she rarely speaks to me, so I doubt whether she will know that I am there or not’.
‘Don’t you give me so much lip. I don’t know what’s got into you lately; I really don’t’.
‘Mum. Please. Don’t make me go. Tell her I’ve got an important football match’.
‘But you don’t play football’.
‘I know that and you know that but she doesn’t. Please mum’.

And so it was. I lied to her about what I intended to do. She tried one more attempt by reminding me about the chocolate cake that grandma would have baked specially for me. I wanted to say ‘I wish I had never said I liked it. She gives us it every time we go. I hate that dark cooking chocolate and it’s as dry as a bone’ but actually said ‘Tell her I’m sorry and would she please send a nice large piece home with you for me’. To be truthful my day of freedom was miserable. I thought I would go and see if I could find Judith. I didn’t. The next English lesson she sat next to James Woolly. I knew what they were doing. Instead, I lay in my kennel with my head on my crossed paws and sulked until they came home.

I didn’t know what I expected to find when I opened the chest. ‘Private things’ she had said. What private things could an old woman have? On the top there were finely embroidered small garments. I imagine that they were baby clothes and christening robes. There were blankets and a small toy furry rabbit. I took them out and laid them on the floor. Beneath there was a framed photograph of a young man standing beside a tank in the desert, he didn’t look much older than me. He was handsome, he wore boots and long socks, his chest was bronzed and bare. There was a photograph of a grave in a war cemetery and next to these…the letters. I don’t intend to tell you, or anyone else, what was written in them. You can guess that they were letters from her Husband? or Boyfriend? They spoke in very simple words of his love for my Grandmother. I read them all, unaware of the pain in my knees from my position in front of the chest. Many letters referred to the forthcoming birth of their child………my mother. A child he was never to see. I haven’t told mum yet that I found them, I know that I should, but don’t know whether I will. I need to read them again and again. Something inside me seems to be saying that grandma would want me to have them. At the bottom of the chest I found a bundle of cards. Cards with childish drawings and words written in unformed child writing. I realised as I spread them out, that they were the cards that I had drawn and sent for Xmas’s and birthdays at an age that I could no longer remember.

Oh Grandma……….Why couldn’t you tell me?

Foreward:This was written a few years ago whilst attending a writing class. The brief was to write a short piece using the word purple three times. The subject matter was our own choice conjured up by the colour purple. As always in these classes we were encouraged to write without too much thought and not to edit so the piece is not to be considered as an example of a finished piece.

I don’t know why the images came to me. I tried to write in the voice of a young child and his emotions in dealing with the grief of the death of his loving grandfather and friend.

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‘WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING? You can’t go to the church in that thing’

‘Why not?’

‘Don’t be so childish Peter, you’re nearly fourteen now, you know very well why not.

‘No I don’t. I can’t see why I shouldn’t wear it if I want to, Grandad bought it for me and he wouldn’t mind’.

‘Well he’s not in a position to say is he, but if I have to spell it out for you, it’s so as not to be disrespectful to all the others who will have dressed with dignity in clothes that are appropriate for the occasion. There will be a lot of people there; some from the County Council, some from the Rotarians, maybe some Magistrates, and very possibly the Bishop. So if you think that I am going to allow you let me down by sitting there in that purple jacket with “Yamaha” blazoned across the back, then you’d better think again. GO AND PUT ON THE JACKET THAT I LAID OUT FOR YOU…………and don’t slam the D……….
I’ve had about as much as I can stand for one day and HURRY UP the cars will be here in a minute’.

‘We are gathered here, in the sight of God, to celebrate the…………………..

‘I bet God wouldn’t mind if I wore my Yamaha jacket. Anyway look at you…….what’s that stupid looking outfit you’ve got on……that dress thing is exactly the same colour purple as my jacket……..bet mum doesn’t think that’s disrespectful ……some sort of uniform I suppose to show us how high and mighty you are……Grandad couldn’t stand people who flaunted their position…..he told me so’.

………the life of Arthur……

‘Mr Harrison to you, you pompous prick. I call that disrespectful, you didn’t even know him. I ’spect someone has written out details for you to read, well why don’t you be honest and just read out the list and not pretend he was your friend. I can tell you Grandad wouldn’t have put up with the likes of you, he said I was probably his only true friend ’cause we could talk together with honesty and without prejudice, not that I’m sure what prejudice means but he was my friend not yours so SHUT UP’.

………many good works, not least his support of the Church, both financially and as a true practising Christian……….

‘BOLLOCKS. I remember that day we were riding across the moors………I didn’t think Grandad would make it to the top…….I couldn’t look back to see where he was ’cause of the rock steps, but I could hear the revs as he changed gear to tackle them……and then we were both at the top laying beside our bikes and laughing and he said “I may be four times your age Peter but you’ve enabled me to be young again” and that pleased me to do something like that for Grandad, and then he said “Here, with you, I can forget about all the acts that I have to put on to keep up the appearances of respectability” I remember those exact words. He said we were equal and he felt thirteen again and we talked and talked, about all sorts of things, and he told me that he didn’t believe in religion. No I won’t tell anyone about that Grandad, it’s our secret. Just like the secret we had when you bought me the jacket and we had to tell mum that it cost £25 and not £125. He didn’t have to dress up in a purple gown and gaiters and dangle that bloody great cross around his neck to show he was a good man. YOU KNOW NOTHING. I wish all these people would go away.

………and we will commit his body to the grave and his soul into the hands of God.

‘If you think I’m going to close my eyes to pray then you’re dead wrong……
I’m going to stare you out…….words…..just words……you don’t care. I’ve seen you looking at your watch. ‘Praps you want to get home for your dinner, or to some Secret Society Club to booze or maybe to choir practice to bum some favourite choirboy. I’ve read about all these things. I’m going to stare until my eyes burn into your soul and when you notice me, as you surely will, you’ll come off your high horse then’.

Peter bent his head over the washbasin, wetted his short blonde hair, read the instructions on the bottle again and dipped the brush into the purple dye.

‘I’m going to get into a lot of trouble; but this is for us Grandad ……..FUCK ‘EM ALL.

I’ll go to our secret place.

Dad eased the car to a halt. A bomb from last night’s air raid had demolished most of the shops and offices on the right hand side of the street ahead. Fire engines were still fighting the flames of some of the buildings. The flashing lights of the ambulances and police cars created an illusion of a fairground ride as they bounced over the hoses and rubble. Then, suddenly a crashing noise from a collapsing roof sent sparks and debris high into the air as it imploded into the shell of the building adding fireworks to the illusion. A policeman, whose uniform was covered in a fine grey dust, patrolled the entrance to the street. Dad wound down the window.
‘Where are you trying to get to Sir?’

‘The railway station’.

‘It’s a bugger isn’t it, I don’t know what to tell you, I’ve been here since dawn and it looks like all the incendiary fires in the next streets are out now but I’ve no idea what debris there is. I think that if you tun left here and try one of the streets on the right you’ll find a way through.
Dad thanked him and drove on as instructed.

‘Why don’t we just turn around and go home, I don’t want to go’.

‘No I know you don’t but it will be much safer for you at March, I don’t think they will attack there’.

‘Well they said on the wireless that the bombers find their targets by following rivers, roads and railway lines, and there’s loads of railway lines leading to the marshalling yards at March’.

‘Yes I know but uncle Arthur lives miles away from those, You’ll be alright’.

‘What about school? I can’t afford to miss any more lessons it’s School Certificate exams in June’.

‘Never mind about that now, you won’t get into trouble, and you won’t be the only one who’s absent. You’re far too tired to cope with school just now. If they get in touch with us we’ll explain. Don’t worry about it you can come home again when things settle down’.

We drove in silence through the deserted ghostly streets whose emptiness echoed my own feelings of worry and despair.

The railway station, usually bustling and noisy, was almost deserted too. The café, where mum had treated me to doughnuts, when we waited, before the war, for the train that would take us for an excursion to the coast, was closed. The headlines of the placard at the news-stand announced:
MORE RAIDS. HEROISM OF FIRE FIGHTERS. HEAVY CASUALTIES. Dad went to the window to the booking office. There was an eerie atmosphere of gloom in the cathedral-like space, which did nothing to lift my spirits’.

‘Do you need to go to the toilet?’

‘No’.

‘Alright, come on then, the train is already standing at platform two’.

As we walked towards the ticket barrier the pigeons, which were pecking around the floor, flew to the safety of their roosting place in the heavy iron roof supports, the cracking of their wings creating a startling noise like machine guns. Dad spoke to the collector and handed him my ticket, he was told that the train would be divided at Ely and that I should travel in one of the first two carriages. We walked in silence along the platform. Dad opened the heavy door of the first carriage, took my suitcase to an empty compartment and lifted it onto the rack above the seat.

‘Right, now here’s your ticket, keep it safe. Do you remember the way to get to the house? You should be there before the blackout’.

‘Yes I think so. I turn right out of the station to the high street and then left after the bridge and I’ll recognise the streets from there’.

‘Yes that’s right, good boy. Don’t be afraid to ask someone if you’re not sure. Here take this ten shilling note, in case of emergencies you can send a telegram, I’m sure you won’t need to but just in case don’t spend it all. You’ll be off in a few minutes so I’d better get out now’.

Then, in the secrecy of the compartment, he put his arm around my shoulder and drew me close. The tobacco smell of his jacket conjured up memories of other times that we had been alone together. Just the two of us in the car, when we would sing hillbilly songs that he liked so much. He would pump the accelerator in rhythm to the tune resulting in more speed than was really safe, which he knew that I enjoyed. Or the exciting occasions when he would stop the car at the edge of the heath and aim his shotgun through the open window to shoot a rabbit. If he hit one I would be sent to pick it up while he restarted the engine for our getaway.

I mustn’t cry.

We walked together to the door of the carriage. Dad unhooked the thick leather strap from the brass fastening knobs, lowered the window, stepped down to the platform and shut the door.
‘You’ll be all right Peter, be a good boy. I have to go now you’ll be off in a minute’.

‘Dad’.

‘What?’

‘wwwhat will happen to Bessie?’

‘Nothing is going to happen to Bessie, we’ll see that she’s all right’.

‘What if she’s scared?’

‘She won’t be scared, she’s used to guns and loud noises’.

‘She will she is frightened, she IS. Wwwill you take her into the shelter with you at night?’.

‘Yes’.

‘Well you wouldn’t let me go and fetch her last night’.

‘She’s a clever little dog, she’ll always find a safe place to hide’.

‘You don’t understand her, she is frightened she shivers when I hold her, the screaming noise of the dive bombers scares her to death……….and ssshe ssssouldn’t be on her own’.

I was thrown off balance when the engine thumped into the carriage as it was coupled up. The guard, carrying his green flag, walked along the length of the train checking that the doors were closed. He waved his flag to the driver, steam hissed from the engine, the spinning wheel shrieked as they took up the drive and the carriage jerked when they found grip. I couldn’t hear what dad said as he turned and walked away.

‘DAD! Please look after Bessie’.

By the time the train had reached the bend at the end of the platform he had passed through the barrier into the main area of the station.

I saw the pigeons fly up to the roof as he walked through.

I constructed this garden thirty years ago at the age of fifty-three, I painted it for the first time when I was fifty-nine and here I am, long past the age when I should be retired, still painting the bloody thing. I’m fed up with it and if Mary would stop bullying me I can tell you I wouldn’t touch a brush again, but she says ‘we’ve got to keep going Claude there’s a market out there; Impressionism is not dead and you are the master’

So we come out here when the weather is fine (and often when it isn’t) and we do the hundredth, or is it thousandth picture? She doesn’t seem to realise that at eighty-two that I am tired and don’t care anymore. I don’t think she’s concerned with art at all `cause she often says ‘look Claude that ponce Renoir has been dead for six years now, we’ve got a good line in decoration on shopping bags, plenty of posters, Christmas wrapping paper and good royalties for copying these lilies onto cupboard doors, but now the market for the chocolate boxes and birthday cards is wide open and ready for the taking. Forget the Grain Stacks’. I think that she must be on some sort of earner…………but what can I do? I’m nearly blind now and have to rely on her for everything.

Mary sets up all the gear and, after a couple of glasses of absinth, she loads a brush with paint and guides my arm towards the canvas. We always start with the bridge. When I feel the brush make contact she gives me a push. In order to prevent myself from falling my flailing arm sweeps in an arc across the canvas. The “art-speak’ brigade go into raptures about this particular mark and say that not only have I reproduced the sensual curved shape but the brush stroke evokes inspirational magic erotic connotations! Sometimes Mary is not quite satisfied and replaces the brush with one filled with Verdi green and guides it to the area to be corrected saying ‘just wiggle it up and down Claude……… very gently’. She tells them, if asked, that it is a willow tree (Japanese of course). Whilst I have my afternoon rest Mary does the water part of the painting. I don’t know what she does but as far as I can see she mixes up a blue paint let down with turps and either throws or dribbles it over the canvas and smears it about with her hands.

To do the lilies requires much more technique and is best done in the studio since a smooth surface is needed. She has designed a stool on wheels on which I sit with my brush, or sometimes two, lightly touching the canvas. With a whoop of glee we spin around like whirling Dervishes, she recharges my brush when I am facing away, repositions me, and reverses the spin so as to not make me dizzy. The “Art-speak’ mob liken the trailing brush marks to the beauty seen in the tail of a cosmic comet and the work of a genius.

Mary says that if you stand far enough away and half close your eyes you have an impression of a bridge over a pond of lilies………. and she has already contacted Cadburys

I’ve asked Peter to send me some of his selected writings, I’ve seen a few and they’re quite good, I thought that his viewers would enjoy reading some of them so, they’ll be in here very shortly.