‘Oh, have I?’
‘I think you have. But let’s see. You say you haven’t decided? ‘
‘That’s right.’ I cut into a nectarine.
‘But, so far, you think everything’s connected. Nothing happens by chance. Is that what you believe?’
‘I do feel that everything is connected in some mysterious way, and that life is purposeful, meaningful, yes. I just don’t know what it is.’
‘All right then. So, according to your own beliefs; the Cosmos will have sent you me for a purpose. Everything is connected. Well, here you are. And here I am. The Cosmos has sent you me. You are looking for a philosophy to underpin your Astrology. I’m a Philosopher. I’ve considered these questions long and hard. I could give you explanations. Here’s one. Let’s try this one on. If Astrology works, it’s because that’s the way the Universe is structured. No more, no less. No other agency involved. But you wouldn’t be interested in that because you have already decided. You say you haven’t but you have.’
‘I decided long ago that I would decide for myself.’
‘Yes, quite right. That’s how it should be. And all very admirable. But when you have an opportunity to do so, you don’t actually listen. You think you do but you don’t. And, you know, it isn’t me who starts this, it’s you.’
Was he right? I knew I could be argumentative, but was it correct that I didn’t listen? I felt that I had been but, by now, I was drifting away and eating my nectarine. I was looking towards the window and thinking. Perhaps the Cosmos sent me Bill for some other purpose? Perhaps the Cosmos hadn’t sent him at all? In fact, I had put an ad’ in ‘Private Eye.’
* * * * *
Having exhausted Bill as a source of rational explanation that evening, I decided to try my luck with the Astrology Group, presenting the chart for this latest episode as a mystery chart. And the chart - as I had drawn it - certainly mystified the Astrologers - to a woman. What on earth was I doing, they wanted to know, leaving all the planets symbolising myself out of the picture?
It was Moira who spotted this: ‘Where’s Mars?’ she demanded. ‘And where’s Pluto? Both your rulers, you’ve left them out.’
‘You weren’t there,’ quipped Cassie.
Wincing, I passed my hand along the back of my neck which felt clammy and hot. ‘I, I just slipped up.’
‘A Freudian slip?’
‘Sorry?’
‘A Freudian slip,’ she repeated. ‘An act of self-forgetting. So, what were you doing in the lesson, before the children presented their drama? Can you remember?’
I could, of course. I’d been reading a psychology book, which had brought back a memory from childhood I preferred to forget, and certainly didn’t wish to disclose, so I lied. ‘Nothing. I just sat down in a corner, and marked a couple of exercise books.’
‘You didn’t fall asleep?’
‘No! You don’t fall asleep in a lesson full of children doing Drama. What is this, Cassie, the Spanish Inquisition? Really, I was just sitting there not doing anything apart from my job.’
Sensing my discomfiture, Evelyn moved in to protect me, I suspect. ‘Yes, I’m not sure that every slip is a Freudian slip,’ she said kindly. ‘But perhaps we can move on to another chart now. Gwendolen, would you mind?’
‘Not at all.’
Fortunately, Annie had brought one. I have no idea what it was about because I spent the next twenty minutes fighting off anxiety. But I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep it up so during the next tea break, I made my excuses to Evelyn who rose to see me out. ‘I’m sorry that you felt under pressure this evening,’ she added at the front door, ‘but if you want to talk, I hope you’ll feel you can.’
She knows, I thought as I climbed into my car and lit a cigarette, but then I thought; why would she? I hadn’t even told my mother. No, of course, she didn’t know. No need to start thinking along those lines. No need to go back there. It was just a coincidence; that was all, me leaving myself out of the chart. It didn’t mean anything. Oh, but what on earth had possessed me to pick a bloody psychology book, I’d have been better off with Enid Blyton. Yes, that was my favourite, the Wishing Chair. And as I drove home, I went back through all my favourite childhood stories; repeating their titles again and again: the stories I read, and the ones my mother told me. But the story I had told myself kept coming back. Try as I might, I couldn’t push it back down. I was a good person. I looked after my father. I was his Little Eyes. It didn’t matter what the babysitter did to my body. She couldn’t hurt me the real me. I wasn’t there.
When I got home, I did ring Evelyn. ‘Bill said I tried to carve out for him a Land Fit for Heroes. I did try. I wanted it to be pure. I wanted it to be beautiful. How could I tell him when things weren’t so good? My father alone in the dark in the next room. How could tell him? I wanted it to be beautiful. I did try.’
‘Of course you did,’ she said. ‘You loved him.’
* * * * *
‘It’s not going to happen again,’ I told Dorothy, calling round the following morning after a night of no sleep. ‘It’s not going to happen again because I’ve had enough now. And don’t think I haven’t spotted what you’ve been up to. July 11th, indeed. Oh, I’m sorry. I forgot your anniversary. It’s also mine.
Ping, and all the lights went on in Blackpool. Ping, and I made the decision to incarnate. Ping and my mother reached for her Good Housekeeping Diary. And all on the anniversary of your death.
Oh, but I should take my hat off to you, Dorothy. What a wonderful sense of humour you’ve got. Aren’t you the joker in the pack? Ah, but you can’t hide behind humour any more. I know exactly what you’ve been up to. And how do I know? Because I’m now looking in a mirror. Oh, I’ve struggled to see myself at times, but I can see you clear as daylight. I can see how you’ve been in my life. You’ve been trying to save me. You’ve been trying to shine your light on poor old me. Yes, that’s you, Dorothy, a real saviour- redeemer. Well it isn’t working and it’s got to stop because I’ve had enough now. I don’t want any more prompts. I’m not up to it.
It’s all right for you - you’ve got someone to fall back on because you trust God. Well I don’t. And it is any wonder?
Oh, I trust my charts, I trust my signs, but I don’t trust God who made the Stars for Signs, and that’s the bottom line.
Ah, but you do, Dorothy. Yes, you do. So, will you please ask God to let me off the hook now, please, because I’ve had enough now? Get him to sack me.
Oh? I could let it go, could I?
After all this time?
I could, could I?
Well, don’t wait up.’
* * * * *
Yes, well, perhaps I should have known better than to have thrown down the gauntlet quite so dramatically, because things happened very quickly after that. When I got home, I went straight to my files, intending to burn the lot. Charts, certificates, notebooks, diaries, letters, could all go on the pyre. And so could my mother’s Good Housekeeping diaries. But as I tipped them from the box, I found the one for the last year of her life. And opened it. And saw her practice handwriting. How she had tried to teach herself to write with her left hand after the stroke. And I couldn’t do it.
‘All right, Mum, ‘I said, ‘I’ll give it another go. One more for the road.’
So, when I returned from my holiday in France, I resumed my quest, and managed to track down a living relative: not of Dorothy, of Edith Pook, widow. And yes: you’ve guessed it: he turned out to be another vicar (albeit retired).
Bill appreciated my dilemma.
‘Yes, I can see your problem - when you ring him up out of the blue saying, ‘Good Morning, Reverend, I’m an astrologer and I’m strangely interested in your late-lamented aunt.’
I followed him into the kitchen and picked up one of my cats.
‘I doubt I’ll put it quite like that.’
‘I doubt you’ll put it any way at all,’ he replied, popping a milky coffee into the microwave. ‘You won’t do it, not now i
t’s come to the crunch. Too risky.’
‘You’re sure about that, are you?’
‘Not a hundred per cent, no, but that’s my guess. Of course, they stopped burning women like you years ago - thanks to the Enlightenment.’
‘Yes, but there’s still a stigma against Astrology. They say it works because the Devil works.’
‘Is that what they say? I’m surprised they can’t do better than that.’
‘They forget the Magi who followed the Star. They were Astrologers.’
‘Which didn’t happen.’
‘Yes, it did.’
‘Because it says so in the Bible?’
‘No, the Star was there.’
‘Oh, well, of course, you’re a Christian.’
‘No, I’m not.’
‘You’re a closet Christian, always have been. It’s in your background. For all your talk of cosmic energies and the like, you’re still a dualist. If I believed in Reincarnation - which I don’t - I’d say you were still a Cathar.’
At this point, the microwave pinged - a sign that his coffee had boiled over.
‘Damn,’ he said, then filled another mug for a fresh attempt. ‘Yes, but you won’t go there either will you? You keep going back to the Pyrenees. But you never go there, to Montsegur. And you won’t go after Peter, either, not now it’s come to the crunch. You don’t want to meet your God.’
‘That’s not true,’ I said, ‘and I will go after Peter.’
‘There’s the ‘phone.’
I didn’t move.
He nodded sagely. ‘Of course, there is an alternative. There always is. You could choose to look at your experience in the Drama lesson differently. Dorothy was giving you permission to invent him. Create a Character, wasn’t that the theme? Yes, go ahead, Gwendolen, she said: make him up; it’s all the same to me. But you won’t do that either, not if I’m any judge, because you’re still looking for some Absolute Truth which you hope is out there. Still hoping you’ll get it right. So you won’t invent him. And you won’t ‘phone the vicar either. So you’re stuck, aren’t you?’
I had to admit it: I was.
So, did I finally move on it because Bill, too, doubted me? No, though I’m sure he helped. In the end, I consulted the Cosmos.
The chart contained a Mutual Reception which indicates choice. I could make the reception, or I could leave it alone. But to make the reception, I would have to imagine the Moon changing places with Jupiter. I would have to bring Jupiter into my house. So I did it. I rang the vicar. I rang him because, after all this time, I wanted the truth. And if it turned out there was no Peter, I would simply say so: it wouldn’t be much of an ending, but it would be the truth.
The message I got in the Drama Lesson that day had nothing to do with Peter.
Create a Character?
Yes, she meant me.
Was it a coincidence that I had been feeling martyred on that occasion?
Was it mere coincidence that I had been stricken in my hands and feet?
Was it just coincidence that my skin cracked open on July 11th, 1999?
No!
Create a Character?
She meant me.
Venus Hesperus
As I begin this chapter, Mercury and Venus combine in the sky, performing an elegant duet in graceful, balanced Libra – which is a bit of a shame, really, since elegant duets are not my style. Perhaps I should wait until Venus collides with Mars, clashes with Uranus or dissolves under Neptune, then we could all enjoy plenty of fireworks and shocking revelations from a mystical perspective or on the Astral Plane. It’s tempting. It really is. But then I don’t want to postpone things indefinitely. In fact, I don’t want to postpone them at all. So let’s take advantage of this combination and have some fun with names.
The name Dorothy means, ‘Gift of God,’ I believe, or, ‘Beloved of God,’ while her middle name, ‘Margaret’ means ‘Pearl.’ I always thought Dorothy a beautiful name. I had an aunt by marriage called Dorothy of whom I was very fond; and my father’s favourite sister (who also died young) was named Margaret. So Dorothy Margaret was already a magical name for me.
‘Taffy’ I originally thought meant Welsh. This was my mother’s nickname given by the troops she nursed during the War, and I was born on the River Taff. After discovering, however, that Dorothy was born in Oxford, I decided it was probably onomatopoeic and, very likely, given by a child; possibly a younger sibling: Dorothy, Doffy, Daffy, Taffy….
My own name, Gwendolen, means, ‘White Circle,’ although my mother didn’t choose it in the hope that I may one day start my own coven: she actually named me Gwendolen because, ‘the Importance of Being Ernest,’ was her favourite play. Not that I’m complaining. It could have been worse. I could have been a lot worse, considering that she went into labour during an attack of acute wind. No, Gwendolen, although hardly enigmatic, is probably an improvement on Flatulence, and definitely an improvement on: -
‘Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked.’
Which is what ‘Taffy’ means – as I discovered on October 28th, at 4.15 a.m.
I had been writing well into the small hours when I got up from the floor to reach for my dictionary. Now, I am not sure how this happened. I suppose I must have dislodged it, but another book fell down from the shelf and landed in my hearth, open on page 100. I picked it up and read: -
‘And his little girl daughter’s name was Taffimai Metallumai, and that means; Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked,’ – But I am going to call her Taffy. And she was Tegumai Bopsulai’s Best Beloved and her own Mummy’s Best Beloved, and she was not spanked half as much as was good for her.’
Well, not according to Rudyard Kipling she wasn’t.
As for me (O Best Beloved) I don’t believe in spanking children (or anyone else for that matter) as neither did my mother: who-herself-was-never-spanked-as-a-child. Well, not by: She-who-always-wore-a-hearing-aid-and-alarmed-the-neighbours-with-her-strange-forebodings-of-impending-disaster.
We may have been Welsh, but we weren’t Neanderthals.
Unlike Taffy: the inventive little Daddy’s Girl in Kipling’s, ‘The First Letter,’ who much preferred going off with her father fishing to sitting round the cooking pot back home with the rest of the tribe.
She must have been an Aries.
And Tegumai Bopsulai?
That means: ‘Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry.’
A Taurus, in other words.
I smiled.
‘Small-person-without-any-manners-who-ought-to-be-spanked.’
Wonderful!
‘Man-who-does-not-put-his-foot-forward-in-a-hurry.’
And began to laugh.
Yes, that was my Dad, all right!
By now, I was laughing so much I rolled off the sofa. I let the book drop; rolled off the sofa and rolled around on the floor; clutching my sides and giving myself a stitch through laughing. It might not strike you as particularly funny, but I found it hilarious; and, at one point, had to leave the house in case I woke Eleanor. I drove to the all night Tesco, bought a large bag of doughnuts, then came home and burst out laughing again. Really, I don’t think I’ve laughed so much since my father died. In fact, I know I haven’t. Good job I’m not incontinent (yet).
When I finally calmed down, I read the story again: and loved it – because it was Taffy, you see, who invented the first letter of the Alphabet. Created a character, in other words. That’s what she did in the story. She created a character, literally.
In the story, she drew a picture, only her tribe misunderstood it and all sorts of havoc ensued; but, happily, it all worked out ‘Just So’ in the end. She then went on to invent the Alphabet (despite being female).
Well, I thought, how come I didn’t spot this before? I’ve had that book on my shelves all along. Trouble was, I’d never read it. Kipling was out of favour when I was a child. Not part of my cultural heritage. But he would have been part of Edwardi
an Dorothy’s – and my mother’s. I expect the book had been one of hers. Or she had given it to Eleanor – who hadn’t read it either. In fact, judging by its pristine condition, it hadn’t been read by anyone in our household.
I smiled, remembering my mother. I could just see her, sitting on an astral park bench with her Wartime Love, Jimmy - and looking very pleased with herself:
‘That’s my daughter down there, Jim, I expect she thinks it’s all her doing but if it hadn’t been for me leaving that book behind…..’
From Bill, a sardonic smile. ‘You make these things happen. You set them up.’
Not to mention Richard: ‘Now, Gwendolen, you have always lived in stories. You have a Mercury Karma: Mercury conjunct the Node.’
And Dorothy, ‘Taffy,’ Browning?
I imagine she loved every minute of it. What do you think (O Best Beloved)?
For me, the best part was this. Although her tribe didn’t understand her pictures, she held fast to her vision, did young Taffy. She stamped her foot (rather a lot, actually) and never wavered. She trusted her own vision. Indeed, she never doubted it. So that was the best part of it all for me because my tribe didn’t understand my pictures either - only I did not hold fast to my own vision. I let it go.
I saw my dead grandfather sitting on a swing in the park where I played as a child; a priest standing guard outside the Archbishop’s House next door, the night he fell critically ill. I saw quite a few dead people, actually, when I was a child, but I wasn’t believed. Oh, don’t get me wrong: I was never punished. I had a vivid imagination, I was told, which was all very well, but it was only invention. So, after a while I grew to doubt it. I lost confidence in my vision, which meant that the night my father died, I was struck by a deadly grief: for I no longer trusted my own vision. I had forgotten. Or perhaps I had never believed it was truly mine.
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