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Extended Work
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| Drifting - chapter thirteen | |
| By Jamie | ||
| 01 August 2008 | ||
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This is the thirteenth chapter in a long form story. My plan is publish all the chapters on here as I go along. I will present them as I choose, a few days interspersing the entries. All feedback, negative or positive gratefully received. I am proud of certain aspects, and ruefully aware of other areas of shortcomings and inadequacy. Rather like myself in fact. So constructive criticism or showers of stars - both interestedly received. Blunt, bored, disinterested views will be received likewise. As most of us are, who seemingly ' can't ' write with brevity, I am equally indisposed to attempt a synopsis. But... Girl has self, girl meets boy, girl loses self, girl loses boy, girl tries to find self. Girl finds a different kind of self. This would be fair, but woefully inadequate. More it is an outpouring of thoughts and words, many words along a collection of themes that had been going round and around in my head for a long time. And ultimately a traumatic time in my own life brought these feelings and thoughts rudely, and unbiddenly to the surface. So I wrote them down - a catharsis of sorts, and an interested exploration of the routine, process and 'expected' or 'required' structure of writing in long-form. Thanks for reading and your interest. I repay your time spent with gratitude and humilty.
chapter thirteen
The fields and rounded green hills are shooting abstractly by. The window rattling again as the train engine changed its pitch, jolted her head for the hundredth time and pulled her unwillingly out of her attempts at dreams and sleep. Jolted right back down again, into this fucking world. And down here, every turn of the wheel was taking her closer to more pain, recriminations and histrionics. She grimaced as she heard her thoughts; this was home she was thinking about – and a warm, safe and comfortable haven too. But instead of elation and a sense of security in coming back to shelter herself for a while, she could only feel the most negative of sensations, or at least these were the first ones that registered with her. But she was tired of running. And Jon was right – of course he was right; she needed to touch down. Home and her family may be far from perfect, and they may present her with more problems, but none were insoluble. And again this was home, home… and a sanctuary were she could mend her head and broken feelings, and maybe continue her much needed recuperation. The choice at Central Station, Glasgow, had not been a difficult one. At first Lyndsey had pondered the possibility of choosing some other big town, somewhere – somewhere else. Hopping onto a train, to be back where she was on that night in Manchester, in Victoria Station. A trip to somewhere else, someplace, Anywhere-ville, where she could start again, a little wiser and more ready not to repeat the same mistakes. But the feelings she felt, and the sigh she exhaled as she bought her single ticket to Manchester was genuine and weary. She was just so tired and sick of it all - of all the running, travelling and being in limbo, and just plain thinking all the time. In some respects, returning home wasn’t easy, but waking up tomorrow, and in the days ahead after the initial remonstrating, questions and frenzied attentions of her parents... After the almost-inevitable tears and conversations... After these scenes, the world would surely feel warmer, more comfortable, quieter and more secure than it had for… oh for a good while. I just want to go home… The train was slowing through the suburbs, through the provincial towns that quietly she had tried to forget and disown, and through the litter and discarded shopping trolleys strewn alongside the railway line. The old place doesn’t change… And of course it was raining too, but this time she would walk from the station and back to her parent’s house. She had no desire or need, and little enough money this time, to hail a taxi that would get her there sooner than she needed, and maybe before she was ready. Before she had made herself ready. I'll never be ready… She easily found her way out of the station and began to navigate her way through the side-streets of the inner city, picking her way through the litter and throngs of pedestrians out in the mid-day streets of the drizzly Manchester city centre. She kept on moving with her head mostly down, past the old familiar buildings and frontages. And somehow it had all seemed to get along just fine and unhindered without her presence or attention. Crossing the tramlines and threading her way through the shoppers and passers-by, she heard the remembered sound of her native accent sound around her, it sounded novelty-new, but also old and depressingly familiar,And so back though the closed confines of the city centre of Manchester, and onwards to the north toward Cheetham Hill and home. Retracing the steps of not so long ago, a time and period not significant on any calendar, but an age of great emotional growing-up time. So long ago... Eventually her walk took her around the last corner and into the road she knew so well. It was very familiar of course, but somehow different, but then this had been the longest time in her short life that she had been away from it. The road to her parent’s flat was quite short, but she lingered and made the journey last even though the air was cold and very damp. The lighting-up time for the few working streetlights around her in this relatively quiet area of Crumpsall wasn’t too far away. But the road was short and in spite of her increasing hesitation, her destination was reached. Here were the flats, here were the stairs – there were the lights in the window. I just want to go home… And she was home, back at the start again. She climbed the stairs and she reached her parents front door. Sighing, mostly with relief at the end of the emotional day of her anticipated journey, she swung her pack down from her aching shoulders and onto the landing. Leaning over she listened, then she pressed the doorbell. She stood there waiting, shaking and drained. No fight left, no air of defiance or self-dignity remaining. For now at least, she had given up. If her parents wanted it said – okay, she had been wrong and maybe, just maybe she should never have left at all. Not if the only possible end-step was to be where she was right now – shaking nervously and crying quietly on the doorstep. Nakedly in need of that that she had once believed herself un-needy of, earnestly crying out for that she believed she was ever un-receiving of - the love, attention and help from two confused, well meaning and misunderstanding, loving parents. Lyndsey lifted her head suddenly as she heard the sound of footsteps on the other side of the door, and she steeled herself to prevent herself from crying and collapsing over the threshold. The door opened and she found herself suddenly in the warm light of the hallway and in the astonished gaze of her unsuspecting mother. "Hello Mum… Well I'm back…" Warmer, softer. Smells nicer, feels different, old, familiar and new... It took only a few seconds for Lyndsey to collect herself on waking and to re-associate herself into her old room where she was now once again lying. How the sheets felt so soft and clean, the walls so white and clear. The overall impression was one of comfort, of calm, the over-riding sounds around her were of silence, barring the occasional traffic noise and siren. Her recent memory unfolded and flooded back the latest happenings and events, but just now it caused her less anguish. Right now, in spite of all, she wanted to feel and think about herself. She was just glad that she had been able to bite down and swallow her bitter little pill of giving in and returning. Of being wrong. And it was quite a novelty to be able to turn over again and return to sleep once more without having to nurse a cramped leg or to warm some cold, cold limb. But there was of course, an absence beside her that had alleviated these discomforts before, and the identity of the absence was so many more physical miles away than yesterday as well as so many more emotional ones. Upon entry back into her parent’s flat last night, the events had been largely predictable. The questions and recriminations had been frenzied for a short while before her parents gave her some respite as they could see her shattered will, and her all but refusals to answer fully any of the questions they threw quickly at her. And slipping so easily back into her old skin and role, she had simply answered as shortly as possible and had refused to elucidate. She was truly back here again. Lyndsey was truly sorry for the pain and trauma she knew she had caused and was still causing now. She knew she could make things better for her parents simply by loosening up and talking, maybe by letting go and opening up in a similar way to how she had managed previously with both Tom and Jon. But this would not be genuine; it would not be an honest action from her. She was truly sorry for the tears she could see in her mother’s face and the wounded, bewildered pain in her father’s eyes, and she told them so. But to pursue what would be an almost eccentric action for her – to converse with her parents, to seek their understanding and explain her motives on issues, feelings and views that she knew the wouldn’t understand or believe in - would be an action that would only lead to more pain, bewilderment and tears, and for them all, not just her parents. Besides, in her mind and eyes, seeing what Lyndsey believed and understood to be her parents aspirations and desires for their daughter, it was almost inevitable that sadly she was going to disappoint and let them down. But she couldn’t accede now and apologise for seeking a different path and view to theirs, not if she wanted to at least attempt to hold onto even the shreds of what remained of her self-respect. So explaining and seeking approval wasn’t her thing, it hadn’t been before – it wouldn’t and couldn’t be now. But initially on interrogating her, her silence hadn’t deterred them. Her past history of reluctance or refusal to speak or explain her actions didn’t stop them from emotively and impulsively calling out the questions that Lyndsey knew would come but didn’t want, the examinations that she stoically endured, but refused to respond to or satisfy their interest and anxiety in: "Where did you go?" "Who were you with?" "Are you in some kind of trouble?" "Why Lyndsey?.. Why?" Very soon though, her parents saw how quickly Lyndsey shut down the barriers again, and of how dispirited and beaten she seemed. And although they pushed and urged her to elucidate and articulate more than merely the monosyllabic answers she offered, they could read the obvious signs in her heavy and tired eyes, they could see from the lines in her face and from the involuntary and unintended shaking of her hands that she was all but totally worn and cried out. She had evidently had a recent emotional upheaval, one that had had her and maybe still had her bruised to the soul; but she was not going to go over the pain and shame, and to open it up again by opening her mouth and explaining her cloaked and clouded thoughts and recent experiences. And their ignorance at what they were unaware of, their lack of knowing of what the myriad of reasons might be behind the story of why Lyndsey was so miserable now, the potential horror of what might actually have happened to her while she was away – this made her parents almost as reluctant as they were eager, to learn of what was going on – to learn of what pain and thoughts were feeding slowly through those dark, unhappy eyes of their daughter. Sitting in the kitchen. An almost identical position and pose to that of her familiar ‘Glasgow kitchen squat position’. She was leaning over, fixed on the kettle, watching it rumble towards the boiling of its water. Behind her, her mother entered the room and impulsively came over to hug her, as glad of the opportunity to be able to do so as desirous of the need to show her affection towards her daughter. "Thanks Mum." Almost innately Lyndsey tried to wriggle out of her mother’s embrace, embarrassed at the nervous and almost desperate show of affection. As her mother crossed the kitchen, she commenced a commentary on what had happened since Lyndsey had been away: family news, local gossip, small-town news – what was different. After politely listening for a moment or two Lyndsey began to switch off and mentally tune her mother out. This was a bore; of no interest at all to her world. Irrelevant and inconsequential. She was glad of the diversion of the kettle while her mother’s voice carried on relating news and tales her daughter did not hear. Lyndsey morosely examined the routine of the boiling kettle and the preparation duties of the coffee cup. And so that day went on. Inside all day, the rain showing no sign or hint of abating. Drinking coffee, keeping warm, sleeping, doing little, but trying not to think or reminisce. Speaking to, rather than with her mother, politely answering her father and murmuring un-expansively at all the small gentle questions. But of course her parents were swimming in curiosity, they were straining at the bit to rush out and question her. Didn’t she know of all the pain, trauma and worry that she had put them through; of the thoughtlessness and ingratitude that she had shown and expressed? How every "what is she doing now…What is she doing now?" sequence of anguished thoughts had played through their heads mercilessly and almost unceasingly for most of every day and every long night since she had suddenly left and gone away. Not even her short, unapologetic letter had brought much relief when it arrived from Skye that day. They just had wanted to scream, shout and find out every last why and how of the details of her recent disappearance. Her parents, given a free chance, wanted to pin her down, chain her in and manacle her into the flat so that she couldn’t fly away again so suddenly. They wanted her to see things with a little more practicality, with a little more reason and conventionality – maybe then she wouldn’t even want to disappear again. But of course they did none of these things. The fear of Lyndsey departing and disappearing again frightened them so much. Their ignorance of why she had ever gone at all, made them so wary now as they touched and explored so gingerly and tenderly around the situation of their daughter’s distress and displacement. In spite of their intended warm and welcoming smiles and touches, in spite of their desperate attempts at understanding, the differences and gaps between the parents and daughter were as wide – maybe even wider, than ever. And they hated this – their unknowing and misunderstanding of what was obviously a wounded and emotionally wracked girl, this sad-eyed young lady who was also their daughter. But how could they bridge that gap? How could they speak to her and penetrate and understand her world? How could they marry their reasons and wishes against, or with her understandings and aspirations? And how could they ever discover why she had gone away at all? How could they understand and know how to prevent her from wanting to do so again? As the day drew to its close, all three of them sat glumly with attempted family happiness. On the TV flickered some routine, mundane rubbish. The bright lights and colours, the faces and faraway scenes – all the fantastic technology making up the pictures that played out over their faces. But all three of the minds in that front room were everywhere and anywhere but thinking about the images and casual escapism in front of them. Dully and densely the days moved forward. Here she was back here in Crumpsall. Back down here again in Manchester, and for sure after much less than a week the arrival had worn off. Lyndsey couldn’t feel herself moving anymore, she had touched down and had begun to attempt to recover herself, but after all this, what was there really to find and retrieve? Her parents’ frenzy of questions had all but dried up; the paucity of Lyndsey's answers, her vagueness of elucidation and her obvious discomfort and disinclination at being questioned, and their seeking to understand and guide her made it easier for them to resume their old familiar pattern and habit of allowing Lyndsey her space and her silence. Slowly and surely everything was sinking back. The days as they utterly, always will, were changing and moving on, the sun was rising and setting, the rain starting and stopping; but Lyndsey couldn’t just blithely reassume her old routine. She was wholly disinclined to do so anyway; she couldn’t pretend to begin seeking answers here when she was sure she had begun to find them somewhere else, both in and with someone else. And so slowly, surely and inevitably her moods began to darken again. Her silences became longer, and her will and soul began to sink down deep inside herself once more. Down in here she could seek and pursue more intense and more penetrating questions, she could heighten her feelings of re-lived and remembered joy and despair. Here she could see so, so vividly and clearly, Tom’s face, and deep down in here she could sometimes hear his happy and confident voice. Down, deep, deep down in her introspection and black sanctuary she could be a prisoner again to her desperate hearts’ yearnings and sighs. How much easier it is to ignore an unwanted present when you can choose instead to push your face into the past. And so she observed, pondered and fixated on that which she had grasped at, held onto, then lost. As the blue smoke made its way up from her lungs, through her mouth and past her lips, it entered the dark, dank confines of the room. The windows were clasped close and the curtains pulled tight, unopened for days, unwilling as she was for light to enter – to invade. Pitiful, pale shelter against the seemingly ever-present smear of wind-blown drizzle over the rooftops of suburban Manchester. The weather would veer, rather like Lyndsey’s moods, between relative benignity to increased angry wind blasted rain and hail drops. But this was all to little audible effect, penetrating little into Lyndsey’s dark haven and if so it would have to compete with the sorry, relentlessly downbeat music pouring out of her CD player. And also her dulled-down senses and general overall disinterest meant that she was barely perceptive to anything happening or occurring outside her door or windows. Outside of her. The morose music, the endless cigarettes, the abundant availability of red wine, they all combined with the warm staleness of the air to create the desperate sanctuary atmosphere that she was seeking in the confined and closed room. The alcohol and cigarettes weren’t in indefinite supplies, but her will to remain entrapped in this mood and sorry state was as enthusiastic as ever. Now she was down, deep down and determined to wallow and immerse herself in her grief-ridden pity-party. Unheeding of past optimistic advice she had been given, she simply wanted to stay – to remain here while she examined herself with scathing impatience. Down here alone she was, tearful and lost in her own dark snakepit. Don’t want to think about him, just don’t want to… Why - he’s not thinking about me right now is he? That girl, that girl, that girl… Well even she is probably history now too. So… bet he’s moved on and onwards. And bet he’s not… no, I KNOW he’s not thinking of me. I so bet he’s not thought of me once. Not once. Not fucking once… So why am I here thinking and thinking and thinking of him? Lyndsey crossed her dull and darkened room to the door. It was, of course, eloquently, poetically, fittingly pouring with rain. A dull, dark, leaden, dense intense grey, the day was almost done only hours into the afternoon; hardly a point in the sun bothering to rise for such a few bedraggled, miserable and weary hours. But there was a point in her leaving the room for a while: Lyndsey had an idea.
So where’s he at now? Yeah, I know – still in Glasgow, still in the squat. Yeah of course, but where – WHERE? Nothing. I will not think of this. I will not. Which room is he in? And doing what? And with who? And… Oh no… please... just stop,complete, end, terminate - just fuck off with this! Just where is the point? Why rub my nose in more misery and aim to go where really I don’t want to go? I'm travelling where there’s no end, no respite, and no existence anymore. Vaguely searching through this hole of a mind of mine, and trying effortlessly to immerse myself in a past life and existence. A past that’s gone, a past that has rejected me, a past that has bidden me farewell, goodbye, good riddance. It has gone. Gone. Breathed a sigh of relief and has got on with it’s own affairs. And yes – it’s a past that is thinking of someone else, is with someone else – yes, it is fucking someone else, and is not – not thinking of me… Why was she here again? Why had she striven to fall back down and lose herself in her throes of despair? Now that it had all washed out of the bay, why was she here again in her lowest moments to re-examine the flotsam and jetsam, the remembered memories and all the fateful events that were unhesitatingly running through her head like a series of old, sentimental and tattered photographs? And why was she now concentrating on the hardest and most savage parts of the now seemingly inevitable moments of her raw memories? Why? Because of her own deeper need to feel melancholic and bad deep inside of her. A covet for sadness. But this wasn’t a need she strove for, this wasn’t a desire she manufactured. She only added to and followed its cravings and its dull whispers in her head. Her depression wasn’t a simple affliction - her black, black feelings, thoughts and actions were an innate and steel choice. Her depression was She. She could no more be optimistic and feel ready to move on than she could turn back time; and she would so give anything to be able to do any or both of these. But she was left feeling and apparently needing dark and sombre images and scenes to concentrate on, and it was tiring, but sometimes there was fruit in her mental labours. The hands and feelings of love and tenderness felt more vivid and much stronger and clearer the more she pushed her face back into his memory. But with it came her own feelings and her assuredness of fragility. She felt colour-less, washed out and up. And at her darkest moments, in her deepest miseries, she reached the iciest plane of all - she concentrated on her most desperate and disparate thoughts: she thought and concentrated on Tom’s feelings now – right now, towards her. And now she felt scrutinized, used, judged and rejected. Despised, disliked, hated. Now so she could fixate and obsess on her grievance of how she had been pushed aside, gazed on, used, then thrown outwards. Here was irretrievable. Here was irredeemable. Here, she was sure, she was stranded. Alone, naked and on show. And down here it was dark – so dark; and a cold wind always blew. Down, deep down and straight through her. Nearing Strangeways, Lyndsey crossed the Cheetham Hill Road. She was dawdling and walking slowly, lost in her head in her mind of overturning misery piles. She didn’t see the rapidly approaching vehicle and its headlights, vaguely she heard the strident, angry blasts of the horn and the violence of the sudden noise abruptly crashing into her world shook her and she stumbled shambolically and apologetically out of the road of the angry driver. She continued her journey towards Trinity Way, walking through the rain on this night, this her first night back pacing the streets again, this her first night back again visiting the scenes and the place that had helped make up her mind and sent it reeling sideways with its decisions to go and to move on. But why here again? Ha – she knew; she knew why she had drifted away that night and why also she was back again here tonight, seeking answers in the night sky and in the reflections in the water. Her stasis and lack of movement were only bearable to her to a certain point and level. She would not occupy the plane and carriage that all those who were unquestioning and un-wanting of anything different were occupying, but she didn’t want to feel and to see herself in some third-level ‘under-class’ – missing out on both the ordinary way and the different way – whatever they both may be. The way she could see ahead, the path she felt herself to be on was one to nowhere other than misery and lost-world searching. The lights, noise and traffic were all back in place. Still they were there, rushing moving and plotting their individual and massed routes out of and through the big city. Still an exodus to different places, different scenery and different horizons. Lyndsey stood there again as impassively and yet so full of scrutiny as she had on that night back in the early part of the winter. Same clothes, identical pose, cigarette smoking and blowing raggedly into and away on the damp, cold wind. And still there were people leaving, coming, going. Trains and aeroplanes too. All, everything - moving, flowing and drifting by. But she viewed them this time through weary, hardened and not so open eyes. She had been here before and she had followed them and her heart, she had followed her feet and she could see now where she had arrived at. Fuck! She couldn’t stop thinking about, turning over and fixing on where and with whom this similar night not so long ago had lead her to. She cast her spent cigarette away as the tears began to roll again. How could she follow and covet their journeys and routes again now? She knew the colour and warmth of the sanctuary that hers had led her to, and right now she felt she would always bear the bruises to show for it. His eyes above mine. Glassy and shot through, but catching and holding my rapturous gaze in his pupils. His face is coming nearer to kiss me – just to peck me really, but I'm gonna raise my face and hold his there. My limbs are pinned to the floor by his heavier frame over me and oh….. My eyes involuntarily close as I can feel his tongue roughly caressing my teeth inside my hungry open mouth. But his whole actions are more urgent now….. Just one single bead of sweat just dripped from his forehead onto mine. He must be near his climax now…..He’s already led me to my preternaturally whimpering, hot and ecstatic one. Oh….. he’s groaning out low and gutturally, as he’s pushing his fingers into my fingers and then again….. and again….. Oh….. and then again as he primately drains off his sexual energy, pushing and entwining his body around and into mine. His soul, his thoughts of here and now are into and are with mine. We’re two, or just one exhausted bodies collapsed here together in the dark of his room. Sticky, wet and breathing loudly in the darkness. He is panting and joining me in my smile. I'm existing here and now – no thoughts, no worries. I am livign RIGHT NOW - I am flying. There isn’t anything around the corner. There is NOTHING more than this. This is so, so, so intense. And I can feel ALL this only because of he. He….. He is all. He is my whole world. But that was all yesterday. And now back down here in rainy, dark and cold Manchester, back in her head, back on the bridge, Lyndsey was back existing solely as Lyndsey again. And it felt like she had never been away to make things better at all. Better maybe if she hadn’t; now her black thoughts and worries were so much heightened, so coloured through in deep, ethereal, dark shades. “I hold it true, whate'er befall; I feel it, when I sorrow most; 'Tis better to have loved and lost Than never to have loved at all.” The old poem came into her head and she turned her weeping, hurting and suddenly so violently angry eyes heavenwards to aim invective at Tennyson and at the falling impassive drops of rain. "Nonsense – just fucking nonsense..." Right now all she wanted to do was simply to return to her old vapid miserablism and to strip away and lose herself of these memories and experiences. To be un-possessive of those times, that experience, those once so valued memories. That face when I close my eyes. And she wanted - needed - to be so far away from this shot through, acute, weeping hurt. A pain that was never dull or vague, a pain that just pulsed and bled. And hurted, hurted, hurted all the way through. It is always, always, ALWAYS here...
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