The London School of Journalism
By Helen Morris - 1st Place
I walk up to the door taking one last toke of my cigarette, inhaling deeply. “It's a disgusting habit” my mother would say, “but if that doesn't get you, something else will”. How right she was. I actually managed to quit, but lately I find myself relying more and more on them especially on visits to the home. I stub out the cigarette and take a breath making the most of the calm before entering the chaos.
I stand in front of the door and realise I have once again forgotten the code. I hop from foot to foot desperately trying to remember it, cursing myself for my complete inability to remember. A bitter irony that I can never remember the code to get into a building occupied by people who cannot remember anything. Maybe it's something about the building, though it looks friendly enough, every time I step out of the car I am so confident that this time I know it. I definitely do and then when I reach the door I draw a blank and desperately wrack my brains trying to remember the all important four numbers that will gain me access to a building most stay away from.
I start tapping in random numbers in some vain attempt of actually getting it right and today is not the day to be stood out in the cold. It is a crisp February morning and the wind is howling away at my ears, burning my cheeks and tugging at my scarf. Eventually a nurse sees my sorry state and opens the door allowing me to quickly step inside. Immediately the smell hits me, it is always the same, the distinct smell of a care home. I cannot pinpoint exactly what the smell is, most probably a combination of things, but to me it is the smell of lost youth and ever approaching death.
I make my way down the corridor to room number twelve treading down the well worn carpet and passing by the familiar faces. I see Mrs Swinburne, a friend of my mothers from her youth. How strange that they should share their final years as well as their early ones. She once again asks me the same question she asks every time I see her “When is Chris going to be here?” and I always reply the same; “He must be running late Mrs Swinburne but I am sure he'll be here soon”. I have not the heart to tell her that her husband Chris died two years ago and besides what good would come of it? She will only forget this information only to ask again the next time I see her. I could not bear to see the sadness on her face by telling her the truth even though it would only be for a fleeting moment. So instead she continuously waits in the corridor staring at the door longing for a husband that will never come.
I eventually make it to the familiar green door and gently tap on it before entering. As I push on the door I am greeted as always by the sight of my mother sat in the big armchair with the thread bare arms that she rests her agitated hands on. Her face is turned towards the window and she looks out on it, lost in her world.
I often wonder what it is that she is looking at. Does she see what I see? Every time I come here she is always in the same place staring at the same view, no real look of interest just a vacant stare. Can she see the garden just outside her room? Where Mrs Evans takes her routine walks with her daughter, struggling to walk just a few feet in front of her. Her daughter holding her arm desperately trying to provide support before giving up and setting themselves down on the bench. Resting Mrs Evans weary knees and her daughter's weary heart.
Can my mother see the fields off in the distance where the horses roam? I love it when they break out into a run, watching the movements of their graceful bodies completely free of any restrictions and completely oblivious to this home whose inhabitants are no longer free having become trapped by the manacles of their own minds.
I call my mothers name as I approach her and she turns to face me and I hold my breath the way I always do waiting for that look of recognition. But she briefly looks my way before returning her stare back to the window. I will never get over the ache in my heart that looks causes. To have someone who has raised you, loved you and cared for you all your life look at you like a mere stranger is like a sharp stabbing pain to the heart, a new wound for every visit. Wounds that are proving to much to heal for my father, he rarely visits any more. He says he cannot bear to look at the woman he loved for over fifty years and see her yet not truly see her. For the woman he loved is gone and what is left is a cruel imitation of his wife who shows none of her compassion and love, dementia having long since robbed her of those qualities.
I look around my mother's room decorated by my family with home comforts and photographs so as to make her more comfortable and to keep us near at all times. I see the picture of my mother and father in their teens at the ice rink gazing intently into each others eyes. How happy they both look, with not a care in the world. Their faces both glowing with youth and love. My eyes move along the dresser to the next picture of my mother holding my first born child. Oliver is sat on her lap with
a big cheeky smile spread across his face and my mother is holding him tightly looking down at him with a look of such intense love it radiates out of the picture. Also on the dresser is a CD that I found in a local record shop. It is a collection of songs by the forces sweetheart Vera Lynn. I take the CD out of its wallet and walk over to the CD player on the window sill. Once the CD is set up I pull the chair placed in front of my mother's dresser over so as to face opposite her. I am about to press play when I remember the chocolates. I quickly rummage in my pocket and pull out a packet of chocolate éclairs, my mother's favourite. It has become difficult to get my mother to eat now she no longer has any interest in getting her five a day but she still eats these. As I pull them out of my pocket and open the packet I hand one to my mother. She just looks at it, and so I take one and place it in my mouth and begin to chew. “Why these things are delicious” I say and then as the toffee begins to stick to my teeth, I pretend my jaw is sticking together, “But they don't half make it difficult to hold a conversation” And my mother laughs at my foolishness, an infectious giggle which makes me think of a child. These are the moments I have come to cherish now, moments where I can provide just a glimpse of happiness in her rather stilted life. The roles of our lives reversed with me the adult and my mother the infant.
My mother then places her own éclair in her mouth and begins to chew giggling as she does so. I place the packet in my mother's lap so she does not forget that they are there. Then I press play on the CD, settle down in my chair and reach out for my mother's hand gently clasping it, grateful that she still allows me to do this.
I remember watching a programme on Alzheimer's sufferers which said that music can help them remember. It showed dementia sufferers singing in choirs and I remember one couple distinctly. It was a husband and wife who had been childhood sweethearts. The wife had developed dementia and could no longer remember anything yet could still recite whole songs, knowing all the words perfectly. It showed her singing along to a song with her husband joining in, tears in his eyes. He said that when she sings she comes back to him. I do not know if this will work for my mother. I have only played the CD twice and it has not helped her remember but I can tell that she likes listening to it because she stops fidgeting. My mother has restless hands constantly twitching but when I play the music they become still enabling me to hold them.
In truth, I do not expect my mother to remember. I play the CD because my mother loved to sing and she lived to dance, music was a huge passion in her life and so I play the CD for her benefit but also for my own. I have fond memories of the songs, in particular “We'll meet again” it was my mother's favourite. I remember in my childhood how in the evenings when my father would fall asleep in the armchair besides the fire still holding his newspaper in his hands, my mother would laugh and go over to him carefully removing his glasses and placing them on the armchair. My father would begin to snore soft and low and that's when she would take my hands and lead me into the dining room.
My mother would set up the record player before turning to smile at me.
“We have to teach you how to dance David so that when you are all grown up you can find yourself a lovely wife to dance with.”
I would listen to the familiar opening bars of “We'll meet again”. It was my mother and father's song. As I heard the familiar tune the awkwardness that I embodied as a child faded away. I had yet to develop my confidence but in this room, dancing with my mother, my confidence blossomed. My mother would stroll over to me and take me in her arms and waltz me all around the room. How I loved those moments. I remember the excitement I used to feel when my beautiful mother would lead me to the dining room because I knew she was going to teach me how to dance and I was going to feel like I was flying. We used to giggle together as I made mistakes and my patient mother would correct me telling me what a wonderful dancer I was. Time seemed to fly by in those precious moments that we shared and we would dance until we heard my father begin to stir from his slumber. That's when my mother would stop bend down to my height, kiss me on the cheek and whisper in my ear “Goodnight David”. I knew then that our time was up and that I had to leave. I would begrudgingly tread up the stairs to my bedroom not wanting the night to end but I would fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow repeating the sweet sounds of Vera Lynn in my head.
Dancing was something that I truly loved and as I grew up I began to take part in local competitions with my partner and I dancing all around the local youth centre hall, whilst my proud mother looked on. As I became an adult dancing inevitably went on to the back burner as the trials and tribulations of everyday life inescapably got in the way but every Christmas me and my mother would share a dance as the rest of the family looked on, all in varying states of merriment having had one too many snowballs or sherries in my great Aunt's case. My mother teasingly said I needed to learn to dance to find a wife but it was dancing that in fact bonded me and my mother bringing us closer together. Such happy times that I look back on fondly only wishing there could have been a few more.
I can hear Vera Lynn in my head now faint and quiet and I can feel something squeezing on my hand. I turn my head in my state of unconsciousness and feel the hard back of a wooden chair. I grumble in my sleep at the uncomfortable position I am in but the squeezing of my hand persists. I slowly begin to wake, the sounds of Vera becoming ever louder and I open my eyes to see my mother staring straight at me. I am confused for a moment as to where I am and then I see the window behind my mother with the familiar view and I remember. My eyes meet my mother's again and I see that they are filled with tears, she is holding my hand tightly. She reaches across to me so that her face is right in front of mine and I see a silent tear roll down her cheek as she gently kisses me and whispers in my ear “Goodnight David”. With that she sits herself back down in the old threadbare arm chair and I find myself quite awake. I look at my mother but her hand has already begun to loosen, her thumb teasing the loose thread of the arm and she has once again turned her head, her eyes looking back out at the view through the window as Vera softly sings on.
My mother passed away that night. She was found the next morning with her arms wrapped around a teddy bear that none of us knew she owned. The carers had given it to her after she became besotted with it. They said she could not sleep without it and that they had to prise it off her every morning so she would not lose it in the day. It made me smile to think of my mother loving a teddy bear as if it were a small child but it also made me immensely sad to think of my mother alone at night, her only company a stuffed toy. The carers reassured me though that she was found clutching this teddy tightly to her with a sweet smile spread across her face. She had slipped away in the night leaving behind an empty packet of éclairs resting on the armchair and a collection of broken hearts.
© Helen Morris. March 2011
Back to topBy Georgina Caithness - 2nd Place
There is a sadness that comes which is so bad it is almost not like a sadness at all, but it makes you cry all day, all the same.
It’s a black cloud, it’s a howling wind, it’s a voice screaming with rage inside your head.
In my dreams I asked a friend of mine about it, and she tried to explain it to me.
‘It’s a dark darkness,’ she said.
I must have looked confused.
‘It’s a black blackness,’ she said.
And I still must have looked confused, because then she told me a story about it.
‘Once upon a time there was a girl,’ she said.
‘One fine day the sadness came to her.
She was sitting on the bus, coming home from work. She hadn’t slept properly the night before, and it had been a long day, so she felt very tired.
The sadness came, and he started whispering in her ear. Actually, he had been with her all day. He had been with her when she woke up that morning: he wouldn’t let her get any sleep. She had woken up at 4am and she couldn’t get back to sleep. He had been talking and talking to her, he had been speaking so fast she couldn’t make out a word he was saying, but he had been in the shadows of her room, and his eyes had glinted as he’d watched her.
So now he leaned low and close, and she could feel his breath brush lightly against her cheek as he spoke to her.
Although there was no particular reason for it, she knew that this time would not be like that morning, when he had been there, but he hadn’t touched her, and she couldn’t hear him properly.
This time would be different.
‘The sadness is coming,’ she said, to nobody in particular, and nobody in particular heard her, or paid attention.
She was very afraid, but she sat there quite still (like a good little girl) while the voice wrapped itself around her, and spoke without a throat.
‘You are mine,’ he said. ‘You will never escape me.’
He wrapped himself around her, tighter and tighter. And try as hard as she did to ignore him, eventually he slid his hand up her leg, under her skirt, up her leg to her thigh, up her thigh to her panties. He twisted her panties aside, and he pushed a finger inside her.
Her eyes grew wide and they were reflected in the glass of the bus window - it was dark outside and light inside the bus, so that everything inside the bus was reflected in a perfect mirror image against the window, racing against houses and street lights.
Her mouth was dry. She sat there, quite still, and she listened.
‘I am everywhere. I am inside you and outside you. I am over the sky and under the sea. I lead you, wherever you may be. I am the lord and the life…and I own the dance,’ said he, grinning wickedly (he had a sense of humour, you see).
And he pushed another finger inside her so hard and far it hurt and he smiled his slimey old grin.
She sat quite still, she didn’t move or fidget at all; nobody, none of the other passengers on the bus, noticed a thing.
He started moving his fingers around inside her.
‘It’s your fault,’ he breathed.
Prod, prod, poke inside her.
‘It’s all your fault. It always has been. Everything is. Everything is your fault. It always has been and it always will be.’
Prod, poke, prod. Wriggle and squiggle and move about. Further and further up. Squiggle ouch.
He put his other hand around her throat and squeezed so tight she could hardly breathe.
She didn’t move, she sat as still as stone; actually, she couldn’t have moved, because if she had moved, his hand might have slipped inside her, and ripped her to pieces.
She tried not to close her eyes and she tried not to cry.
She tried not to scream; she tried not to put her hands over her face; she tried not to sink down from her seat and make funny, whimpering, moaning noises; she tried not to get on the floor and curl up under the seat and make herself as small as she could and hide.
She tried to be brave.
She felt more frightened than words can say. She felt the blood drain from her face. She was as pale as the death that breathes the darkness into the world. She was pale and frozen, she felt frozen solid, she felt as though she was a colourless, frozen wilderness…her body was a landscape of white, the snow was blowing over her, the snow was burying her completely. Across her skin the snowflakes drifted silently, across her face they blew, and they settled gently on her eyelashes.
Nobody noticed a thing.
She couldn’t move and she didn’t move, the snowflakes whirled and twirled around her feet and they built her shoes of ice.
The sadness was moving, he was hot and hard, he hurt but she couldn’t scream.
Ouch ouch ouch.
In her head she made the snow come and bury her some more so she wouldn’t be able to feel so much.
He wriggled up so far inside her that he was at the base of her throat, if she had opened her mouth he would have come out, he would have shot out in a pool of inky black that would have burnt patterns of ashy flowers in the surface of the snow. But she couldn’t open her mouth, her lips were sealed, she had made a promise to someone a long time ago (she couldn’t remember who). Her lips were frozen, they were sealed with a line of ice like cold glue.
She was quiet and still, just like a good little girl, her hands were folded across her lap and they went quietly blue. She couldn’t even move to close her eyes. In fact, if you had taken the time to brush the snow aside, you could have seen her quite clearly, entombed in her coffin of ice, her eyes wide open.
The bus trundled on in the night, it turned corners, it stopped at traffic lights, it continued on its normal route, people got on, people got off, the bus driver made mistakes, braked, and swore under his breath.
She sat quiet and deathly still, and then – then – all of a sudden, for no particular reason, the sadness went.
He made a horrible, deadly roar: it was so loud she flinched. She winced, and she flinched – it was the first time she’d moved since he’d come to her. She heard a noise like the end of the world in her ears, and a terrible rushing wind like a vacuum emptying itself, and the sadness roared up, and up, and up, he was so huge he blocked out the sky, and he grinned at her, and then, with a long, dry, whining howl, he turned back on himself - she was terrified, she wanted to scream but she couldn’t, her voice was stuck in her throat - and he sucked back out of her, she could feel him pulling and pulling at her insides as he went down through her, he ran downwards through her body plucking at her insides with his hairy fingers, and with a terrible groaning noise he ran out onto the floor, trickling down into the space between the floor and the seat.
He trickled all the way down through the floor and over the wheels and seeped out of the bus, away into the night. He didn’t look back.’
My friend looked at me, and smiled. That is the story she told me in my dreams, when I asked her about this sadness that comes.
I asked her what happened to the girl, and my friend looked suddenly really tired.
‘She got off the bus and she walked home. She turned on the light and she made herself something to eat. After a while, she turned off the light, and she went to bed.’
So that is the story my friend told me.
The blackness is all around me: I can’t escape. He is at home and he waits for me always. He sits in the kitchen and he makes himself a cup of tea whilst I get my dinner ready. He is in the bedroom on the chair in the corner, he sits with his eyes open staring at me as I go to sleep.
Sometimes he is huge and he takes up all the space and there is hardly any room for me, he takes deep breaths and with every breath he grows, he grows and grows, he is snorting and glowering and fierce like a dragon, he washes out all the furniture and blacks out the windows, he is so huge he is pushing against the ceiling and the ceiling cracks and bends.
Sometimes he is small and he runs like ink across the floor, disappearing into the tiny space under the skirting board, and I can dance and listen to music and dream of holidays on the beach and warm evenings and nights out.
He follows me around whatever I do, whispering in my ear. ‘They don’t really like you,’ he says, as a group of people I’ve just met seem to burst out laughing at something funny I have just tried to say. ‘They think you’re stupid.’ Someone comes close to touch me and he leans in my ear and says in a horrible, sinister way, ‘You know you’re quite disgusting.’ He is with me all the time.
I go into the kitchen and I am cooking and he comes up behind me and says, ‘Imagine what would happen if a madman broke into your home right now and pressed your face, held your eye open and pressed your whole face, into that red-hot burning electric ring. Some people are like that, you know. Things like that actually happen.’
A boy tells me I am pretty and asks me out and I feel all happy and then the voice comes writhing into my head. ‘You’re so ugly: he can see you’re desperate. He knows you’ll be easy.’ We go out, it’s a special night, the blackness has got his top hat on, he sits in the back of the car and he is feeling especially devilish. He grins at me mischievously every time I turn round. I am so nervous my palms are sweating, my throat is dry and I can’t talk. I am talking, well, actually I’m babbling away, trying to be funny, the blackness is sitting in the back of the car saying loudly, ‘What the fuck? What the fuck are you talking about, you stupid fucking idiot, you’re not making any fucking sense and you’re definitely not fucking funny!’ I sit with my legs pressed together and the blackness says, ‘Listen, you whore, with your stupid little tits and your big fat belly and short legs, I know what you want and I don’t fancy you, I just want to fuck you, ok? You smell and you’re dumb. Anyway, look at yourself, you’ve probably got a big bogey hanging out of your nose, you total social frickin’ reject.’
When I am alone sometimes the blackness comes seeping out from between my legs.
Sometimes I know he is there and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think he is not there and then I discover later that he is and that he has been there all the time, that he has been in front of me, blocking things out from me, or behind me, telling me things that weren’t true, but I believed him. Sometimes I can feel him and he feels bad. Once or twice I think when I’ve felt him he’s actually felt good. Or maybe it’s been more than once or twice. I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone else can see him. Maybe they feel him and they feel him to be a part of me. I feel maybe that’s why nobody seems to want to stay with me.
He comes seeping out from between my legs and he smiles at me in the mirror and he says, ‘You see, you remember that time when you were fifteen and that man was on the train wanking himself off at you whilst you just sat there like an idiot? That was because he knew I was here. I was there, between your legs; I am here, between your legs; I am a darkness that will never leave you, your thoughts and your dreams and your imaginings and your fantasies bring me here to you, just like you brought that man to you.
‘Every time you try to give love to somebody they don’t want it, and it’s because of me. Who could blame them? If a man walks past you in the street, and says something to you, or shows you his penis like that, or touches you, or even rapes you, like that boy did once (or you think he did, even though maybe he didn’t, maybe what happened doesn’t count as rape and you’re just trying to make yourself sound special by telling yourself that it was), it’s because of me.
‘Every time you want something and you don’t get it, every time you go out with friends and don’t enjoy yourself because you can’t, because you’re too busy worrying about stupid things, like the stupid little girl you are, it’s because of me. It’s because of me and I am here because you call me to you, I am part of you, you will never escape from me, I am everywhere.’
He tells me this and he is smiling.
When I am with people he is there, whispering things in my ear, and sometimes it is almost worse than when I am alone, because of the horrible things that he whispers, about me and about them. He says horrible things about everybody, even my favourite people, even my best friends. He is a terrible, nagging whisper and he is not nice about anybody, especially the people I care about.
Sometimes, you know, it is almost easier not to be with people, because of him, even though he frightens me. But very often I can keep him quiet when it is just the two of us, because then I can concentrate properly.
I’ve never told anyone about him, this is the first time.
Sometimes he smiles at me and sometimes he shouts, I am not telling you about the really bad times. The times he turns the world over so that I can’t breathe. The times when he is huge and I am crying and crying and I can’t move I can’t think I can’t breathe I am scared I am scared I am all alone I can’t move my hands or legs I can’t move there is no one here I am scared why am I all alone? Why am I all alone? Everything is different, everything is topsy-turvy, he is shouting at me, he is screaming at me. He is screaming at me that no one will ever love me that they never have that they never could that they never will; they never, ever will. It’s horrible it’s horrible I don’t know what to do I am hiding I put my face in my hands I try not to make any noise I am trying to make myself as small as possible I am trying to disappear so that he won’t hurt me he won’t be able to find me and hurt me.
You don’t know what he’s like when he’s really bad. I don’t want to tell you.
I’m not going to tell you.
© Georgina Caithness. March 2011
Back to topBy Rashi Goyal - 3rd Place
It was late evening when the train finally pulled up at the station. The humid air received me with a cold and clammy handshake as I got off. The setting sun had long resigned itself to the impending darkness, the golden oval now just a far-away glimpse and the last of its rays soaked the skies in a half-hearted pre-dusk hue, making everything seem even more distant and transient. The walk to the house was achingly familiar, bringing back bitter-sweet scatterings of memories - the broken red gate that would creak when swung, the crooked signboard with layers of peeling advertisements and the melancholy walls with generations of discoloured graffiti.
As a child, I came here every year when my boarding school closed for summer vacations. I would be the lone passenger alighting at the sleepy station tucked away in the middle of nowhere, welcoming the start of carefree holidays. It never occurred to me then to question why nobody ever came to pick me up or drop me off with tearful goodbyes or why I never had any home-made biscuits to take back. My childhood optimism had insulated me from pain and dejection and made me oblivious to the curse upon my head. Instead, my mind would be filled with lazy dreams of summer, my heart soaring with happiness as I breathed in the air fragrant with the promise of rain. My shadow would prance ahead in joyous abandon and I would run to catch up, watching it grow and shrink, then lighten and disappear, only to return, guiding my way unerringly through the meandering path.
I shook myself from my reminiscences, angry at the memories that kept turning up at every corner, keeping me imprisoned, trapped in guilt. Today, my shadow walked besides me, stiff and silent, disgusted at my weakness. Each step I took on the unpaved path disturbed the dust, tossing up random thoughts like pebbles in a pool, each to be picked up, examined and then tossed away again. I stumbled on a pebble as I turned around the corner and got a first glance of the village. It looked the same as ever. Nothing, it seemed, had changed in all the years since I had been away. The houses, the landscape, even the people seemed frozen in time. But I had learnt long ago to see through this camouflage of calm. Wipe away the sheen of dust, and it was all there, every vivid detail, just like the faded old photo on the writing desk of my city apartment, buried beneath dust and discarded memories. The unvoiced accusations glaring from the crinkled edges, the despairing questions obscured by a stray ink spot - time could not blur these images. It had only accentuated them, made the colours sharper, the outlines more distinct.
The first sight of the house was always intimidating, it loomed ominous and brooding, but that was till it remembered you, and then it opened its door with a gruff, grudging acknowledgement. We had reached a silent understanding long ago – an understanding that came from years of acquaintance, there was no need for pretences anymore, of forced cordiality or affected camaraderie. This house had been my refuge through life’s battles, my sanctuary and my prison in equal measure. It was here that I gave myself up to self-pity and tears and it was here where I again promised myself I would never ever cry again. It was here that bit by bit, I would build a fragile wall of invulnerability around me, and it was here it that I would watch it crumble away again. Today, I was content to just snuggle in its unchanging arms and cocoon myself from the outside world. For I was tired, tired of fighting life battles, of always running, of waiting for redemption.
Next morning, I woke up to a robin’s insistent chirp of where-were-you, where-were-you. Looking out of the window, I saw that the garden at least had succumbed to the course of nature. The weeds, the creepers and the ivy had overtaken everything, but the trees still stood firm, like silent sentinels, the bastions of time gone by.
As a little girl, I loved waking up to the freshness of dewy mornings, spiced up by tangy air and sparrow calls, with errant rays peeping in to say how-do-you-do through the sun-kissed curtains. Looking out of the window, I would find the gardener working outside, carefully pruning the branches. He was a gruff old man, with a wrinkled face and parchment skin, and to my child eyes, he seemed as old as the house itself. As he walked through the flower beds in the breeze, the small saplings would playfully rustle in his presence and stalks would bend towards him, whispering words of welcome. The ailing apple tree would groan its satisfaction as he stopped to examine the few broken branches after a stormy evening. “They all talk to each other, these plants do,” he had once told me, giving me a juicy red apple to munch. “You should hear them early morning, specially this chatterbox here,” he said, pointing to the bougainvillea. “Some of the young ones can walk around too, though they soon forget how to, as they grow older.” “Pity,” he shook his head sadly, “I wish they wouldn’t”. I tried to imagine the plants moving around everywhere in twos and threes, their roots trailing behind them; the grapevine slithering up the trunk of the stately banyan tree to whisper a secret in its ear. I would laugh out in disbelief, and he would admonish me. “You don’t believe me, do you, dear?” he would ask, wagging his gnarled finger, “but you haven’t been with them for as long as I have. I have seen them dancing with joy with the wind, weeping, shouting, falling in love just like the rest of us.” It was always like that. He would go on while I listened enthralled, to the stories that poured out from the old man in a never ending stream. Fact and fantasy brewed together in the chalice of mysticism, garnished with the mystery of age and served with just the right hint of wistfulness that my hungry imagination would devour eagerly.
He once told me the tale of Sleeping Beauty - the story of a young princess who was blessed with the gifts of beauty and wit and talent at her christening. But cursed by an evil witch, the naïve princess pricked herself and fell into a timeless sleep. And then slowly an enchanted forest grew and crept all around her, obliterating the sunlight, until she was all alone in her dark world, far away from everyone… “She is still sleeping,” he would say in the end, “waiting for her Prince, who would hack away the forest and bring light and love. But who knows when the Prince would come, who knows how long she would have to wait for the curse to break.” Now, looking at the overgrown garden, it was easy to imagine the enchanted princess still sleeping in a tower somewhere, while the world passed her by.
I met the gardener again on the second day of my arrival. He was still the same wizened old man I had known as a child, his face covered in crinkly lines of age and experience. “I heard you came back.” he said, looking at me with appraising eyes, “Thought I would check if you needed any help in settling down.” I mumbled that I was here for a few days only, till I could find a buyer for the house. “I see,” he said, continuing to look at me. “It is more practical for me to live in the city. For my work ...” I stumbled over my defence, averting my eyes from his gaze. “I see,” he said again, slowly turning to leave and go. Just those two words, but they spoke of disappointment and sorrow, of failed expectations and unfulfilled duty. ‘Don’t you understand?’ I wanted to cry out, but he had already left. It did not matter, I thought, I could live with one more accusation.
Talking about my mother was taboo when I was young. But as I grew older, I learnt the whole story. She was a sweet and angelic child, beautiful and talented, and the perfect daughter, the apple of my grandmother’s eye. But then she had fallen in love, and like everything else she did, she had loved with her whole heart. My grandmother had warned her, but for once, she had disobeyed and run away from home, only to return, ashamed and depressed, when her lover had abandoned her. Good riddance, my grandmother had said, but it was not to be, for I was on the way, and it was too late to do anything about it. So I had come into the world, taking away my mother’s future. Her hopes had died with my birth, her dreams dashed. Like a festering wound, my existence was a constant reminder of her shame and humiliation and she had sacrificed her life and future to bring me up. She had died when I was two, a shadow of her former self, her energy sapped away. And I was nothing like her, my grandmother said. I was tall and gangly and reminded her of the man who had destroyed my mother’s life. Her accusations had pierced me, shocked me into silence. As I grew older, I started realizing that there was a curse, the ghost of my mother’s wasted potential, stalking me everywhere I went.
I shook myself back into the present as I ambled into the kitchen. The agency had done a good job of taking care of the house, keeping it spotlessly clean, even stocking up the fridge before my arrival. They had seemed a bit doubtful when I told them that I wanted to sell the house, informing me that prices in the area had gone down in recent times and advising me to hold on for sometime. I did not care. With my grandmother now dead, there was no reason to keep this house, and I hoped it will bring closure. Besides, the success of my last few gallery exhibitions had firmly established my painting career, bringing in more than enough money. The reviews had described my work as intense and disturbing. ‘The paintings hit you with their sheer ferocity and brutal emotions...’ one critic had raved ‘…the characters are shadowed, suppressed, their silence more deafening that any cries, they speak of pain, agony, and of soul-sucking despair, with bewilderment and desperation in their eyes that continues to haunt you.’ I had understood just too well what the critic was trying to say. This wasn’t art. It was catharsis, a vicious bloodletting.
It was a week since my arrival that I found the hidden cabinet. It was in one of the unused rooms, set in so cleverly in the wood panelling that it would be hard to discover unless you knew it was there. I opened it without thinking and an old leather-bound notebook fell out, blue, with my mother’s name on it. I picked it up with trembling hands, and began reading.
In the next couple of hours, I for the first time began to discover my mother, not as the angel that I had grown up hearing about, but as a flesh-and–blood person. In her neat and careful handwriting, she wrote about her dreams, her aspirations, her fears and then about her first love. Then came the betrayal, her writing gone all wrong as if hidden forces were tearing it apart, until it bent down in defeat, becoming smaller and smaller. Gone was the little happy girl, leaving behind a tormented soul - like a delicate butterfly that has forgotten to fly, ugly in its vulnerability and helplessness. I cringed at the vehemence of her naked emotions, thinking how much she would have hated me, a memento of her unrequited love. The last page was the worst. ‘Life is just a set of broken chunks of images’, it ran, ‘with sharp corners and blurred memories, like jigsaw puzzles pieces from different sets with overlapping, scary connotations of things that should never have been. And these nascent images transform into frightening, mocking caricatures, gliding around you like eagles, waiting to swoop down on a sign of weakness.’
That night I dreamt my old dream. I saw the ghosts from my past flying towards me while I tried to run away into darkness. But they were already ahead of me. I stumbled and even before my knees hit the ground I could already smell defeat, hear my blood mixing with the sand, see all my childhood nightmares laughing in unison, waving their crinkly arms around me in a grotesque pattern of delirium, in a ritual of mockery, delighting in the writhing, in the last spasms of my innocence before it exploded into nothingness.
Next day, I called up the agency again, telling them that I needed to go back urgently and instructing them to accept the first quote anyone offered. They agreed, artists were allowed to be whimsical, and suggested that I remove all personal belongings before I left. Personal belongings – I mused – I already carried the baggage I had got from here around with me. I had never been able to put it down, to take off the load from my drooping shoulders.
I went along, locking each room. When I came to the room with the hidden cabinet, which must have been my mother’s room, I hardened my heart and went inside. The cabinet was still open, just like I had left it yesterday. As I reached forward to close it, I realized there was something else, more pages which must have come loose. I picked them up and against my will, began reading again. They were from the same diary, but so very different. The handwriting was soft and mellow again, lovelier than I had ever seen it before, like a ship that had reached a calm waters after a heavy storm.
Today, I discovered with wonderment that I am pregnant. It is amazing how my world has changed in an instant – from bleak misery to a panorama of wonder and delight. I am still in awe of this miracle, of this life growing inside me.
And then the next page
You have brought so much joy in my life, my child. I have realized now, to live is to love, to not to stop and dwell on regrets, because life should go on... I wish all the happiness in the whole world for you. I hope that the gifts of beauty and love and hope and youth will forever be yours.
The last page was a charcoal sketch of a mother and child, tenderly drawn. I realized with fierce pride that I had taken after my mother after all. She too was an artist, just like me.
Outside, there was a break in the cloud and it had started to rain. I turned my face to the incessant pitter-patter from the skies, and gave myself up to the salty drops, flowing down, washing away years of fear and misery. And then I went back in and painted and painted, in splashes of primary colours - reds and blues and green – a dazzle of sunlight here, a sparkle of joy there. My paintings were no longer apologetic, my characters no longer shadowed, no longer afraid to come out in light, but bold and free and playful and alive. With a whoop of delight, they flew around the canvas, transforming the drab landscape in a blur of colour. They laughed and danced with merriment, celebrating life, splashing about in the rain, waking up the world around them with their exuberance.
Next morning dawned bright and sunny. The world looked fresher, cleaner after the rain. A green tendril peeped in mischievously from the window sill while the wind tried to blow it away. I saw small shoots, like naughty children rapping against my window pane with the breeze. And I remembered the words I had once read, in a far-away time and place - Life should go on.
In the afternoon, I went to see the gardener again. “I’ve changed my mind,” I told him, “I’m staying here permanently.” He looked at me steadily, saying nothing. I continued, “Could you help me in clearing up the barn? I want to use it as my studio.” “I’ll see what I can do”, he finally replied, and shuffled off. But then he turned back. “You’ll need a sunnier room for your studio. I’ll start hacking down all the infernal creepers that have crept up around it, to let some sunlight in. It’s been much too dark here for a long time.”
© Rashi Goyal. March 2011
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