by Stuart Ayris
“Figures,” he said. “Well, fuck it. I’d best be off. Bloody wife’s gonna kill me when I get in.”
“You got the lemon though. You got what you came for.” I said, in as reassuring a tone as I could muster.
At that, he stood up and hurled the lemon towards the shop window.
“Fuck the lemon. It was her fat arsed sister got me thrown out - her and her bloody stars. She’s always been the fucking same ever since my mate did her round the back of the Bookie's for a bet. See you mate. Have a good one.”
Ah, life - I do believe I am falling in love with you at last…
24. Look Deep or Do Not Look At All
Tollesbury salt marshes are a land in their own right. As the earth doth appear from the sky so do the marshes appear from where I stand. It is all life - in large and in miniature. From on high we are but specks yet in truth we are gods. And beneath the salty water and the vegetation there are further worlds and greater universes of which we may never be aware; lands within lands; life within life.
The sky cleared and my musings were disturbed as a bouncy golden retriever barked a welcome. Its striding owner murmured ‘hello’ as he followed the line of the sea wall as if it were a railway track and he were the train. And I watched, enthralled, as man and dog merged into the indeterminate horizon, slipping over the edge of this world only ever to remain, like all things, in my consciousness.
It was Old Jed - the man with the lolloping golden retriever whom I had seen the day I had submerged myself in the water, that day when everything had changed for me. For there had followed Zachariah Leonard and the FRUGALITY children, The Walrus and W.G. Were Old Jed and his dog more of Julia’s army of spies or was he just a Tollesbury man who forever walked his dog around the edges of the Blackwater? I couldn’t be sure and I really didn’t mind. I nodded as he passed and soon he and his dog were gone.
Sitting down on the grassy bank, I looked into the salty marshland water, with not death, but learning on my mind.
So I sat down on the bank of the marshes and tried to focus on all that had happened to me. The last time I had been here my only intention had been to end my life. Yet now I had but hope on my mind. Hope - is that not one of the most beautiful of feelings? It is a sadness of life that when we are born, hope is not even in our constitution - it is all about sleeping and feeding and safety and warmth. But as we grow, the concept of hope is understood by the innocent child only at the time when the adult world intervenes. Hope has no role when you are in the perfect childworld. It raises its head only when you are convinced by others that this world is not as wonderful as you first imagined. And thereafter disappointment is always lurking.
BUT THAT IS THE GREAT DECEPTION.
FOR THERE IS ALWAYS WONDER TO BE HAD!!!!!!
There is a wonder in each and every moment; it’s just so often we miss it, intent as we are on bemoaning our misfortune, the cards we are dealt, the burden that is ours alone. Wake up people! Wake up as I have awoken! For what is around us now is majestic, marvellous, magnificent!
Of course, I am in the countryside of old England, but wherever you find yourself, whatever your deep eyes do fall upon - look deep, look deeper.
And behold.
Have you ever heard of the Hen Harrier? We get them in Tollesbury and they are incredible. They glide over the marshes silent like breath, their V-shaped wings just a little more refined than that of the Marsh Harrier - smaller and slimmer and maybe a little more elegant. The male Hen Harrier is a ghost of a bird, the spirit of the Marsh Harrier, for it is not brown but almost completely white. It shimmers like a wave and is cut from the cloth of the morning mist. The only sign that these birds are of this world is the coal black wing-tips that leave darkening embers smouldering along the wing as they fly. And the markings on their tail go round and round in rings and rings of roses.
But that is not all. Suddenly, they fall and go a-tumbling from the sky, rocketing to earth like a parachutist whose chute has failed to open - yet there is no distress! Even in such a descent there is a beauty. And then - wham - the chute opens and the birds roar back up into the heavens - but just for a moment! This tumbling and rising goes on and on until the little Hen Harrier finds its way and wafts into the very firmament upon the breath of angels.
I am a man yet I am a Hen Harrier also. I am a drunkard and a dreamer. I am a Beatles fan and a lover of cricket. I am a husband and I am a father. I am all these things and more. And I am a friend of yours. I am the world’s best friend. Just think of me not as a schizophrenic but as a Hen Harrier only. A Hen Harrier.
For there is no schizophrenia and there is no depression; no bi-polar disorder, personality disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder. There is just life and trying to get through it. That is all. Look past the drugs and past the diagnosis, look deeper than the despair and higher than the highs - and what you have is a soul that needs embracing, a mind that needs cradling and a heart that needs to beat its beat without condemnation.
Some weeks ago, I was at the marshes with just darkness on my mind. I was rushing to the depths. Yet now I float and I rise. The earth is the same yet I see with new eyes. I have learned that the world does not change. All that alters is the way we choose to see it.
I am not a schizophrenic.
I am a Hen Harrier.
And I’ll have no more of your injections if that’s ok.
Thank you.
As I walked up Station Road to The King’s Head, I strode in the footsteps of my heroes - the farmer, the wheelwright, the baker, the blacksmith, the watchmaker, the carrier, the shoemaker, the thatcher, the seawaller, the saddler, the miller and the labourer - all are heroes to me.
I tingled as I made my journey for it all began to come home to me. AS THE BIRD IS OF THE SKY, SO I AM OF THE EARTH. I have grown from it as a seedling and become part of this Tollesbury. The oak tree is my father as the yellow-horned poppy is my daughter. The little tern is my baby as the marsh is my soul. And there is but a vibrant greeny green green churning through my throbbing veins.
I am no more a man than I am a schizophrenic. I live only in Tollesbury Time. And I will live in Tollesbury Time forever.
But if you just repeat the cycle, you go round and round yet unmoving like the spinning wheel of an upturned bicycle. So I stopped short of the pub and went instead into the corner shop. And moments later, I was on my way back home with eight cans of Scrumpy Jack and a bottle of Jack Daniels. I had looked deep into the earth and now it was time to confront those demons within myself - the two Jacks.
After tonight, I vowed as I walked the last few steps up to my front door, no more a drunk will I be.
No more a drunk will I be.
So I sat at my old wooden table, the drink lined up before me and surveyed the scene like Napoleon looking upon the landscape of Waterloo. And I knew not whether I would win the battle. Eight cans of Scrumpy and a bottle of Tennessee Whisky is a devious opposition indeed. But I had courage within me and a wife and a son ahead of me. What man could not win a battle fought on those terms?
I wanted to feel every cut, examine every scar and experience each moment of my victory. This was my last big drink and I demanded of myself to know why I had fought such a battle almost every day of my adult life. But don’t get me wrong. I am not physically dependant on the stuff. I have just needed it to survive. I won’t need a detox programme. I won’t even have a headache in the morning. For my mind will be full of angels.
I drank the first can. Nothing. It may as well have been water. I set it back from the rest, full now of nothing but stale air. A corpse only. The second followed soon after. I began to feel a stirring in the base of my neck and my breath was a little more audible. I was being attuned to my senses by the rotting apples in the cider. Sweetness rose innocent in my throat.
With the falling of the third can, a lightness entered my head, splashing open into my mind, illuminating the dark corners of my soul. If I could have awoken each morning of my life having
consumed three cans of strong cider in my sleep, I swear my time on this earth would have been more tolerable. But that was the trick of the enemy. It sucks you in on the second and kisses you with the third. Thereafter you are only ever its victim.
Can four - that was the crest of the hill. In a pub, if you leave before the fourth, you can retain your dignity, your self-respect, your sanity even. There is something in the fourth that differs from those preceding it. It must be a chemical thing. There is no going back from the fourth. But there I sat at my own table in my own little house and drank down that fourth can. The effect of it was to make me stand and wander around for a moment, like a man who has placed a bet at the Bookie's, a bet he knows he cannot afford to lose.
I sat back down. The race was on, the horses were raging and the crowd was roaring. Simon Anthony and Scrumpy Jack were neck and neck coming up to the fifth.
Both were over safely and that bottle of Jack Daniels pawed at the floor of its stable like some sort of ancient beast of ancient times, disturbing the earth beneath it and the wanton air around it.
By the time I had drunk the fifth can, I needed to use the toilet. I tripped up the first step of my staircase (how grand!) but made it back down without further mishap. I thereafter eschewed the dining chair and just sat on the floor, my back resting against the wooden door of the kitchen. Now that felt more right - legs outstretched, wood behind me. This was my territory now.
Number six went down as if it were not even alcohol. I guess, over the years, that had been my downfall. Only every third or fourth drink ever affected me. Those in-between just seemed to set me up for the next milestone. Yet had I tried to speak, I know my words would have been slurrrred and my mind would have been almost blank.
It is drinking on my own that has led me to drink so much - whether it be here in my home or at The King’s Head. I declare that I have never been drunk except when forced to engage with others. I hoisted that flag upon the battlefield and felt rather pleased.
Where are you now mine enemy? But I knew exactly where he was. I could see him shimmering like gold, gazing at me as I downed the eighth and final can of Scrumpy Jack. The infantry had fallen, but here came the boom-boom cannons - and I was to be its boom-boom fodder.
You see, cider is just a chemical added to all the other chemicals in your body. It enhances some parts of you and debilitates others - there is a certain balance to all that, a consideration for what is required and a gentlemanly salute to your predicament. Whisky however confronts you with the power of the alchemist. It corners you, does not allow you to leave until you have opened up to it your heart and your mind. It whips you and you take it. It pushes you over and it smacks you hard. It is a punishment, a punishment that I have not only endured during my life, but begged for. For it unbridles your thoughts and makes them seem tolerable.
I knew all that, but still, after my eight cans were gone, I unscrewed the top off my nemesis friend. We were to dance together one final time. No glass for me. Just straight from the bottle, intimate, just my cider mouth and Jack Daniel’s burning, open neck. Wash over my tongue oh fire and let’s just see what happens.
At first it blurs and blinds and the pain is all, a pain not of hurt but of shatter and bleakness, of the splash of a hard wave and the crack of a bat upon ball. You have to take it to make it and you have to shake it to break it. The smell alone has a colour and the taste a texture. You just have to let it become a part of you and welcome that transmutation of tations, that elaborate thronging of foreboding. Come and get me, swallow me whole and take me down to the nether parts of the deep dark land of my soul. More and more and more. This is not a drink, it is a rope that pulls upon my past, my present and my future. It tugs and guides and pulls and glides, dragging me ever further to the very root of my clid clad mountain.
Up for air and in once more. One width, two widths, red stripe, yellow stripe - I spit water out from my lungs and laugh at your tears young lady. Tis fun, fun, fun with the finest hot chocolate in the world at the end of it. The Dene of Hills and The Hill of Dene - come back and make me a child once more - oh give me back that spark of youth that was not quelled in the wash of adult despair. Tears are just water and salt. The ocean is but of tears and the universe is nothing but a twink. The world is not real. There is glass beneath my feet and I am glad of it and I will stamp with all my might to prove it so.
Half way down. Proud and dirty and uncaring. Come on!
My boy shines!
Yeaaaaah you burn no more, you sparkle not! You are but flat to me now for I am building up my walls and my defences, my wood and my armour - you control me not though you be as beautiful as ever you were. I am now a-gulping and you are but a-sulking.
I recall now being in the sandpit of my youth - a small boy looking much like me is there too, sporting (yes sporting!) a red and black checked shirt and he plays with such abandon that he makes me an adult in his presence. He has no care but in what he creates. He takes the shoddy spite of all and just adds it to the sand, creates the landscape with hands of pure silver - he has flags and sticks and magic tricks and beauty brilliant wild and crashing and I am instantly in love with him. Yet destined was I never to see him again. It had always been a sense of woe to me but now in this whisky bourbon shift I see I was blessed. I am blessed.
BLESSED AM I AND ALL THAT SAIL IN ME!
Oh God if you do exist, spare me now a wink of your murmur, a dinky donk of your wisdom. It’s all a game, I know that now. A game where everybody wins who sees nothing for, I repeat - THIS WORLD IS NOT REAL!!
I sigh a sigh and wave goodbye to invisible ladies and choo chonk sailors who fall upon me with their wealth and but float away as they touch the tinge sodden breakings of my broken heart - a heart that reforms before me, clinging to the floor, supping and sapping the dust and the claw and the whisky and the cider and the beer and the schiz, schiz, schiz and I AM WHOLE!!
AND HOW GREAT AM I??
The bottle is empty.
I am floating.
I am above all.
I am you.
I am you.
And as the sun rose in the Tollesbury sky, the morning did indeed greet me with angels.
It was a new day.
It was a new time.
“Hello Carrie.”
“Hello Simon.”
“What do people drink in here if they don’t drink?” I asked. My voice was barely audible.
“If they don’t drink?”
“Yes.”
“You mean if they don’t drink alcohol?”
“Yes.”
I looked furtively about me. Just Jim and Bill were in, as usual.
“Shall I just get you something, Simon?” asked Carrie.
She was smiling more than I felt she ought.
I nodded.
She poured me a pint of orange juice and lemonade. It was a beautiful colour.
“Aye, aye! Looks like old Simon’s gone poofter on us!”
It was Bill, having spied my drink.
“Poofter, poofter, poofter. Well who’d have known it? You see that Jim? Girl’s drink.”
“Leave him alone Bill,” said Jim, softly. “Hello Simon, lad. You okay?” he added.
“Yes, thanks.” I replied.
“Good man.”
“Good man?” spluttered Bill. “Good man?? Have you seen what he’s drinking? Soon be me and you as the only real drinkers in here Jim. Fucking orange juice and lemonade! This used to be a proper pub!”
“Any more of that,” said Carrie to Bill, “and you and your boyfriend there might find yourselves drinking down the Legion!”
At that, Carrie Caseby, the most beautiful barmaid in all the universes, leaned forward and whispered into my ear.
“Not long now, Simon. Not long. Your Robbie is delicious.”
“What day is today, Carrie?” I asked at last.
“Thursday.”
“My nurse is coming tomorrow. Then it’s the weekend. And then, on Monday, I
think I’ll be seeing Robbie.”
I spoke as a child.
I drank my orange juice and lemonade.
It was disgusting.
But from that moment on, I didn’t care.
I was just counting down the minutes.
25. Imagination Is Life
Listen.
Do you want to know my secret?
Closer now.
And I don't mind if you tell…
Imagination is life and life is imagination. All my years, that truth had evaded me, yet looking back I had surely always known it. From so young, I had lived on the brink of reality, teeter tottering into the well of what the world would call ‘madness’. It is a fact that my eyes have seen wonders and my mind has experienced great things.
Closer.
At five years old, my bedroom wallpaper depicted Cowboys and Indians in various poses, some on foot, others prostrate and yet more still resplendent upon fiery horses. The pattern repeated itself all around me, whirring and moving slowly until I felt the square bedroom become a circle. That was when the Cowboys and Indians moved; making war and peace, always searching and never finding. Hair flowed and sand drifted across my landscape. Now whether they became real or I became paper, I know not. But I did become one with them. I sat upon a cliff for a day and a half, warming myself in the cold American night with a fire of my own devising. I was an Indian scout watching out for the white man, the pale face, the foreigner in my land. And I was the lonesome cavalry officer who had been parted from his troops and taken in by a squaw, nursed back to health and set free upon the wide majestic plains.
And one fateful night, back when I was five years old, the Indian scout me met the cavalry officer me. I rose from my fire and stared at my enemy. And I walked towards the flames and closed my eyes. My mother found me in my bed in the morning and asked me why I had been crying. I had not the words back then to explain. And I barely have them now, forty-five years later.