Tollesbury Time Forever

by Stuart Ayris

  It is so good to see you outside of all those circumstances. Just me and you at Mo’s on a Saturday morning is just so, well, normal.”

  “Buy why now? Why are you seeing me now?”

  “I spoke to one of the nurses when I got your note, one that I trust. She said she had never seen you so well. And I just couldn’t resist.”

  “But I thought I had lost you, Julia.”

  “Lost me?”

  “Yes, lost you.”

  “But you could never have lost me, Simon.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because you never owned me.”

  I looked at her for that was all I wanted to do.

  “You can’t lose what you don’t own, Simon. Love is not about possessing another but about sharing them with the world for the time you are both fortunate enough to be around. People talk of loss as if it is a tragic and terrible thing. The fact that some people feel they own others is what is tragic and terrible. People pass through your life and then pass on.

  But when someone loves you, truly loves you, they will be all around you all the time, whether you know it or not.”

  Julia put her red lips to her white mug and took a luscious sip.

  “And now you see why I am here.”

  She took my hand in her hers and traced the lines on palm with the very tip of her fingers.

  BLAM is love!

  22. Give Love Wherever You Go

  Clonk.

  Clonk.

  Another coffee for myself and a tea for my wife. Earl Grey. Posh.

  So Julia had maintained a distant vigil over me throughout all these years. Just a step away but my wife still. And there I had been, oblivious, rudderless and entirely unaware of the anchor that held me fast when I was apt to wander.

  “I just didn’t realise,” I said at last. “I thought you had wanted nothing to do with me. I just didn’t realise.”

  “Simon, I married you because I loved you.”

  I sought refuge in the wavy stream of steam that wafted from the mug before me. Droplets formed on my forehead as I gazed into my mug. And tears were not far from my eyes.

  “When I got your note, it came as quite a shock. I suppose I felt comfortable loving you from a distance, making sure, as far as I could, that you were ok. I have a friend, Penny, who is a nurse. She works at Blackwater. You must know her.”

  I nodded.

  “Well Penny keeps me up to date with how things are going with you, whether you are in hospital or at home, that sort of thing. All the records are kept on their computer system. I’m not sure she is really supposed to tell me as much she does, but friends are friends.”

  And then Julia proceeded to tell me during the course of the morning just what she had been through since the day I stepped out of that car, feeling so sorry for myself.

  And it humbled me indeed.

  “Of course, it wasn’t all wonderful. I despised you before you left and I hated you when you eventually did leave. It was the drinking that I could neither stand nor understand. Whenever you woke up, or came into the house, the first thing you did was go to the fridge for beer or cider or whatever it was you needed. Then after that, you may have said hello to me or stood limp whilst I hugged you. I lost you to alcohol, Simon, not to anything else.”

  After we separated Julia had continued to live in the house in Tiptree that we had shared together. She had been barely into her early twenties and was in the position of having a young child with a learning disability, bills to pay and a wayward husband forever oscillated between the psychiatric hospital, The King’s Head and his mother's.

  It was true. All of it was true.

  “I’m sorry. I can see all that now. I have hardly had a drink since I left hospital this time round - well not what I would call a drink.”

  Julia smiled. God, I love it when she smiles.

  “I know. It’s ok. Carrie, the barmaid in The King's Head keeps me up to date. I have my little spies everywhere you know!”

  Julia winked. God, I love it when she winks.

  I sipped some more of my coffee.

  “Carrie Caseby is my finest spy. Pretty, yet intelligent. I always say to her if she learned to cook I would probably marry her myself!”

  “But, you’re married to me.”

  “Yes, I am, Simon. Yes, I am.”

  And there followed one of those natural pauses for which sighs were made.

  “I couldn’t carry on using all my energy up hating you and despising you, so I made a conscious decision to let all that go. It was literally as simple as that. I was sitting at home one evening eating chocolate and thought to myself - ‘I’m just going to be nice to everybody I meet’. And that was that. I did favours for people expecting nothing in return. I gave money to every charity that asked it of me. I volunteered at school fetes and I picked up other people’s rubbish when they dropped it on the floor. I read a book on Buddhism and realised that what I was doing didn’t need a title. It was just about being good to people. And I guess that was what kept me in love with you, Simon.”

  Mo was beginning to hover around a little and I sensed she wanted to shut up shop for the day. Julia caught her glance and nodded at her, held up her hand as if to indicate five minutes, and fixed her blue-eyed gaze back upon me.

  “So, Simon. You said in your note that a change had come to you. I’m intrigued. Do tell.”

  Where was I to start? Not at the beginning, surely - for that would take ages.

  “Well,” I began, as the Mo Clock ticked, “I saw an old man called The Walrus and he introduced me to some children who read me stories and poems and sang me songs that taught me how I should be living my life. And since then, I have tried to live my life that way. I feel so much better for it and so much more makes sense to me. But then I realised that my life isn’t just about me. It’s about you, you and…”

  “Now I need to interrupt you two lovebirds I’m afraid. Mo needs to close up and get home before the hubby wakes up to an empty plate. And that, my friends, is not a pretty sight, I can tell you!”

  “Ok, Mo darling. We will leave you to it. Text me later if you want to pop round for something to eat.”

  “Will do, my dear. Now hoppit, both of you!”

  And so there we were outside Mo’s Café, my wife and I.

  My wife and I.

  The sky was blue with clouds drifting in. I could smell rain in the air and I welcomed it. At times of deep emotion, the distraction of a physical reminder that this earth is greater than anything that may be troubling me has always done me good. Rain not only cleanses, but refocuses. Well, it does me, anyway. And we all need a little cleansing and refocusing at times, don’t we?

  Julia stood beside me, shorter than me yet so much greater than I could ever be. There was a serenity about her that was absolutely golden. It would not have surprised me if a crowd had gathered to behold her. She was a part of all that was around me, as deep as the breeze, as upright as an old tree, as intangible as breath itself. I guess that is what they call love.

  “So, Simon,” said Julia, moving close to me now and linking an arm through mine. “I must go. I have good deeds to do, don’t you know. I need to spread a little love. But I would very much like to see you again.”

  I flinched from the physical contact. I could feel a heat in my cheeks and lowered my head for refuge. I was seven years old again - Gaynor Parkinshaw had lent me a pencil and blew me a kiss. She had been a massive Cliff Richard fan. It would never have worked.

  “Ok,” was all I could manage.

  I could see Julia smiling, looking at me with what I can only describe as passion and it almost melted me where I stood. If I was a Fab lolly, she was the sun. And had I stood there any longer, the only clue to my presence would have been a myriad of multi-coloured sprinkles and a little wooden stick.

  “Not this Monday coming, but the Monday after, meet me outside the Tollesbury Scout Hut and we shall see what we shall see.”

  “Ok.”


  I was numb and would have been adjudged to be perhaps the worst actor ever had anyone been around to judge that sort of thing.

  “About seven?”

  “Ok.”

  “Oh, and one more thing,” said Julia, coquettishly, as she departed.

  “Yes?”

  “You should know before our second date that I have a son. His name is Robbie. And he is wonderful.”

  And away she floated.

  23. Anger Devours the Soul

  Just across from Mo’s Café is a large supermarket. I went there very infrequently but thought I needed, ironically for me, to be around people following my time with Julia. I needed to know that what had just happened with Julia was real. A crotchety old woman bumping into me with her trolley would at least save me from having to pinch myself.

  So Robbie is wonderful. I never doubted it for a moment. And Monday week, Julia is going to take me to the topper-most of the popper-most, to the tippest toppest of the skyest sky - a sky of diamonds of which Robbie would surely be one, shining, shining, shining. And the sky would be my sky and it would be Robbie’s sky and it would be Julia’s sky - the only firmament that truly mattered. And the earth below would but behold us in all our lovingest majesty. A holey moley trinity.

  I walked into the supermarket with a deep urge for a simple meal. I hankered for a hunk o’ bread and a chunk o’ cheese. It was the country life and I was of the country. There was a history in me now that not only bubbled within my veins but lent me a sense of pride in where I once began. I was of this land and there are some things that will always sustain. Bread and cheese - food for the poor that makes a man rich.

  I didn’t need a trolley and I didn’t need a basket. One hand held the bread and the other held the cheese, as was surely intended. I struggle with queues and with crowds to the extent I have fled in many a similar situation. The unpredictability of people has always frightened me. The doctors call it paranoia and state that it is a symptom of the illness with which they adjudge me to suffer. I know what frightens me. It is the unpredictability of people. But I possessed a strength these days that had long deserted me. So I stood in the shortest queue at the head of which was a kindly looking lady wearing a blue uniform and a name badge with three stars upon it.

  Beside my queue were some machines that I had never seen before. There were four screens which people touched and scanned their food through before putting money or a card in a slot and walking off with their wares. Every now and then, my three-starred checkout lady would look over forlornly as the machines did their work. Was she picturing the four colleagues whom they had replaced and with whom she used to have a fag outside? Or was she staring off into fine space, really seeing nothing at all, a perfect nothingness?

  Strange days, mama - strange days indeed.

  To my left, in front of one of the magical screens, there was anger. My time in hospital over the years had heightened my senses in so many ways but had truly dulled them in others. When the nurses would pull their alarms, I would shut my eyes and wait for the noise to stop. Or if I was in my room, I would snuggle under my cold covers and force myself into an absent state.

  But now, in the unreal world, just a few feet from me, there was a man from whom anger seeped. He held a lemon in his left hand. His other hand was balled into a fist.

  “Fucking machines,” he muttered. “Fucking machines!”

  Heads in my queue turned. I knew better and just looked down and listened. There are sometimes alarms that go off that only I can hear.

  “Can I help you, sir?” came a voice more stern than compassionate.

  I glanced up briefly in case I was being spoken to. It was not. The short, square woman that had spoken was looking up at the man with the lemon, her hands on her hips and her five-starred name badge gleaming.

  “It’s this fucking machine. I’ve put this lemon on the thing loads of times and it won’t recognise it. These fucking things are supposed to make things easier aren’t they?”

  “There’s no need to use that language, sir. I’m sure the other customers really don’t want to hear it.”

  The man looked around, lowering people’s heads with the power of his questioning gaze.

  “Really? They don’t seem too bothered to me.”

  The five-starred woman reddened.

  “Put the lemon on the scanner, if you please,” she began. “That’s it. Now you see those letters down the side of the screen, press the one that says ‘L-P.’ L is for lemon.”

  “Oh!” said the man. “And are those stars on your badge for spelling?”

  The woman reddened further. People were staring now, as people do.

  “If you could please just press the L-P button on the screen, we can get this over with. That’s it. Thank you. Now, you have one lemon, so you need to press the number one.”

  “I do have one lemon. Well counted,” replied the man. “And would P stand for Patronising?”

  “If you continue to be abusive, I will have you ejected from the store,” the woman managed at last, her voice absolutely quaking.

  “And the ‘O’,” continued the man, “does that stand for ‘Oh fuck am I going to be doing this job for the rest of my life?”

  A couple of young lads behind me giggled. Part of me wanted to also. It had been a while since I had laughed in any fashion and I stemmed the impulse, not at all sure as to what my giggle would have sounded like.

  “That’s it! Now put your money in the slot, take your change, take your lemon and please leave!”

  “And ‘T’,” said the man, as he put his money in the slot, took his change and picked up his lemon, “I bet that stands for ‘time of the month’ - although on second thoughts, you look like you’re past all that.”

  The woman stormed off, entirely enraged. Seconds later, a call came over the loud speaker system; it was her voice but amplified. She needn’t have bothered with the microphone; she was clearly shouting.

  “And ‘S’ stands for ‘Security’! Security to the self-serve tills please.”

  The guard that had been standing at the entrance, appearing more in his own little world than I had ever been, sprung into action. He walked quickly over to the man with the lemon and escorted him to the exit. And just before they disappeared from view, I heard the lemon man shout,

  “And ‘R’ stands for ‘aaargh that hurts, you bastard!”

  I kind of liked him.

  I paid for my bread and cheese and left the store. I was beginning to realise that not all the weird stuff in this world revolved around me. There’s plenty to see if you just get out a bit!

  And as I walked across the car park I saw the man who had been thrown out, sitting on one of the benches by the bushes. He was leaning forward with his elbows upon his knees and his hands propping up his head. The lemon was beside him on the bench. Neither moved as I approached and sat down on the bench opposite.

  The man didn’t even look up. I put my bread and cheese beside me. It was as if his lemon and my bread and cheese were our errant children. I would not have been at all surprised if the lemon had rolled off the bench, to be followed by my bread and cheese before they all skipped off to the little playground hidden in the bushes reserved only for food; leaving us adults to it. I think they would have been alright. The bread looked to be a sensible kind of fellow.

  Then, what do you know, the lemon rolled off the bench and landed at my feet. I put out a hand to stay my bread and cheese as I leaned down and picked up the lemon. You just can’t be too careful with little ’uns. I let the lemon balance in my open palm. The man looked up with his eyes but his head remained lowered. He took the lemon and cupped it in both his hands.

  “Cheers,” he said.

  “It’s ok.”

  We sat for a while in silence as shoppers came and went, cars parked, empty trolleys were filled and cars left again - commerce in action before our very eyes. The wheels on the bus went round and round, round and round, round and round. All day lon
g.

  “Made a tit of myself in there, didn’t I?” he said at last. “Don’t reckon they’ll let me back in for a while. Bugger really. I only live round the corner. It‘s just things like that make me so angry.”

  I nodded and tried to look sympathetic, which wasn’t too difficult, as I could imagine how he felt. Once you’ve been Sectioned a few times, you develop an affinity for people that are excluded.

  “Came out for a bloody lemon and end up getting chucked out by security.”

  “At least you got your lemon.”

  “There is that.” The man smiled and looked down upon his bitter fruit.

  “You going to have a sandwich?” he asked, nodding towards my bread and cheese.

  “Yes.”

  “Nice. Can’t beat a good old fashioned cheese sandwich.”

  I felt good. He was absolutely right.

  “What is your lemon for?”

  “No idea. The wife says to me - ‘I need a lemon. We haven’t got any lemons. I need a lemon!’ So just for a bit of peace and quiet and to shut the bitch up, I came out to get her a precious fucking lemon.”

  He shook his head ruefully before continuing.

  “You married?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “She alright?”

  “Wonderful,” I replied. “Wonderful.”

  God, it was all beginning to make sense to me now.

  “Lot easier not to get angry when you’ve got a good ‘un I reckon.”

  I nodded again.

  “Do you believe,” I began, faltering a little, but gaining the courage to continue. “Do you believe that anger devours the soul?”

  “Where did you hear that shit? You’re not one of those religious lunatics are you?”

  I smiled.

  “I suppose you’re half right.” I replied.

  He smiled too.

  “Well I guess it don’t do me any good. It’s not pleasant being angry all the time. No fucker wants to be around you. Where did you hear that devouring the soul stuff anyway?”

  “A small boy pretending to be an angry barber told me.”

  He sat back and looked at me with some intent.