The Dominant Storyteller
Robert was in a rush, he needed to catch the 16.55 connection at Peterborough or his carefully worked out connection strategy would have to be done on the hoof. Travelling home to the north, now he lived in the east of England, frequently become tortuous in both time and endurance. He described it as being like fighting to get out of one poorly connected backwater only to re-enter another. So five hours and climbing was feasible, dependent on whether an interchange was met or missed. Hopefully he'd find a seat, and not have to perch precariously on a drop down ledge between carriages for most of the journey.
This length of time had its uses. He read, if he was on an Inter City, or looked out meditatively at the terrain, if it were the sideways rocking of a Regional. Luck was with him, he'd found a seat unreserved by a window. Maybe he could relax for a while, but found he was steeling himself for being around his family. The thoughts tumbled around. Similar to bread making when all the ingredients never quite bond or rise much. More the experience of eating a pitta bread than a white bloomer.
He was in the right space for recollections. They sped through his mind. Aligning themselves with whatever half blurred landscape was passing outside the train window. As though he were flicking through a well thumbed picture book. His attention skipped over lovelier affectionate memories. Lingered on the regrets and grievances of things past, or opportunities missed. Whenever his attention fell upon his destination, of 'home', he sighed. As though trying to expel feelings too deeply embedded within him.
Living away I've found my own groove. These visits don't always cause a warm cosy glow in the heart. All the sensations of constriction return. My sense of myself shifts, reverts to a more inhibited way of being me. One I thought I'd broken out of. It reminds me why deliberately living as far away as possible, came about in the first place. Distance is a good thing. To not be boxed in, prejudged, examined, frowned, worried and tutted over.
After a weekend Robert often left feeling everything he chose to do in life just disappointed. Reinforcing impressions built from childhood onward, that whatever he did was predestined to go wrong. Most of the struggles he'd had with himself, were rooted here. Today he was bodily holding himself in readiness. He really did have to talk to them. He'd not found a way to seize the moment and speak yet. Fearful of adding further fuel to that feeling of who he was not being acceptable.
Maybe this time would be the right time. On his arrival, there'd be a very small opening to seize, where the imperative was to say all that he needed to say. Before the tea plates had been washed, dried and cleared away. After that he'd not be able to speak of himself for pretty much the rest of the weekend. Being 'talked at', not with. His train seat was uncomfortable, the head rest apparently made for someone a few inches taller than him. Nonetheless he fell into snoozing in his seat for a while. Till the carriage heaved and lurched suddenly, the train brakes loudly squealing like a pig.
For a brief half awake moment, I heard the phone ringing in the communal lobby of my first London bedsit. Phone calls home were weekly then. I needed familiar voices. That regularity fell away. I never shook off the guilt, of the bad son failing in his duty. Though there was always a lopsided sense of duty going on there. My parents never phone me - unless someone has actually died - I've always had to phone them. No reciprocal responsibility to keep in touch. It was as though, because I was the one who'd moved away from home, the onus was entirely on me to ring them.
The train hurtled into the pitch darkness of a tunnel on the Retford approaches, his ears popped. Firing off a startled 'fuck' under his breath. Inwardly a rebellion against chasing approval or other peoples expectations of him raged. He reminded himself he was no angel, not perfect at all. No family has ever been perfect. Saying all this to himself rather unconvincingly. Recently he'd met the families of friends. It had been a bit of an eye opener regarding parenting. Forced the odd comparison or two.
My parents are kind hearted people. I have my 'beef ' with them. Put up against real abusive parental neglect, it is petty. It's not what they have done, more what they didn't. I'm ashamed of my resentfulness. It isn't fair. The omissions, they weren't conscious. There's hurt there nonetheless. Despite the rationalisations, it does not go away. I needed something from them. I still do.
He saw exactly what that was during a recent visit to a friend's rather 'alternative' bohemian parents. So resolutely upbeat, positive, care free, full of joie-de-vivre. Responding openly and encouragingly, taking an active interest in whatever their sons and daughters were making of their lives. It felt fun and uplifting just to be around them. Absent from his family's gritty northern zeitgeist, was any encouragement of self- belief, the expression of positive appreciation or unconditional affirmation of the overt kind.
His parents ideas about what would make him happy, were founded on the conventions of their own lives. These were not his. So far, he was forging his own, albeit haphazard and improvised path. Probing comments, suggestive of criticism held a cautionary restraint warning following in their wake. Worried he was being foolhardy or unrealistic over the risks he was taking. Reminding him of the need to think practically. His parents loved and had pride in him. It was just expressed in a code, one you'd have to learn how to decipher in order to access. Laid out in the semaphore of photos spread around the house.
Mother's judgements tend to cut deep, even if they come camouflaged in a light hearted tone or fond mickey taking. I heard them as put downs. Not permitted to be big headed, proud or boastful of following my dreams. I became determined to live my own life. Doing exactly what I wanted. Independent and self-sufficient. If I could've brought myself to live an extravagant, full on drug fueled, hedonistic life, I would have. Simply to put one finger up. But I was brought up too well. too good a dutiful son for the full debauchery.'
Whenever things didn't turned out successfully, a fatalistic sense of failing as a man overwhelmed him. He'd then have a compelling feeling, he needed to move on quickly, as far away as possible from whatever caused the despair to arise in the first place. He tried not to let his parents hear, see or get a whiff of any of this. If they were to find out the real nature and cause of his moodiness he didn't think he could bear their response.
The self-sufficiency was a cover. It was hard to ask for help, to express what he wanted, because - 'he who wants does not get' as the maternal mantra went. Requests in his family had to be delivered toned down, inferred via an indirectly asserted preference - 'that would be nice, were it to to happen' Behind this, an apprehension that requests for help, for wants and needs to be met, was high risk. He expected to be admonished or ridiculed. To avoid all of this he strongly asserted he was perfectly capable of managing his life completely on his own, thank you.
Acquaintances who'd met his family remarked on how amiable they were. This was true. One had a very convivial conversation with his Mother lasting quarter of an hour at the most. Afterwards, when recounting his impressions he said he was in receipt of a none stop stream of stories concerning Robert, not all of them flattering. Subtly belittling, how he was, what he'd done, one tale after another. Rolling out amused recollections of what a silly stupid boy he had been when younger. A collective shaking of the head at the strangeness of her prodigal son. It was intended to be affectionate, not remotely humiliating or hurtful. Simply publicly staking her claim, as his Mother, to tell you exactly what her son was really like. In case your impressions of him differed. The friend said :-
'If my Mother had talked publicly like that about me, I'd be so furious.. How can you remain so patient?'
But what he saw as being patient, was really a well rehearsed passivity. A way of coping with it, of not letting it get to you.
As a youngster I was quiet, withdrawn, lacked confidence. Instead of encouraging me to talk up in public situations, my Mother would step in and talk for me. Telling anyone present what I had done, felt or had plans to do. I'd sit silently to one side, as if I'd been born without a mouth or mind of my own. She continued to do this when I was a teenager, even when I'd grown up. I'd publicly to shame her by saying - 'I am in the room and I can talk for myself' - to stop it continuing. Sometimes I'm just not up for a tug-o-war over who tells the stories about my own life. It's easier to stay shtum and let it all float on by like a boat on a river.
Its a tactic his Father had adopted for the entire length of his marriage. Harold was spoken for too. Everyone knew he had underdeveloped conversational skills. Little small talk at all. It was partly down to personal laziness. So much easier to hand over command of the social reins to Joan. Like many wives whose husbands were poor communicators and hence totally useless in mixed company, she was forced into filling in the social gaps. His Mother overcompensated and further exacerbated the problem by entirely drowning out any male voice or active presence.
It is no wonder my Father is a bit of a mystery to me. Hardly any prolonged, meaningful conversations I can remember. Though I now recognise habits and individual quirks in myself, I've obviously picked up from him. Once I asked my Father a direct question, just to get him to talk about something he'd recently been doing. He'd hardly completed his, admittedly stumbling, first sentence when my Mother butted in and took over relaying what had happened. At this point I pulled her up -
'I was asking Dad to tell me, and you've just taken over'.
For a moment or two there was a gob struck silence, embarrassment all round, before Mother responded -
'Well..........he'll never tell the story right'.
If there was passivity in my family, it was only partially strategic. It was also an imposition, demanded by her habit of needing to be in charge of the family narrative, to be the dominant storyteller.
As the fourth train of his long journey pootled along the track that led to his final stop, his hands visibly clenched. The routine of the next few hours he knew by heart. After the welcoming warm hug, the kiss, the passing inquiry about the quality of his journey, would be followed by that brief window of opportunity over tea. After this they'd relocate to the lounge. The TV would be switched off, his Mother's way of signalling to making ready for the mega download. Everything she could remember had happened to her, his Father, sister, nieces, cousins, the broader family, or in the village, since he'd last visited. Retold in one seamless unbreakable associative flow, literally hours of it. Occasionally she'd ask a polite inquiring question of him, but his active engagement with the storytelling would last barely a minute before it would be whisked away and taken off in another direction.
She complains I don't tell her much about my life down south. That I'm being willfully secretive. Its exasperating. There are many things I've certainly been unable to give voice to. Though the truth is I have tried to say more about my life, repeatedly, and am still up for trying. But so far, not much sustained interest in what I do or have to say, has ever been allowed to go anywhere self revealing. What else could I do? They appear not to want to get to know what makes me tick anymore. I'm more relatable to them as a six year old who twice flooded the bloody bathroom, than who I am now.
As the train pulled into the single empty platform, he looked to see if in the twilight he could spot his Father's car. Yep, there he was standing by it, good old dependable Dad. Dressed in a cheap cardigan and baggy tracksuit bottoms, topped off with a dirty flat tweed cap, one size too small. Clothes he'd probably worn all week and his Mother would have urged him to change out of before 'our Robert arrives'. That he'd turned up in public at the rail station still in them, would both annoy and mortify her. There was a quite deliberate intent behind this. It was one of his Father's small rebellions.
'Maybe this time, you'll be lucky' Robert sang playfully to himself as he got up from his seat. Picking up his travel holdall, he slung it over his shoulder and urging himself forward with a - 'Well, here we go then'
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