Saints and Sinners

growing old is not for sissies

and

even at seventy she wanted Mammy some days,

it did not matter how old you were…

…sometimes you wanted your mum…

and

she rocked in her Bentwood

and

thought and remembered her young days and a warmth came over her, enveloped her and held her and she knew that Mammy was with her in spirit, comforting her and telling her that all was ok and to keep on going, on and forward

and

she remembered how they thought what a good girl Kathleen had been…

…everyone thought that and they had all said so. They had said that she would marry quite soon, wait till she was sweet seventeen to be promised, a virgin bride,

and

Kathleen went to church to pray each day, to dust the altar and to polish brass with Mammy and that he who would marry her was a fortunate man indeed…

…that’s what they all said…

…that’s what was expected…

She knelt and prayed for all the things she wanted and needed and they were not like the things other girls her age craved to possess, not ribbons and pretty bags with studded sequins or shiny rings on their fingers…for Kathleen it was an amethyst dragon claw ring but she could hardly wear that in public in the village now, could she?

I need black!, her mind screamed, B L A C  K, black! Everything black! Black lippie I need, black polish for my nails, black wrist protectors with silver studs but where will I get what I need? A whip to lash, fishnet stockings to wear and black boots with laces…but would anyone ever see? Oh yes, YES!, the whip, just whom would she whip? She would find someone somehow, she had to get even. No one hit her with a ruler across her open hand for a lie she had not told…but here was no one in the village. She would have to run away but being the age that she was, was really not good, and a virgin still was such a drawback…more prayers were what’s needed…as in the end you got just what you wanted…is what Mammy said and Da looked up over the top of the paper, nodded his agreement: a nice handsome young man for the girl of his heart he would say and chuckle and carried on reading the news…

Praying to Saint Gabriel might help, thought Kathleen or Archangel Uriel or Michael the Good. And Mammy must never find out why she prayed such a lot and she must never know  she found the whalebone comb that Grandma had, that she plaited her hair, held it up with the comb and sat naked in front of the mirror and kissed it to see how the first kiss might feel…and if I can’t have black her mind shouted, I’ll go for the red but how, how am I going to get it? For now praying for it all would have to do…

 …the new priest was a kindly fellow Kathleen pondered, he had seen her often in the church and he was bound to keep her secrets…perhaps give her a penance for the telling, a few Hail Marys maybe but might he not also help her? Work it through as it were? Get all those things for her to break the habit of her sinful thinking?  She’d get sick of it all in the end, he would say, give it all up with relief and live up, at last, to the expectations of her Mammy and her Da to get married in white in the church…

…I’ll go to confession and I’ll talk to him then, is what I’ll do, she decided…but what’ll I say? And how will I say it? Bless me Father for I have sinned? But I haven’t, protested her mind,  not YET, only in thought and in the thrill of the planning… who would run his hands in caresses on her nets and who would smell her gothic almond scent, take her, ravage her and love her forever? Ohhhhh, bless me Father for I want to sin?  I SO want to sin! Doesn’t count that, though, does it? No penance for that, is there, for unsinned sinning?

Well, I will talk to him and I just know that he will understand me and he’ll help…

…it wasn’t an easy walk, the walk to the church that day, her blood flowed like lead in her veins but it had to be done, Kathleen was sure…

…I have needs Father

and

I want a tattoo

I want cuffs

and

suspenders

and

fishnets…..

in black Father...black or in red ….

She held her breath… there, she’d said it, it was out! Heart pounding, she’d done it now and she sat very still, closed her eyes waiting for the wrath of the guardian of her church. He was breathing hard and she knew he would condemn her not in whispers so all in church would hear her shame….

…she heard him stand, and heard his cassock rustle and an intake of his breath

and

a red stockinged netted knee appeared to her behind the grill…

…like these my child?, he said barely audibly, like these?

Kathleen looked at her special box quite often and remembered…she’d kept all the gear and looked back at her time as his keeper and the fun they had had…Mammy and Da had not been happy that she did not want to marry but be instead the keeper for the priest…but then she was such a good girl…as everyone had said…her heart in the right place, to be housekeeper was the saving grace….

and

a warmth came over her then as she rocked

and

she knew that Mammy approved….

and

she would carry on

and

keep on going

and

that growing old was not for sissies….

Jabberwock

Miss Merry didn’t like dogs

dogs were gnawy

Miss Merry didn’t like cats

cats were clawy

Miss Merry didn’t like the noise the wind made at night

dogs would stray and they often did fight

cats would not stay and would only tarry

and

Miss Merry thought she was never to marry…

….Mama was to blame, was what they all said, what with her pain   and her sufferings of the bowel, her innards as she said disreetly and nodded her head slowly so you could not miss her meaning. When she was indisposed she was indisposed temporarily only but often so and then she accompanied herself through the house by a cacophany of storms passing through her gut and her wailing at her colic and the loneliness of it all…the cold of the open windows at all times for the air to turn…no one would come near and no one came to court Miss Merry…

‘twas brillig, and the slithy toves

did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

all mimsy were the borogoves,

and mome raths outgrabe…

Beware the Jabberwock, she’d shout when she was looking for Miss Merry who ran to find her for the fear of him and for the comfort of her ample bosom and not mind her closeness for the terror,

beware the Jabberwock my son!

The jaws that bite.

The claws that catch!

Beware the Jujub bird…

…Miss Merry did not like birds either

And shun the frumious Bandersnatch!

who rested by the Tumtum tree

Oh bring the Jabberwock to me

The Jabberwock with eyes  of flame

Into Ma Merry’s garden came…

She only turned her back on him

would sort him quick,

it sounded grim.

Miss Merry cried, she was no son,

not a handsome prince would come,

no courtier,

no gentleman,

nobody came,

not even one…

Mama would pass wind and wail and cry

Miss Merry left,

could not stand by

she found a snake upon a beach

and took him home and

named him Sleach,

she called him son,

her Jabberwock,

she

fed him eggs

and

caught him flies

she

let dogs lie

and 

cats

and

birds

she’d curl up in her window chair

and stroke the creature

smooth ,

no fur,

no claw,

just little fangs inside his jaw…

He stayed with her

she talked to him

there was no need

for anything

she loved it all,

did not feel harried,

the creature slept

and

never tarried,

Miss Merry thought,

should she get married?

the sound of the sea

the sound of the sea

you could hear him from a long way away

you could hear him above the sound of the wind

and the waves

as he walked

barefoot

singing

spreading his toes into the cold white quartz and feeling  icy lapping winter waves snake over his feet, feeling the thrill of the chill run up his legs and into his body reaching his soul. The warmth of his being embraced this moment and all that there was and so he sang the song of the sea and the winter’s song.

Victor was happy.

He was old now, his torso still strong and burned by the summer sun, his face gnarled and he walked like the young man of twenty he had long forgotten, sandals made from rubber tires in his left while he conducted his song with his right. He wore the black beret he always wore and he wore a smile that came from somewhere very deep.

lololololololo… he sang and worked his way up the musical scale the way he had been taught and then back down again, and to get it all right you felt the top of your head…felt the notes vibrating there…lolololololololo

Music became a part of him from the first, a song his mother sang, gently swaying, rocking him in her arms close to her heart, music was his life line to all that there was, it made him come alive and soar…he lived the music as he danced it, he was transported into realms he could share only by taking his dancers with him, teaching, urging, showing, flying till the feet were sore and the toes were bleeding……live your dance, he would shout, live the music of the dance, live, live, live it till there is no more pain and only the song and the dance!

He might join the ranks of Perrot one day or Cechetti in St Petersburg….or he might  go to New York and study with George Balanchine… he could do anything he wanted to…he would, one day he would go beyond the dance and be the ballet master of all ballet masters and take all the dancers with him…fly beyond all that he knew…

His journey though, had not been as easy as he thought. It had been a hard ride. He had great strength and  great expectations and there was nothing ever to stop him. He was young. He was beautiful. He had talent and he could dance, had  a persona to match…

…and…

…then he met Sofia who was named after the city of his homeland, who became the love of his life and the light of his life…

…and…

…then came the children and the money ran out…Sofia grew heavy, as did the lines in her face and she left with the young ones … he too left after that to begin anew, still with a song in his heart, still with the dance in his soul but now it was better to walk and not dance.

better to walk

where the wind would carry his memories along with his song  where you could hear him

above the sound of the wind

and

the waves

from a long way away

all

all

you can never give all

so easy

not 

to…

I give you a tear

and

a sunbeam,

I give you a rainbow.

I give you the wind

and

a bird on the wing

I give you the moon and a shadow

and

a pearl in the sea

I give you the sound of the ocean

I give you a nightingale’s song

and

the sigh of the leaves in the trees

I give you a river

and

a glint of a trout

a hummingbird’s hum

the scent of a rose

and  

kingfisher’s blue

the gold of the sun

the red of my lips

I give you a rainbow

I give you a  sunbeam

a moonbeam

a cloud

and

a tear

I give you all that I have

so easy

not 

to…

I give all that I am….

I hope it’s enough…

iW 14/11/10

Post from Stalingrad

she gave me the letter to read…

thin blue envelope

grey paper

and

blue ink writing…

generous writing as I remember quite large like mine but slanting more to the right with ascenders and descenders pronounced whereas mine looks like knitting.

Die letzte Kerze brennt, you wrote,

und

ich habe Hunger.

The last candle is burning, you wrote,

and

I am hungry.

It was the last time we heard...

the last sign that you were..

the last letter.

Mama had sent rolled oats, all we could spare and we starved so you might have…that must keep you alive, insurance, we thought…all came back, one packet stacked above the other on the stairs … mouldy boxes, Mama’s writing …I saw… not a good sign, a bad omen I knew… where were you Papa?  When will you come home? 

I read your letter Papa,

and

today I write one to you…

and

it’s taken over 60years to write…

I’ll not need a stamp…

Lieber Papa,

You did not come home.

Who saw you last?

Did someone hold you?

Did someone close your eyes when you went?

Stroke you cheek?

Cover your body?

Take your boots?

Take your photos?

Wedding ring?

Address?

Did you see  the stars in the sky?

What did you hear?

Did you hold someone?

Did you close someone’s eyes?

Cover his body?

Stroke his cheek?

Did you run? Did you hide? Did you scream? Not make a sound? Did your tears freeze your eyes and make you blind? Did you think of Mama? And did you think of me?

Dear Papa,

I knew just for moments…

…you were…

that you were

and

who

and

then I gave the letter back...

it was hers she said

and

threw it out one day…

grey paper

I remember

and

blue ink writing..

blue envelope…

I feel the feather weight of it and hear the sound still of the paper’s rustle

as

she gave me the letter to read…

Light

wings of love

had touched your soul

you rose

a shining star

 

an angel of the  dark

came by

and

cast a shadow

from

afar

but every shadow comes from light

and

every day will flee the night

iw 28/10/10

War

It’s brutal world

and

no mistake.

There are too many of us now.

and

war is exactly what we need…


...is what's said...

…and not the  peace we say we want. We have to get rid of some of us and it really doesn’t matter who they are. If we don’t we will all starve and murder one another. Murder for a crust of bread or less. We need a war that’s legal now and justified. And we won’t protect our own too much. We murder and we maim, we kill and we claim we need to be shot of a lot so we can start again and live the way we want to, get  our space back and our land, get back to basics  and to the way things used to be.

It has been brutal from the start! We were born that way and really there is nothing we can do. It was ordained and we are helpless. Treachery began with a shiny apple…it was the snake who’se fault it was and we can’t fight nature, that’s for sure.

Just look how it was once, look back at Cain and at Abel…Cain couldn’t help it, could he, if he felt  mad and jealous because he was loved less than his brother? He worked just as hard as Abel and looking after sheep was no easier a job than working  on the land. Praise  and choice should have been equal! And then there was the question of who should marry whom. The time had come to marry and there were only the three sisters then, Cain’s twin sister and Abel who’d been born with two. They each married the sister who was born with them it was said and according to one opinion, it was actually a quarrel over who would get to marry the third sister that led to Cain slaying Abel. He had had to sort it all out and sort it out he did.  His Mum and Dad were very sad. But in the end you just got on with it as there was the land to work now and the sheep to tend, three wives to look after and also Baby Enoch. He was very proud of him but life wasn’t easy from the start.

They fought in the East and they fought in the West, they fought BC and AD and  all the fighting never stopped….so we could live the way we wanted to.…

A world at war from then till now… Tribal killings, Indians fighting, German death camps, Nubians at war and Eskimos, Africans and Irish, Americans and Vikings, Aztec, Stone Age man…..Koreans and Vietnamese…wars within wars. Terror and plight, torture and fright. Was it for power or was it for greed? To show  off his strength, was the  warring a need? What is it in us that war we do  choose?  And what are the reasons? The snake the excuse?

Like Enoch’s Dad John’s Father was a proud man when John was born, life wasn’t easy from the start and he’d fulfil the broken dreams when his time came and he grew up…

and

…young Captain John was a very lucky man when you thought about it,  he only lost his leg. He lost his leg through kindness in the troubles, war in Ireland. John was doing the driving that day, reconnaissance they called it, watching who was where but had a funny feeling and told the lad to take the wheel instead. The ambush came from nowhere. A grenade it was. Someone hurled it straight at them. Took the door right out and John’s leg too. The lad was fine but deep in shock, did what he could…the leg was shattered, and John bled but John was saved and told about what happened to a stranger. There were many who lost a leg or an arm or a life…he wept as he took the stranger’s hand, got up and took up his crutch and waved, quick as he could with a loud laugh to drive away the demons, he walked into his new life. Young Captain John was lucky when you thought about it…

It all began with murder and a club and man became ever more inventive how to hurt his brother…he invented spears and guns and bullets, tanks and bombs, chemicals weapon, viruses, bacteria to maim and kill. He gassed his brothers and his sisters and their young, he tortured them in prisons, hanged them by the neck till dead and caged them under water till they drowned. Man practiced war to show that he was the best, he was superior, he had the most no matter where he lived but left only sorrow and great sadness, loneliness and desperation in it’s wake…

War was exactly what they wanted.

There were too many of us then...


...was what's said...

It’s a brutal world

and

no mistake.

September Moon

September Moon

Catherine knew how to present herself.

She always knew just what to do and when.

Catherine knew what she thought right.

She was an only child and been taught early and taught well.

The Ladies’ Guide to hand when needed and Mama’s help when she was ready at all times.

A Parson’s daughter had to do things right and in a way that was expected…

…and after indulging too many sweet meats Catherine would consult the guide and bathe in Claret as was said to shed unwanted weight, infused with mint and sage and chamomile, not Papa’s claret for the church, not that…

She would have to take great care now as she was to marry, could not be scraggy or be fat with lily breasts for her betrothed to lose himself, not yet. She had been taught that when the children came it was harder every time one came to stay the sagging breasts…too much of a glimpse of cleavage after marriage might play havoc with ones reputation Catherine knew…but you were only young once and you wore your hair up high and pinched your cheeks as any make up was for the ladies who opened their shops when the merchants closed theirs and you bit your lips to make them red, wore floor length dresses and the prettiest shoes to show off an ankle when the moment was right….one had to be aware of all these things, alert and proactive at all times even when you were betrothed. Goose fat for the wobbly bits to stiffen them, add oil of lilies the Guide advised and pine oil to add and virgin’s wax as much as would stiffen the mass and apply to the languishing parts.

The Ladies’ Guide advised great caution when thinking of sex or talked of avoidance altogether as the consequence of raging lust was not without danger and quite, quite unmentionable.

Catherine learnt early what she was to do and it was not long after she was wed she was with child and with another child and with another. But alas, the joy of the first two babes did not last long but more came quite soon by name of Maurice and Susannah and of William. Her colour faded with the birthing and her lips grew pale, all her lotions and her potions did no longer of help and it was not for want of trying, biting her lips just made them split and sore  …and when yet another babe was on the way it was time to talk again to Amy Alcott, her trusted friend now, her confidente in ladies’ matters.

Amy never failed her when her time was near, she was ever ready at her side and came each time that she was called for. Along the hedgerows she’d walk then, day or night with a quick, firm step, stop and look back once in a while so she  knew she was not seen. She came even though Edmund protested that the thing to do now was to get a man to do the woman’s work as women were not very strong.

Amy got there every time but she knew that she must soon give it up, she knew there was no future in it anymore, men folk knew better now than she did and her kind. With instruments they would arrive when the pains gripped, where strong, small hands would have been kinder to turn a babe around that lost direction. It was many a cord that Amy severed with her teeth, now blunt and worn, bitten through them to taste the blood of every mother she delivered and clenched her teeth hard then till the cord stuck tight and no longer bled and delivered the new born into the arms of his mother. It was her time to go now, there was no doubt, for fear of the pyre, but not just yet, not before she had helped deliver Catherine of her weakling child, fair of skin and delicate, the child that smelled of peaches when he came. And they named the child Horatio.

The moon rose high, September moon, a harvest moon, one day to spare before October and Amy Alcott looked for omens. She recalled the babe’s first cry was no more than a sigh and now that her work was done and she packed up her bag, sighed and wrapped her shawl tight around her shoulders against the first night chills after the summer and she hurried over the field track back to her cottage as in daylight in the moonshine. The night was still now that the child was born and you heard the roaring of the sea close by.

Catherine bore a daughter next whom she named Ann and Suckling then and Edmund, George and Catherine and after that she died, worn out, too weary now to carry on to live and birth…and three years later Uncle Maurice, her dear brother, took young Nelson on aboard his ship to learn the life at sea…

Horatio knew how to present himself.

He knew what to do and when.

Horatio knew just what was right.

He was a weakling child and was taught early how to be.

And Uncle’s help to hand when it was needed at all times.

A Reverend’s son to do things right and in a way that was expected…

…and…

…he always acted as felt right, he said, without due regard to custom…

I see the wind

I see the wind

on silent wings she glides,

hangs in the sky

below cloud’s drift

I hear her morning cry.

I hear the call of the sea,

waves branding,

the whisper of sirens,

a song  on the wind.

and

the wind caresses your hair

and

as the tide turns 

she is all  eternity

she’s all that there is

and

all that there was

and

she’s all that  will ever be there

I hear the gull’s cry

below cloud’s drift

she hangs in the sky.

I

see

the

wind

Joni Mitchell Both Sides Now

Radiotherapy - article by Isla Whitcroft in the Daily Mail

Perched on a wooden bench inside a metal tank, surrounded by people shrouded in full-face hoods with oxygen pipes, Michael Charters could have been forgiven for thinking he had stepped on to the set of a sci-fi film.

In fact, the former publisher and businessman was in a decompression chamber receiving huge bursts of oxygen in an atmosphere twice the normal pressure - equivalent to being 40ft under the sea.

The aim of the treatment, known as hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBO), was to heal the internal damage caused to his bladder and bowel when he received radiotherapy for prostate cancer 17 years earlier.

'When my urologist suggested the therapy, I thought he was mad,' laughs Michael, 70, who lives in Devon. 'I'd never heard of it. But, as most people with significant and long- term radiotherapy damage will tell you, you will try anything to ease your symptoms.'

While radiotherapy is an effective cancer treatment - experts say it increases survival rates by about 50 per cent - it can damage healthy tissue around the tumour site.

Most vulnerable are the 12,000 patients a year who have pelvic irradiation for bowel, cervical and womb cancer, and those who are treated for head and neck cancers.

'We think that about 50 per cent of patients who undergo pelvic irradiation will suffer some radiotherapy damage,' says Dr Jason Lester, an oncologist at Velindre Cancer Centre, Cardiff.

'Some will simply suffer a change in bowel habits, but others may have distressing symptoms such as bowel ulcers, rectal bleeding, pelvic pain and a lack of bladder control. Some will need a blood transfusion, or even end up with a colostomy bag.

Dr Lester is one of a growing number of cancer specialists referring these patients for oxygen treatment.

HBO was first used in the Thirties to treat deep-sea divers suffering from decompression sickness and trapped air bubbles (the bends) but quickly it was noted that the treatment aided wound healing.

Dr Phil Bryson, director of the Diving Diseases Research Centre in Plymouth, where Michael had his therapy, says: 'The principle behind HBO is very logical.

'We know the protein which controls cell growth and healing depends on oxygen. HBO delivers a huge amount in a short time, and research shows it stimulates this protein to work more efficiently.

'This is particularly relevant when you consider that radiotherapy damage is characterised by the death of the blood capillaries, which feed oxygen to the damaged area.'

As these capillaries die, the cells get less blood, hence less oxygen. The cells die and a wound forms. Then the cells around the edges of the wound become damaged by the inflammation and they, too, die, causing the wound to enlarge. 'It's a vicious circle and there is little medical treatment.

However, in some cases, HBO can halt or reverse that process,' says Dr Bryson.

Michael Charter was one of those to benefit. After being diagnosed with prostate cancer, aged 53, he had a biopsy and his prostate was removed in 1993. 

Bitter sweet treatment: Radiotherapy kills cancer cells but also healthy tissue around a tumour

'The cancer had spread slightly outside the prostate,' he says. 'A biopsy showed that six per cent of the surrounding tissue contained cancer cells, but that was enough for my Harley Street specialist to order a huge dose of radiotherapy.'

Then, 15 years later, Michael began to suffer symptoms.

'My first symptoms were bladder leakage,' he says. 'Then the small leaks became large leaks, and suddenly I was wetting myself. I started using pads. I'd put one on in the morning and it might be full by lunchtime. There were accidents. It was clear something was badly awry.'

Michael's GP referred him to a urologist who said his situation was probably a side-effect of the surgery - and that little could be done.

'It was depressing,' says Michael, who is married to Ingka. 'From being sociable and outgoing, suddenly I was wetting myself, often in public. It was a terrible blow to my pride and self-esteem.'

Deterioration was rapid. Within weeks of the first symptoms, Michael had passed blood in his urine, was suffering from painful bouts of cystitis and had bowel problems.

His urologist suggested he begin using a catheter to empty his bladder. But he still had to sleep on rubber sheets and take changes of clothes with him when he went out.

'If I'd been consulted, I would have been hesitant about such a large dose of radiotherapy'

All these symptoms are text book radiotherapy damage. Yet no one told Michael exactly why these symptoms had appeared.

'I thought I was simply living with the effects of having had cancer,' he says. 'It wasn't until I was referred to my current urologist in the autumn of 2008 that I first heard about radiotherapy damage.

'My urologist told me that today I wouldn't have been given such a large amount of radiotherapy, and that they might have adopted a watch-and-wait regime.

'That made me angry. If I'd been consulted, I would have been hesitant about such a large dose.'

Michael's story is not unique. While the damaging side-effects of radiotherapy have been recognised for decades, until recently patients weren't told of the risk. Partly this is because of concern that patients may refuse treatment if they knew the risk of damage.

This attitude has left generations of radiotherapy patients struggling to get a diagnosis - let alone treatment - for their problems. However, the bleak truth is that even when the patient is properly diagnosed there is little that clinical or pharmaceutical medicine can do to help.

'The worst aspect of the condition is that it will probably get worse,' says Dr Lester.

'Some doctors have tried rectally administering steroids to calm any inflammation.

'Others prescribe anti-diarrhoea drugs. But none of these treatments have been properly researched and, in my experience, none of them really work. Some may even make things worse.

'On the other hand, HBO therapy offers the possibility of improvement. The worst that can happen is that there is no improvement at all.'

But, because relatively low numbers of radiotherapy damaged patients have received the treatment, and no results have yet been collated, there has been no definitive research to show the oxygen therapy can help. It is a situation that many clinicians find frustrating, as it means the treatment is not recognised by NICE.

Patients who wish to use it must apply for funding on an individual basis. Fortunately, this lack of research may be about to change. In a world first, a trial carried out at the Royal Marsden Hospital in conjunction with the Institute of Cancer Research is aiming to establish whether HBO therapy does reverse symptoms.

Michael believes he already has the answer to that question. Initially denied funding by his local health authority, after the intervention of his urologist the money was found for him to attend his first course of treatment in February 2009.

'I went for 40 treatments over five weeks, and then, this year, I had a top-up of 20 treatments over two-and-a-half-weeks. Each session lasts between two and three hours, which includes three half-hour sessions of breathing pure oxygen through a hood.

'The chamber often feels warm and your ears pop as it is decompressed. There is always a medically trained attendant and usually up to nine other patients in with me.

'Each time, the results were astonishing. My bowel problems disappeared completely within days, and although I still have to use a catheter and wear pads, I'm usually dry for a night.

'To someone who has never had to use pads, it is hard to explain just how wonderful that feels.

'I am aware that, because the radiotherapy damage is continuous, the benefits of the oxygen therapy will start to wear off after time, but I am due to go for another course next year, which I hope will continue this pattern of improvement.

'HBO has given me hope that I can reverse some of the worst effects. That is a priceless gift.'

14 September 2010

 

daylight robbery

daylight robbery

curtains moved...
...shadows behind the nets….

…men in a dark suits rang her bell but she would not open the door…and when they came
every day we knew something was wrong…


…and…


…then came the women brought by their men in large vans and black Mercs parked in the wrong places, not where they should but they didn’t care. Their voices were loud, their children loud too and their mothers wore headscarves in black, hiding their hair. They climbed the stairs, no lift, skipped down, never tiring, to put armloads into the van till it was bursting, strapped chairs up un top and then on to the next one, and special things into the cars. Sounds of laughter, frenzied footsteps echoed in the marble hallways…not what the curtained shadows liked, not tolerable, common this sort of thing, offensive to some who checked their geraniums in their window boxes for the tenth time…not wanting to be seen as watching…not nice…


I’ll have nothing to do with her one of them said….not any more…it’s all her own fault said another, and now look at her…


…too clever by halves, knew it all, have you seen all her books? And the paintings? You see the paintings? No clothes on in some…and no telly, no telly to watch, instead she would read…and what good did it do? All that knowledge and all that knowing…no one wanted to know what she knew and it was no good to anyone here. Her curtains were grey, not washed even once and she smoked all day long, drank whisky in bed…she had no friends here, not one, not at all like us…she just did not fit…had it coming she did…all her own fault…


Ulrich and Tanja, a judge in Ohio…
could I find the right one?
There were thousands of them.
Seventy four thousand by that name on the web…


I could be looking forever…


I know she exists but I could not find where she was. They disqualified her from her life, took it from her and sent her to an institution…


…Herta, who’d grown up in the country.


She lives somewhere still, locked up, no one knows where, no longer has her say, no longer exists… they took it all, so nothing was left…dismantled her life, took all that she had, her money and her belongings, all her collections and her photos, her memories and all the muddle of her living.

Herta collected all manner of things and she would part with nothing, not anything would she give away, she kept it all. And if she collated her collections in the beginning, in the end she failed to keep up with all that she collected. It was all too fast for her and time was running out…she could not keep up with herself, age was faster than she was, and in the end her things ruled her and all her life…not much time for reading even, eyes too heavy from the drink. Her flat a Rumpelkammer, her life a Rumpelkammer and worth nothing. They cleared it all away, all that there was, like gleaning the last flesh from old bones, the black scarved women who lived at the far end of town, sharing the spoils of poor Herta’s life.


Drawings of herself and prints of naked beauties they took and they dragged out her car and her silver and jewels, her hats and her dresses and all her shoes.


They disposed of her books, her Shakespeare collection, mein Kampf that Hitler had written and belonged to her Mum and her Dad, her china thrown out, lace cloths torn up – no one would buy that today – small antique tables and Tiffany lamps, her grandfather clock and a hundred baskets of knitting went to the tip. Her life unfurled for all to see like a movie going back in time…


The baskets she’d hung in the flat from hooks in the ceiling and from the back of every door and when there was no more room for hanging she put them wherever she could find a space. She never finished a piece, not finishing what she was making was the guarantee for more living…the baskets, all a glorious array of colours of bits of scarves and sweaters, of gloves and socks for someone one day in red and green and purple and some with sparkles to make them shine. Nothing was finished, nothing was done and the baskets were stacked…and each piece in a basket…


Herta was clever.
Herta was bright.
Herta was lonely.
Born out of her time.
No one believed her…
…no one believed what she said…


Simon, Rudi, Beth and Betty. Robert, Jim and Britta. Mac on Facebook. Alena on Twitter. Karl, the musician and Kevin who lived in New York. Russ and Joe and Kathy.Jami. Marietta in Cape Cod. I googled them all. Herta, the pilot, one of the first…but who believed who she was? She’d got the proof, she had told us and she’d got all the papers to show if we wanted to see but they were now gone, no longer of import, no longer real…


She sat in her chair and she smiled and she dreamed of her Mummy and Daddy and Rosa and Sis, all dead a long time and Opa whom she’d loved the best. And she saw them all, talked to them too and all thought her mad…she swayed back and forth and she smiled as she watched the carpet beneath her grow dark as the warm ran down her legs and spilled over her slippers…time for her tea…


They had all gone and now all was quiet and the curtains were drawn, all was as it was. Lights shone bright in the marbled halls, soaps were playing…everything as it should be….


I looked and I looked,
There were thousands of them.
Bernd, Tammy and Tay, Norbert and Sara, Kristin and Steffen and Laura…

 Could I find the right one?