Scrapbook

by Michael White

  “I am not selling anything.” I more or less mumbled, and the man frowned.

  “I didn’t think so to be honest. If you were selling something, then you would not have been standing staring at this house for the last twenty minutes or so.”

  “It’s probably more like half an hour.” I said and he nodded as if acknowledging this.

  “Well I didn’t notice at first.” There was an awkward silence as we stood, eying each other up. “So what can I do for you then?” he asked finally.

  “I am sorry to bother you.” I said, and I meant it. The scenario I was about to ask him about was something most people have thought about perhaps, if not daydreamed about at some point in their lives. This did not however prevent it from being very, very awkward. “I used to spend a lot of time in this house. It was owned by a very good friend of mine. I was wondering if I could have a look around just for old time’s sake really.” I finished with an embarrassed smile, which was genuine. I saw his face relax a little.

  “How long ago?” he asked, abruptly.

  “Must be just the wrong side of forty-five years ago now.” I said and the man smiled.

  “Blimey. Well we have been here around about twenty-three years. I must be honest I can’t remember the name of the person we bought it from. Twenty odd years is quite some time ago after all.”

  “Well it doesn’t really matter.” I said, “Though I can see that you have done a lot with it. It used to be the place for two houses you see, this piece of land.”

  “Really?” he said, obviously not aware of that.

  “Yes. It is why it is so big. It is actually the site of two bungalows, not one.”

  “Ah. Well we more or less re-built the place when we bought it.” he said, “It was very old fashioned.”

  “My friends mother and father used to have bottles over the fire on shelves. Every occasion that was special to them they would eat out, go to a restaurant, and the bottle reminded them of the event. They had dozens.”

  “Well that’s quite a nice idea.” he said.

  “Yes. I suspect that they could tell you which bottle belonged to which event as well.” I smiled. “If they were still alive of course.”

  “Passed on?” he asked and I realised that I had at that point no idea if Simon’s mother Brenda was still alive or not. I was still reflecting on that as the man stood watching me, waiting for my reply.

  “My friend’s father passed away about forty years ago.” I said. “Nice man.”

  “Well indeed.” said the man, holding out his hand. “I am Raymond. You can call me Ray.”

  “Pleased to meet you Ray.” I said and decided to press the advantage. “So would you object to me looking around?”

  “Well I am not sure.” he said, looking slightly embarrassed. “My wife Rebecca is in. I will ask her.” Without further ado he disappeared inside, leaving me on the doorstep. I did not go in, just waited for him to return which he did a few minutes later followed by a woman with long black hair, about the same age as Ray.

  “Please to meet you Rebecca.” I said, holding out my hand which, smiling she took and shook gently.

  “Call me Becky.” she said, and opened the door wide. “Please come in. I don’t think there is much of the old house left really, but you are free to come in and have a look around if you wish.”

  “That is very kind of you.” I said as Ray and Becky led me inside. “Though it is the garden that I am more interested in than anything.” I looked around the room in which I stood. It was new and meant nothing to me.

  There was of course tea, which Becky brought out in small china cups that I rather suspected were the best cups they had, and we start drinking tea and refusing biscuits whilst I looked about me around the room, which again was new and I struggled to place the dimensions of it around the place where the room had once been.

  “Why the garden?” asked Ray, dunking a biscuit while Becky glared at him.

  “We were big gardener's my friend and I. Used to grow the lot. Every vegetable you could name. Strawberries and so on.

  “Told you the soil was good here.” said Ray, smiling.

  “Well it should have been. Simon - that’s my friend who lived here - went on to be head gardener at some very prestigious places. Bit of an expert in fact.”

  “Well good for him.” said Becky. “Come on. Come and have a look at the garden.

  I followed them out through the back door which was surprisingly in exactly the same place as it had once been.

  “Used to be the toilet just here.” I smiled, taking in the garden.

  “Oh an outside loo.” said Becky.

  “The only one that the house had too.” I laughed, and Ray smiled.

  “Same as when I was a kid.” he said, “Don’t know they are born these days.” I just smiled, because I saw the decking underfoot and that was new, but the lawn was the same. The way it swung around out of sight beyond the flower borders at the end of the garden, under the trees. Simon was, I recalled, forever sowing grass seed there because of the overhanging branches casting a more or less permanent shadow across a part of the lawn, killing the grass where it obscured the sunlight.

  The shed was gone, and in its place was what looked like an area set aside just for barbecues, which took advantage of the large concrete slab that the shed or garage had once stood on. I wouldn’t have liked to have tried to dig that up, believe you me!

  Across the other side of the lawn were a few raised beds and Ray walked me across to them, the double garage behind us now. This was where we used to grow things. Rows of vegetables: cabbages, cauliflowers, carrots, beans, peas, spuds. The whole damned lot. A greenhouse for tomatoes. A lattice of thread, twine and wood for the beans to climb. Baskets of fruit and vegetables, all so fresh it did not know it was dead yet. And the taste! To a council house kid brought up on French toast and lambs hearts for a treat it was a revelation. I had never tasted the like before in my life.

  “We used to give a lot of surplus stuff to the man next door. He made wine out of everything.” I smiled. “Though his elderberry and ginger was particularly good.”

  “Still get a lot of those off the tree at the end of the garden.” said Becky, and I looked to where I knew it would be.

  “Same tree.” I smiled, “For the life of me I can’t remember the neighbor's name though.” I searched my mind but nothing came. “Can’t remember the neighbour on the other side either.” something sprung into my memory. “Though we did call him mister spy.” Becky and Ray laughed.

  “Why?” asked Becky.

  “Absolutely no idea.” I laughed. “Probably popped his head up over the fence one day to see what we were doing I imagine. Something daft like that no doubt.” I laughed again. “I had forgotten that.” I said. Slowly we began to make our way back towards the house.

  “What happened to your friend’s mother and father? Did they just move away?”

  “I am not sure about the neighbours but Simon’s father died suddenly sadly.”

  “Yes you said,” said Ray.

  “Yes.” I said. “Once Simon’s father had died things were never the same. Too many memories in the old house. It is good to see a new one in its place.”

  We walked through the back door and back into the house. As the door was in the same place it helped me to remember where the old rooms had once been. I had been disorientated before because I had only ever once or twice come into the house that way. It had always been via the back door. I had only just remembered that too.

  In my mind I saw the extension. Not as it was now, for it was mostly gone, but as it had been. As it was being built. I saw the room where they used to sleep. Where, one cold Autumn afternoon, very much like this one Simon’s dad Alan had been fixing a radiator to a wall. It was hard work and he had done most of the extension building himself. he was not a young man, and he was tired. The heart attack that killed him was as sudden as it was unexpected, and it had been left to Simon and his mother to find
him there when they returned home from wherever they had been, cold and dead already.

  After that the house was never the same. But that was not why. For I never knew the real reason why. I swear this. I never knew. Not at the time anyway.

  “Everything alright?”: asked Ray, interrupting my thoughts, a look of concern on his face.

  “I am fine.” I said. But I wasn’t. Not really. But what was the point in telling them? The extension where Alan, Simon’s father died was hardly there any more. I could see where it had once been and so therefore what was the point in upsetting them?

  “A man died there.” I would say, and I would watch their faces fall as their interesting guest suddenly lost his glamour. “Fixing a radiator to a wall. What a way to go, hey?”

  No. That was not my intention at all. Yet I wondered. What was my real intention? Which ghost was I exorcising here? I had no guilt for I had never spoken about it. Not to anyone, and perhaps that was where the ghost was, for it was friends that told me, and I had never mentioned it to Simon. Not ever, and I have no idea why. He must have assumed that I knew. That perhaps I was some sort of cold hearted bastard who was at best uncommunicative, or at worst disinterested. But I did not know. I swear I Do not know for years. I knew Simon had gone off the rails, of course. Once we hit eighteen I hardly knew him, but I knew he drunk too much. Was angry. In fact he was dangerously angry when he had taken a drink.

  The way I found out I remembered clearly. I was walking along the street when a car pulled up and Simon got out, his mother watching me from the car across the street. I saw her face drop when she saw my reaction when Simon told me.

  “My dad has died.” he said.

  “What?” I said, idiotically. I was sixteen and was of course stupid.

  “Funeral is on Friday. You are welcome to come.” said Simon, looking at the pavement but not at me.

  “I will see.” I mumbled and without saying any more he just nodded and got back in the car.

  I never went. I couldn’t. I was sixteen for God’s sake. I don’t think I even owned a suit, never mind a black tie. Above all I could never have coped.

  My thoughts fell like rain from a dark sky.

  “You don’t look alright.” said Becky. “Do you want another cup of tea?”

  “Oh I am fine.” I repeated. “Just a long drive ahead and I am a little tired. I have been ill but I feel a lot better now. I just have to remember to take it easy really.”

  “Well if I were you I would take a rest before you set out.” said Ray. “Tiredness and driving are not a good mix.”

  “I will.” I said, and I crossed into the room to leave. As Becky opened the front door I looked over to my left and saw where the bedroom had once been, but was now just an extension of this sitting room.

  The room where on the night of the funeral which I had never attended a man broke into the house and finding Simon’s mother there...well, I cannot say. I really can’t. We will just say that she made no noise in case she woke her son who was sleeping nearby, for if she roused him then the man might attack him and it was to her mind best to let this intruder do what he wanted to do to her and be silent than to let him attack the only person she had left in the world now.

  Simon never told me. I never said I knew, and when he moved away I think it was good, for what memories would he have of the house in which I now stood and missed so much, for my memories were ones of happiness and joy, and yet his, in the house where he was born and raised, were of anger and pain and hatred.

  “Thank you for showing me around.” I said as I walked down the path.

  “Not a problem at all.” said Ray, walking down the path behind me and closing the gate, talking over it as I stood on the pavement, and as I did that I saw Simon there, leaning on the gate, me tucking my trousers into my socks as I got on my bike to ride the short distance home. Long, long ago and I took my leave then and walked back to the main road.

  I fully intended to walk along the road then back to my car but my visit to the house had unsettled me and so I walked across the road and through the alley at the far end of the river and walked up to it, stopping as i saw the bridge ahead.

  I walked a little further towards it this time, following the river as it bent slightly off across the fields, but I stopped as I saw the black clouds looming in from the Irish sea. Rain soon, I thought, and lots of it too. I glanced once more at the bridge, the water twinkling as it flowed steadily beneath the culvert.

  No wonder we had said a troll lived under there when we were children. It looked quite spooky in the approaching darkness. Our imaginations as kids had run wild of course and we had said that it was a troll who stole your identity and replaced you and you became it. The troll under the bridge.

  ” Not much of a bridge!” I laughed out loud. Still the river bank was oddly devoid of anyone else at all, though whether that was because of the impending rain or not I would never know. Perhaps it was always like this now; old and forgotten.

  I walked a little further. My car was much nearer now, no more than five minutes’ brisk walk away, though I kept a careful eye on the approaching rain clouds as I strolled along the river. I had time to spare I reckoned, the rain still looked a little way away. Not much though.

  The visit to the house had surprised me. There was little of it left. All that remained were memories. Nothing else. Dreams and hopes and deeds long gone, things I hoped and wished for then that either came true or they did not. It was too late to recall them all now, and it would count for nothing if I did.

  In my mind I thought of Simon. I wondered where he was now. Who his family were. Had he married? Was his mother, Brenda still alive? I genuinely did not know, though if she was then she was very old now. I wondered then what was worse? Finding out that she had been dead for twenty years and that I had never known, or finding she was still alive and if that was the case would she remember who I was?

  As I walked along the river I stopped. I remembered once visiting her. Simon was in University. Alan had been dead maybe five years. I felt as if I was looking after her and it had been a polite if not stifled evening. Not quite awkward, but not far off it. I wonder now if when she looked at me she wondered if I knew what had happened, and if so why I had never mentioned it. Did she want to tell me? Did she think I knew? Even then I was not aware of what had happened there and shamefully I do not know what she thought.

  I never saw her again.

  Life gets in the way sometimes and you regret the things that you have done maybe less than the things that you have not. Perhaps I should have mentioned it. What then? Was all that was to be gained was that she would know that I knew and so could share in her anger and her shame?

  I started walking again. I half entertained the idea of visiting the cemetery and planting flowers on Alan’s grave. But I had never been. I did not know where it was. I knew the cemetery of course, but that was all. I started to think maybe another time, but I forced the thought away. There would be no other time. It was too late now.

  I think that sometimes our regrets fall to dust because they are not valid. The time to act has passed, and retrospective actions can be misinterpreted. That by doing something later rather than sooner we are placing a distance between us and it so that it cannot harm us any more, whether the fault at first was ignorance or fear or just sheer immaturity. A failure to live in the real; the now.

  I entered the alley that led to the main road and looking over my shoulder I saw the river behind me for the very last time, and smiling sadly I turned away from it, feeling the first spots of rain on my head. They were big spots and I increased my pace.

  Now the river was gone, and I could forget it. The house too. I had put it to rest. Yet was i papering over cracks that would one day reveal themselves? I think not. There is little time left for that now, though how can I be sure? Nobody can tell I imagine and if all that is left of us are our ambitions and desires that we have yet to achieve, then what becomes of the things that we
regret? The things that we wish we had done. Those matters that we simply wish we had handled differently. What of those things? Who can say for sure?

  When all is said and done I have decided this. I have come to a peace with myself for when we come to account for ourselves, be it today or tomorrow or in years to come, who knows how we will handle things that haunt us?

  Who really can ever know what you will do with the dust of your dreams?

  Storm Blowing In

  “Three days to cross the sea before Ulf sees the hill on the shore that he recognises and we set the ship towards it, knowing that beneath the hill there are farms with animals and food and women. It is a dark night yet we smell blood on the air. Thor’s hammer rings across the heavens as we reach the beach and hit it fast, racing on into the night and the village in which now a bell rings. It matters not, for we are amongst them already, with glory or entrance to Valhalla waiting for us, and so we slay all who stand before us, and those who do not; the old and the weak. The children we slay too, for they are no use to us. We find their riches quickly for they are poorly hidden in the largest of the houses, and it is here that we place the women too so that we can pick those we shall have when the dividing of the spoils is done. It is an easy night for us, all who set out still present, though Steinar received a slight wound from one of the young farmers from a pitchfork. Unlike the farmer however, Steinar will recover. So we feast on their meat and drink their ale, whilst glancing at which of their women we shall have soon. We sing songs of victory and of flame and war and death. Yet too we make a careful assessment of their land and farms. Their fields are green and soft, their rivers overflowing with fish, their crops abundant. We make careful note, for a man cannot fight and sup and fuck forever. One day he must declare his lands, and some of us already look at these fertile plains and we begin to wonder…”

  Writer’s block is probably the worst possible affliction that can hit anyone. Well, if you're a writer of course. Not because you cannot write - though that in itself is bad enough - but because the ideas of what to write don’t stop coming, so you feel as if your head is going to explode. All of these things queueing up in your mind waiting to be written, and you sit in front of the laptop looking at a blank page because somehow you have forgotten about that little bit of magic that happens between your brain, your fingers and the keyboard.