» Siblings

Siblings...I've had a few...
I've been jolted out of my recent QOTW torpor by this one, though it isn't so much of a light and frolicsome piece as a case study in secrets and lies. Come to think of it, the tale bears a remarkable resemblance to the Mike Leigh creation of the same nice. But I assure you, dear readers, that however prone to exaggeration I may sometimes be, that this is utterly and absolutely true.

And massive. Sorry about that.

Until the age of fifteen, I cavorted and stumbled about the place under the misapprehension that I was the eldest of two kids.

Mnemomic Minor, I will note here, is one of the sweetest, most innocent-natured creatures that was ever besmirched and shat upon by this uncaring world, and as such is an utter anomaly within the brood of rat-bastards that comprise the rest of my family (within which designation I do not hesitate to include myself.)

He's five years younger than me, and I'm reliably informed that for several of his most influential years my pastime of choice was to perch on his (third floor) windowsill, declaring that I was about to fly off to Neverland and not return, and wouldn't relent and come down until he was in a state close to asphyxiating fits from crying and pleading with me not to go.

Which isn't as bad as when my older cousin convinced my younger cousin to drink dog piss running down a pavement by telling him it was lemonade. But I digress.

One fateful morning, when I was fifteen and he ten, my mother (generally speaking an undemonstrative creature) came into my squalid pit of a bedroom, and perched herself awkwardly on the end of my bed, hands in her lap. Disgruntled at the invasion of my sovereign space (and the unwanted interruption in my rapacious devouring of the latest Harry Potter), I grunted something vaguely approaching an inquiry as to the purpose of this interview. I remember thinking with horror that this might be some kind of birds and bees chat, as recommended in that week's Bella.

She leant towards me. There was something in her hand. So consumed was my brain with the refrain of 'please don't let it be the sex talk, please don't let it be the sex talk', pounding through my overinflated teenage cringe gland, that I failed to notice this for some moments, although it was clear that she wanted me to. Eventually, she caved.

'I got a letter this morning,' she said.
'Oh?' said I.
'Yes,' said she.
'So?' I grunted.
'It's from your sister', she said.
'Wha?'

Turns out that, a long time ago, she'd had a child she'd been forced to give up for adoption. A familiar story - it was the sixties, she was nineteen, it was simply not the done thing. She was in denial about the pregnancy right up until the end. And this is where it gets sad (although I suspect this unfortunately won't be a singular tale in the chronicles of those times.) My teenage mother was refused pain relief by the anaethestist, on the grounds that she ought to suffer for what she had done. She had to crawl on her hands and knees down a ward corridor, because the nurse wouldn't come when she called. She gave birth for the first time, alone and terrified and with no medication, after having been in labour for thirty-six hours.

And then they came and told her the baby was to be taken away. She hadn't a say in the matter. Except then, for whatever reason, they didn't. My mother was left to look after my sister in the hospital for six weeks while they found her a suitable home. She fed her. She named her. And then one morning, my mother woke up and my sister was gone from the cot beside her. And that was it - she got her coat and went home.

I'm not a parent - although I know some of you are - and so I can't fully imagine what it must be like to have a six week-old baby taken from you. What little I can conceive of, I can't really handle. Suffice to say, it messed my mum up. Her family just wanted to forget about it, and it was never spoken of again. She told my father when they married but not us, or anyone else, even her closest friends.

When my mum told me this story, it made sense of a lot of things. I'd never really been close to her - we'd had a lot of problems and her behaviour towards me was often very irrational, with her reacting violently over quite trivial incidents. Apparently when I was born, she didn't sleep for days on end and wouldn't leave my room, because she was terrified someone would take me away. It all sort of made sense in the light of what had happened.

But to return to the story. My sister had through the help of a friend finally tracked her down, and had written her a letter seeing if she'd like to make contact. My sister had been adopted by a very well-off family (lucky swine), had had a great time of it, and was married and living in Bristol. To cut a long preamble short, they met, and then we met, and it's all worked out extraordinarily well, actually. They are shockingly similar (my sister is nothing at all like her kind but very straight-laced adoptive parents, and is a fashion designer. My mum is also a fashion designer.) And my sister is beautiful and happy and in general has a life I'm rather jealous of, in a good sort of way.

To return, though, to that morning, and to me, bemused in the bed, and having discovered I had a half-sister. Mum asked if I'd like to read the letter, and I said I would. She left the room. I had just about finished, and was trying to let it all sink in, trying to make sense of this sudden familial expansion, when my dear old Dad stuck his head around the door. (If you can, imagine his part in the following dialogue conducted in a thick Welsh accent.)

'Alright Jenny?'
"Yes, I'm alright. I think so.'
'Your mum tell you then?'
'Yes. Can't believe it, really.'
'OK. Well, there's one more thing.'
'What?'
'Oh. Well you know Sam Walsh from down the pub. The barman.'
'Yep?'
'Right. Well, he's your half-brother too. I used to be married to his mam. I'll put the tea on, shall I?'

Yes, I think you'd better.

And that, ladies and gents, is how I was shunted from the first of two siblings to the third of four in the space of around twenty minutes. Surprisingly, it wasn't all that traumatic, and things have pretty much pootled on as they always have done. But that's village life for you - we do things differently here.

Still, good job I didn't snog Sam Walsh that time he tried to grab me round the back of the village hall a year earlier. Now that would have been a Trisha special in the making.

Length? Depends on who the hell you ask, in my family...
(Sun 4th Jan 2009, 23:55, More)

» Bastard Colleagues

The Tale of Buttercup
Several years ago now, I found myself out of work and with a bit of time on my hands. I was living on a small organic farm in the West of England. It was mostly dairy, but with a sideline in organic produce – home-made bread, cakes, spreads and all other things fashionably organic.
Not having much to do, I used to help out around the place. One of my duties was to tend to the colony of bees that inhabited the hives dotted about this rural idyll, which we harvested for their honey. I also used to help with the herd.
One day, I went out into the fields in the evening as usual to get the cows in for milking, and I noticed that my favourite heifer, Buttercup, was lying on her side looking mournful and lowing at the sky. ‘Good gracious!’ thought I. ‘Whatever can be the matter?’ Picking up my skirts, I scampered over the grass to her side, and saw that she had somehow broken all four of her limbs at once.

Now, as anyone with any experience with dairy stock knows, this is a disaster for the animal concerned. More than that. It’s curtains. Time up. Game over. Goodnight. Vets are expensive, and the bovine joint structure a fiendishly complicated thing. I laid my head on her heaving flanks and wept copiously, as I knew that the farmer would surely show no mercy even to this, my favourite cow.

Unless…

With urgency and my love for Buttercup lending wings to my feet, I fled back to the farm and to my room, where I threw open the cupboard containing my collection of rollerskates. They were precious relics from my days working as an extra on ‘Xanadu’, and were normally kept under wraps for very special occasions. But this was for Buttercup.
Grabbing four special skates and a bundle of bandages, I dashed back to the field, where the poor beleagured heifer awaited. As quickly as I could (for night was falling and the wolves were beginning to gather at the edges of the wood) I bound up her limbs and laced the Golden Rollers firmly to her hooves. When I was finished, her legs were rigidly encased in plaster and unable to bend. With the manic and disprortionate strength that only true love lends, I hauled her to her feet, where she stood, perfectly still and unable to move and inch. Cows can’t skate.
I admit, I had failed to allow for this fact of nature. I was on the point of despair. It seemed that all my efforts were to prove in vain. If I couldn’t get her to move, the game would be up.

But then came the flash of genius, the Archimedes-in-the-bath moment that was to change both our lives forever.

Slightly fed up of all this dashing about though I was, I ran back again to the farm where I made a beeline(narf) to the nearest hive. Showing no fear, I plunged my arm deep into the swarming bowels of the colony, plucking out a handful of the most active and ferocious little beggars. I ran back to Buttercup, trailing fuzzy friends, escaping their stings through sheer serendipity. I reached her. I snapped open the casing on the specially-modified wheels. One by one, I coaxed the bees within. And then, through a mechanism inexplicable through a conventional understanding of engineering principles, the circling of the bees within began to turn the wheels. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, my dear Buttercup began to move, trundling across the field, then out through the gate, and off into the sunset and pastures new.

I stood, briefly, watching her silhouette move across the evening sky, full of satisfaction at a job well done and a unique sense of pride at the things I had just invented.

They were bee-steered cow legs.







I’m really sorry.
(Wed 30th Jan 2008, 11:47, More)

» Worst Nicknames Ever

Sticks and stones (and coathangers)
It was pointed out by a "friend" a couple of years back that I look like a foetus (small features, big forehead.) Thus, I was nicknamed, with stunning ingenuity, The Foetus. Various friends have amused themselves making jokes around the theme, wombs, umbilical cords, ultrasound scans etc.

The best however was a drunken friend chasing me round a pub carpark in front of a busload of suprised grans, brandishing an unbent wire coathanger and loudly and repeatedly threatening to abort me.

The Foetus. Now come on, that is bad.
(Thu 18th May 2006, 16:19, More)

» Kids

Cake Tale.
I like kids. I seem to have a particular affinity for stompy, shouty little boys who enjoy being hung upside down, rolled about in filth, and all that sort of thing. And I plan on having several of my own, should my ovaries not prove bullet-proof (a possbility, considering my parents couldn't have children. Yark! Narf! But seriously...)

It seems that the key if you wish your children to avoid obnoxious brattery is to have more than one kid. By all accounts, I was an absolute horror until Mnemonic Minor showed up when I was five - a goggly-eyed ball of dough with bright ginger hair and one ear bigger than the other (he's now tall, blonde and a part-time model, the b@st@rd.) Before this (partly due to medical problems which meant I couldn't walk til I was three, and partly because my parents had lost a couple before I came along) I had far too much attention and fuss made of me. Being ignored - or at least no longer the centre of attention - was the best thing that ever happened to me.

To illustrate, I shall tell you the tale of the village fete - a story of Machiavellian plotting, rebellion, and cake.

...

I would have been about four when this happened. Mum, for reasons lost in the mists of time, had thought it was a good idea to take her organically-reared (read – sugar-starved) offspring for a stroll down to the village hall, where preparations were being made of the annual Flower and Produce show. (yep – we know how to throw a party in rural Dumfries.) She was probably just bored off her tits trapped in a house with an insomniac, rabidly-questioning child who’d just learned how to get about independently, adn was making full use of her newly-acquired skill. The Flower and Produce show was, as might be expected, your typical WI set-up – the Biggest Marrow competition (no silliness please), home-grown produce rosettes, hand-knitted sheep, flower arranging, a needlework prize, and – most importantly – the Bakery Contest.

As we went in, I was put under strict instructions “not to lay a finger on any of the cakes”, on pain of death, or at the least a hefty spanking. Mum went over to the other side of the hall to talk to some middle-aged ladies in beige two-pieces. I wandered about the displays for a while, sneezing at the flowers, tentatively stroking a knitted teddy bear. But slowly and inevitably, I was drawn towards the long trestle table where the cakes had been set out, ready to be judged later that day.

The cakes sat, plump and alluring, on a cloth of perfect white. They seemed to glow with an inner light of their own. To my childish eyes, there appeared to be hundreds, a feast, a fantasy banquet. We weren’t really allowed cake at home, but here, in case you haven’t already clicked, was cake aplenty, There were sponge cakes oozing jam, deep crumbly chocolate cakes, gooey caramel cakes, layer cakes topped with thick buttery icing and a swirl of raspberry sauce. There was a deep scarlet cherry cake topped with cream and generously decorated with deep red fruit. There were tiny fairy cakes iced in all the colours of the rainbow, topped with violet icing flowers.

Then I came to the end of the table, and there it stood – the piece de resitance. The Great Gateau. It was at least five layers high, and iced in palest pink, with brilliant gold sugar roses piped onto the sides. It was a thing of wonder and delight. I looked at those sweet, shining, roses, and I began to salivate. Just one, just a little one, from round the back…surely nobody would notice? But I couldn’t touch. I’d been told specifically to keep my hands firmly behind my back. There was nothing to be done. I would have to go cakeless. Unless…

All of a sudden, the wail of a demented beige-clad banshee split the silence of the hall. “WHOSE is this CHILD??”

Mum span around to see me, hands clasped firmly and obediently behind my back, blissfully face-first in the cake. I had simply leant forward and taken a massive bite out of the side. But I hadn’t laid a finger on it.
And yea, it was delicious.

And I STILL got a spanking. Bloody kids? Bloody parents, more like.



I like cake.
(Tue 22nd Apr 2008, 17:14, More)

» What's the hardest you've tried to get dumped?

Accept my contrition at slight off-topicness; I beg your indulgence.
I was the perfect girlfriend.

It required the suppression of so much of the natural vileness of my personality, but for a whole year, I was. I was in love. I was patient and kind, and I gave him space to do whatever he wanted. I wouldn't get huffy if he went around without me, or forgot to call. I even agreed not to see him at all for several weeks while he took his exams, so as not to prove a distraction, though I let him know I'd always be there if he needed me. It was a really difficult thing to do. We lived very near each other, I had exams too and I was stressed out and a bit lonely. I missed him terribly, but I was really careful not to let him know how much. I didn't want to put any more pressure on him. For nearly a month, I counted the days until he finished his exams and we could be together properly again. I planned it all out. The day before, suprisingly, he called and asked if I had time for lunch.

You can guess what comes next.

He had tried, he said, to 'let me down gently' by not spending any time with me or texting or calling over the last month. Seems that, naive creature that I am, I had actually thought he wanted time to work. I remember exactly how I felt sitting on the bench looking out over the river; men say nothing hurts worse than being kicked in the balls, and we can't possibly understand. I disagree. The light-headed rush of sickness, the adrenalin surge, and then that crunch of pain spreading out like a gathering wave until your hearing goes funny.

But I didn't want to burden him with all that. I kept it light. I said I hoped we could still be friends, being as we were in the same friendship group anyway. I think we actually shook hands. I don't remember the walk home, but I remember lying on my bed a few hours later, just staring at the ceiling, unable to take it in.

I had thought that was as bad as it could get. But over the next few days and weeks, more and more information started to filter back to me; more and more idiosyncratic little pieces of odd stuff that had happened in our relationship started to add up. Then it emerged. He had dumped me in order to get back with his ex, girl who had made his life an utter misery, and I - who unless you patient readers haven't cottoned on yet, was helplessly in love with him - was just an extended rebound fling. A shameful sort of affair, to be looked back on with embarrassment. Of course, he didn't admit as such. He denied it, but the game was up when she (in a gesture born of complete spite, since I never met her) emailed me pictures of them kissing taken whilst we were still together. I had to glean all other bits of information from our friends, all the while smiling and chatting and keeping up the pretence of nonchalance. Nobody likes a moaner.

Eventually, though, I cracked and in the gentlest possible way, confronted him. And he lied. He lied so much that I still don't know what to believe, and any good memories of the relationship (and of the friendship we had before that) have been spoiled by the feeling that none of it really has any integrity. He lied until he was found out, and then lied some more for extra lie-ey goodness.

For my part, I couldn't take it. Judging it best to beat a dignified retreat, I packed up my life and left the city I'd loved. I've been back to visit since and the thought of accidentally running into him is a dread strong enough to make me feel physically sick. I took the first job I found and moved to London with complete strangers. For long months I was so short of confidence I couldn't look strangers in the eye. I mistrusted other people around me. I felt embittered and cynical and I hated myself for it. I felt unattractive and old and past it at 24. I felt like ultimately all that mattered to men - even supposedly intellectual and alternative men like my ex - was looks, as the girl he cheated on me with was psychotic, clingy, stupid, immature, and generally a complete knob, but very pretty. I don't know when this will end, but I do know one thing. If he had had the balls to be completely honest with me and admit that he still had feelings for his ex, he would have saved me months of mental torture I wouldn't wish on anybody (except, now, possibly him.) I would have avoided all the self-doubt, suspicion of others, massive hurt and poor life-decisions that resulted from being fibbed to in grand order, all because he was too much of a coward to do the right thing.

I don't know if I'll ever get back to the person I was before, not really. I'd like to. I think I was better then.

Length? It was a year ago today.
(Fri 6th Jun 2008, 13:45, More)