FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Part 3 The Dropping Well

Getting It Wrong

Brenda was surprised by the letter from Robert when it arrived on her doormat. She hadn't heard a dickey bird from him in, oh goodness, it must've been decades. And then this. Wanted to come and see her, or at least a phone call, there was something he needed to talk to her about. Joan had been dead for quite a few years and Harold had gone only last year, or was it the year before?. Brenda, was in her nineties, physically frail, but still with all her marbles, though fast becoming the only one left of her generation. She wrote back, picked one of the dates Robert had suggested to visit, and wondered -  why get back in contact now?

As he walked through an unfamiliar town trying to locate Auntie Brenda's flat, that he'd never been to before, Robert felt understandably nervous - what was it exactly he needed to speak to her about?. In the time since his Father died, something had begun to really niggle away at him. Gaps in his understanding over childhood incidents opened up. Then there was his problematic self-esteem, where the hell had that all come from? Into these vacant spaces he was prone to insert plausible explanations, attribute blame, that may or may not be true. He was in danger of creating an entirely false memory simply in order to explain these personal conundrums. Now both his parents were dead there was no one else to ask, only Auntie Brenda.

She might have a clearer perspective, because she was not a blood relation. One of his favourite Aunties and his Mother's closest friend Auntie Brenda was the living antidote to his family - fun and freedom loving, always feisty, opinionated, she spoke honestly and from the hip. He still gravitated toward men or women who were like that, they felt like a breath of fresh air to him. At some point she and his Mother had had a big fall out - hadn't spoken for years. His Mother tended to skip quickly over why, as she did whenever it came to emotionally difficult issues. A veil would be drawn, never to be pulled back, ever ever again. There were passing remarks in the ensuing years like - 'Your Auntie Brenda thought you were self centred and we indulged you too much'  But he'd assumed at the time this was just one of his Mother's tactics of using other people's comments to say what she felt she could not, just to needle him. But he might be wrong there.

When Brenda opened her door, there was this very familiar face. Robert was still recognisably Robert, even though she'd last seen him in his thirties. He was way past middle aged, probably on the cusp of retirement she thought. Shaved head, beard, tall, well dressed, quietly handsome beneath the wrinkles, still with that wry smirk with the playful mischievous glint to it.

Joan used to go on and on about how much like her he was. Brenda could never quite see it, she always saw an awful lot more of Harold there. Whether any of this was true or not, it was Joan's insistence on it that always felt a bit off, not quite right. It had felt cloying and unnecessary.  Robert, as she saw him now, he had a more self possessed air than she remembered him having even thirty years ago. He'd inherited the rock solid square build of his Father and the tall gentlemanly stature of his Grandfather. Only in the eyes could you see faint echoes of his Mother; slightly anxious, awkwardly self-conscious. They looked weary as if the weight of perception itself had grown too much for them.

'Come in ,come in, lovely to see you after all this time. I'm tempted to say you haven't changed much, but that would be untrue, you're a bit fatter than I remember.'

'And you're smaller and your hair colour has gone as steely as your tongue. Lovely to see you too, Auntie Brenda'

They continued to joke and did general social chit chat for a while, but as they settled down with a cup of tea and fruit cake, he needed to somehow turn the conversation in the general direction he wanted it to go.

'How did you originally meet my Mother'

'Oh, that was at secretarial college. We used to say we bonded over the shorthand. Your Mother was a very different person then, extremely quiet, so shy... wouldn't say boo to a goose, had little self confidence to speak of, anything new or unexpected tended to throw her into a spasm of heightened anxiety. That would change really radically later on. Mainly in that you couldn't shut her up or get a word in edge-ways. You know what she could be like'

'When did that change begin to happen do you think?

'After her breakdown, without a doubt.'

'Breakdown! - when was that?'

'She was confined to bed for months, surely you remember'

'I remember the confinement. Dad told us it was 'nervous exhaustion'  But neither of us really understood what that was, we were too young. Susan would've been eight or nine, I was a few years younger'

'Nervous exhaustion' was a convenient euphemism, it saved face. Mental difficulties were kept secret in those days, there was a certain amount of unhelpful shame and prejudice attached to them. Not like today when any minor celebrity wants their psychological problems splashed across the media, like a merit badge to prove their essentially human. Shame has been replaced with shameless, if you ask me. No one appears to know what having a private life is. They ought to try keeping it to themselves more.

'What was it brought this on... the breakdown that is. I've never been clear when exactly that happened.'

'Oh........it happened during the year after..... yes, the year after you flooded the bathroom for the second time....whatever year that was - 1963? 64?.

Robert visibly taken aback, had no recollection of it being quite as close as that - so as to follow on - it made sense.

'I don't know whether either of you really realised how much anxiety your Mother held inside her. She found it hard being a Mother, particularly in your early years. Your Father tried his best, - you know him, kind, thoughtful and loveable - but emotionally incapable of really dealing with it, of talking it through with her. The pressure of Motherhood, the cooking, the cleaning, the general housework, it soon got on top of her. She eventually developed her own way of coping, of overcoming difficulties and set backs. Mostly by trying to control everything and everyone. But the breakdown, well, it was as though she was a runner that ran out of road, and she just ground to a halt, she had to stop... stop everything'

'That was when Susan and I started doing the cooking and cle0aning around the house'

'And that didn't stop after she got better did it?'

'No, we just carried on doing it. It was how the family functioned from then on. I believe it did us both good'

'That was certainly true. But it continued primarily because your Mother couldn't manage it.... emotionally that is. She was a perfectionist who got overwhelmed by the sheer unrelenting nature of maintaining an immaculate home and family, and of feeling judged on it by others. That pressure unbalanced her. Though she'd never have admitted it to anyone. I think she wanted more from her life, but was unable to allow herself to even explore that idea. She didn't have the self confidence or wherewithal to do it. Brought up, like we all were then, to be a very conventional person.  She avoided risky behaviour and disapproval'

'Do you mind if I ask you a direct personal question'

'No, go ahead, you know me, not easily shocked or offended, more likely to cause it myself I've found'

'Why did you and Mum fall out?'

Brenda gazed up at the ceiling as if seeking divine inspiration for her recollection. She didn't want to speak ill of Robert's Mother, even if it might be warranted.

'When you gave up your shop and went to live in that commune, or whatever it was. She rang me, giving me all the usual stuff about how I wished you upon her. After thirty plus years of friendship I'd just about had enough of that being thrown back at me every time she got upset or fearful over something you'd decided to do. So, I'm ashamed to say, I let her have it'

'What on earth did you say?

Brenda paused for a moment, should she, should she really tell this?  She sighed-  no more caution and withholding - before any second or third thoughts might recommend maintaining silence - it was out

'I said..... something along the lines of - 'Don't you go blaming me if your son has become self centered, you've over indulged him most of his life because you still feel guilt about the appalling way you treated him in the time after he flooded the bathroom. I'm not going to let you off load responsibility for all that on me any more Joan'.  She slammed the phone down on me. I didn't speak to her again for another ten, fifteen years, no letters, cards, no phone calls, nothing'

'How was she with me in that time ...after I flooded the bathroom?'

'That incident appeared to crush her, to destabilise her spirit. She would not leave you be. Following you around like a bird of prey ready to pounce on anything you might do that might be dangerous to you, to your sister, the house or the entire universe for that matter. She was so on your case, trying to control you every hour, all day and every day. You could hardly breathe without censure or comment. It was painful to observe and impossible to get her to stop doing. In the end it was the breakdown that brought the intensity of it to a halt'

Robert dropped his head, running his hand back and forth across the stubble on his scalp over to his neck. He only vaguely remembered bits of that, but those bits rang clearer now they were in their true setting. Buried somewhere in the messy aftermath of his flooding of the bathroom, his Mother had more than slightly lost the plot. He felt himself mentally grasping for something. At such times he found it better to just open his mouth and start talking. Hoping that once he began giving voice to it, understanding might follow.

'So the constant unbroken talking.....what was that? .....was that a way of.......what? ......jamming the airwaves?'

'Something like that. No one can contradict you if they can't get a word in edge ways, or tell you events weren't really like that, or of things you don't want to hear.....can they?

'Mum used to loath silence - 'it's like a reading room in a library here' - she'd say, as if there was something inherently wrong about that. Then very pointedly launch unto recounting another convoluted story'

'Silence is an uncomfortable space for a lot of people. Things emerge when we fall silent, forgotten things. You can hear the truth of situations. Your Mother kept a tight rein on the telling of the family stories,  afraid they'd literally run out of her control otherwise. I'm certainly of the opinion that she found it hard to see you, in particular, for who you actually were.'

There then followed a long silent pause. Robert looked at his Auntie Brenda, Brenda looked at Robert - he began to cry. She saw then in that face all the painful thoughts and wracked feelings as they briefly flashed across it. Here was one unforseen consequence.

'Look, Robert..... I understand who you are, I know you're gay, that doesn't bother me in the least. It was I who first voiced the possibility to your Mother, though she was almost half way there herself. Your Father took his time, at first he didn't want to know, but that denial evaporated after a while. They both loved you regardless, don't you ever doubt that. 

If anything was wrong it was within your Mother, not with you. She saw herself in you too strongly, she feared for what else you might have inherited from her. In her mind she'd made you into her mirror and then didn't like it when all she could see was her own emotional and mental struggles being reflected back.' 

His parents, yes, they'd made errors in judgement, made mistakes. He'd made mistakes too, he understood that. One's he'd periodically punished himself for years later. Quite often what he'd chosen to do or not do in his life was not a pure stream of rational choices. He'd often been far too instinctively impulsive. The life he'd led was riddled with inconsistencies, lapses in judgement, moral cowardice, unexplained gaps and unforgivable omissions in behaviour, as well as the fun, adventures and triumphs. So what, if not everything his parents had bequeathed him was helpful, he didn't have to continue feeling responsible for any of that. To forgive ? Far too early to say.

Here he was, now concocting his own versions of the family stories. But these were real human beings, people whose lives were never a work of well crafted fiction where everything got wrapped up neatly and resolved by the end. Similar to his parents, he'd leave behind a lot of love tangled up in the mess of his own contradictions. To depart this world with his life a flawed and incomplete work in progress, like every single person throughout human history.

As he was about to leave Auntie Brenda looked him straight on, taking him in.  

'Maybe, just maybe...you are like your Mother.....just a teeny weeny bit, just there right above your...... left earlobe.'

She gestured vaguely in the air, then touched his arm affectionately.

'You know, when I first met your Mother she made a beeline for me. She felt, as did I, we were kindred spirits, becoming inseparable pals very quickly.  I was three years older, more experienced in the whys and wherefores of the world. Your mother clung to my every word, she was a little in awe, even a bit dependent upon me. It was as though I was this big sister that would always be there to help her out.

That changed once she married your Dad, had you and your sister.  The nature and dynamic of our friendship altered. When my husband died tragically young, it meant I was never going to have any children of my own. I remained quite bitter about it for many years. Quite cynical. Your Mother was there, she listened, was considerate and kind. Allowing me to actively share in some of the experiences, the joys and love of being around you as a sort of surrogate family, for which I feel eternally grateful.'

Leaning over the banister as he departed, she called after him down the stairwell.

'Don't leave it so long.... one of us might be dead.'

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Part 2 The Dropping Well

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'

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Part 1 The Dropping Well

The Familial Knife

Brenda remembered how she had listened patiently, made consoling noises etc. For what else could she have done? It wasn't as if she could've just popped round, held her hand or given her a reassuring hug. Her friend Joan needed to off load, relieve a bit of the maternal pressure she felt, the whole gamut of stresses and tensions that had festered and built up over time. That particular emotional dam burst with 

'You wished him on me, you can have him. I'm at my wits end - the limit - I can't cope anymore. - you can have him - just take the little horror away' 

Joan's voice, that had been shadowing the sense of her own upset, cracked and immediately collapsed into uncontrollable sobbing at the other end of the phone line. Though Joan wasn't serious in wanting to dispatch her son Robert for Brenda to bring up, it was not emotionally insignificant either.

Robert in reality, was no harder to bring up than any boy his age would have been. He was six, shy, sensitive, and quite prone to dewy eyed daydreaming. Living the charmed life in a realm ruled entirely by magic. A place where water may overflow, but no lasting harm was ever done. It was the world as depicted in a Loony Tunes cartoon. And yet on this day of the 'bathroom incident' the full naivety of his childish imaginings had literally been torn down.

Leaving the taps running in the bath Robert had gone back to his room. He'd become distracted enjoying playing with his car collection. Forgetting that on the floor beneath a mounting swell of water was about to spill over the boundary of its cream bath ware. This would not even be the first, but the second time, he'd flooded the bathroom.  All human repetitions prove fatal. They create a pattern in the mind of others, a way of judging a person through past behaviour they'll rarely be permitted to escape, let alone transcend. The 'habit' here would forever trap Robert in the absent mindedness of himself as a six year old child.

Harold had just installed the new Formica faced cupboards and surfaces in the kitchen. Being particularly proud of the serving hatch knocked through to the dining room next door. He fitted these home interior improvements into his spare evenings, or whenever paid work went quiet. Joan was on his case, because she was the one who had to cope with preparing meals amidst the dust and detritus of his half completed endeavours. They were then both relieved, as well as chuffed, when this particular decorating project was finished. The near constant pressure from his wife would now cease, at least for a while. Though he knew from experience that Joan would soon be lining up another job for him, just as soon as the pleasure from this one had abated.

The kitchen refit had been finished barely a few days. He'd been out on a job when his customer called him to his phone and said bluntly, 'It's your wife'. At the end of the line Joan was so distraught as to be almost incomprehensible. He'd better return home pronto. Fortunately he was no more than ten minutes drive away. But those ten minutes might as well have been hours, as he concocted all sorts of dreadful scenarios. None of this quite prepared him for what would be revealed when he opened the back door and viewed his kitchen. 

The ceiling had collapsed and most of it had fallen to the floor, everywhere was drenched in plastery water and underfloor detritus hung from the ceiling like dirty washing. Water still dripping down from the bathroom above. It was reminiscent of the Dropping Well in Knaresborough where anything left hanging there would over decades gradually turn to stone. The newly finished kitchen lay drenched and warped all around him. He was to remember the look on Joan's face for a long time, too emotionally drained to be incandescent with rage, yet so internally broken into multiple pieces by despair. 'I don't know what to do. At the moment I wouldn't feel safe to be left in the same room.... I could murder him'  

Joan herself had been brought up a single child, her parents so devotedly loved her they'd unwittingly suffocated her with their care. She was for them this delicate valuable child who they'd striven to keep from harm. If she ate anything that gave her a slight upset stomach, she'd never be allowed to eat it ever again. These small but telling constraints upon her, made her imagine how much easier it would be if she had a sister, someone to take the pressure off being the precious and only one. That sister never came.

Soon after she and Harold had had their daughter Susan, their thoughts went to the next child and what gender they'd like it to be. Joan wanted Susan to have the sisterly companion she'd so missed, nay longed for, in her own childhood.  Harold, who'd been brought up within the competitive rivalry of a mixed brood of eight siblings, professed not to mind, but certainly wanted no more than two children of his own.

The pregnancy that followed miscarried, largely as a consequence of Joan's post natal state lingering on in the form of a heightened level of anxious distress. She worried excessively about not being a good enough Mother for Susan, of getting it right, and feeling the future was pressing down upon herself, due to this need within her for the next child to be a girl too. This emotional strain, surrounded by the circumstantial aura of not really knowing the outcome for a whole nine months, proved too much for the as yet unborn.

The miscarried baby had indeed been a girl, which when she was told had thrown Joan deeper into profound melancholia. She mourned for many months, until she found herself pregnant again. Brenda, recognised that her friend was immediately slipping back into the same unhelpful mindset that had preceded the failed pregnancy. So she tried to lighten the mood by jokingly suggesting, in her characteristically flippant off hand manner, that she was certainly hoping, nay ardently wishing for it to be a boy. A phrase later to be thrown back at her. Haunting their friendship every time Robert did something his Mother disapproved of.

Brenda had just wanted the child, whatever gender it turned out to be, to not have to emerge into the world under any pressure to fill the aching void their own Mother had prepared for them. Harold, as was typical of him, had kept silent agreement with this. For he wanted a son to carry on the family name with, but dared not voice that preference too assertively for fear of the upset that might trigger another bought of depression in his wife.  Then Robert was born. 

Anyone watching gallons of water cascading through a collapsed ceiling and ruining all that lay beneath it, would have had their heart broken. But Joan knew this had happened the instant the nurse told her 'it's a boy'. She hoped she'd concealed her disappointment sufficiently well. Once she got over this sense of loss, she told herself, she would eventually learn to love the thought of having a son. She understood instinctively what it was to be a girl, and Susan was turning out to be such a happy contented child, helpful and kind hearted. Everything you might wish for, Susan had been. She was no trouble at all. But a boy? This left her feeling bewildered - how could she make the best of what she'd not anticipated, but now delivered into the world? 

Harold's busy work schedule and, it has to be said hands off way of being a Father, meant responsibility for upbringing would largely fall back on her. Whenever she needed a masculine presence and guidance about how best to respond to Robert's behaviour, Harold would literally or emotionally, not be there. Even when he was around all he would say was 'Oh, he's just being a boy, let him alone'  Avoiding meeting her on the level of her distress, at the very moment her love for their son felt unstable or challenged. 

It was never wholly true that Harold did not care, because he did. His ability to care was demonstrable, but primarily through the making and physical building of things for others. If unable to do that he was at a bit of a loss, Asking him to hold a conversation rarely worked. It was completely the wrong language, a different, difficult skill set, that he did not have an easy access to. Yes, to a frequently anxious woman this was deeply frustrating at times like this one. But Harold was steady and dependable. She loved him, and married him, full knowing he was temperamentally incapable of meeting some of her needs. That, she imagined, was what her female friends were for.

Whilst it remained a swaddled infant, she could pretend the baby Robert was no different to Susan. It needed to be loved, kept clean, safe and have its nappy changed, this she already knew how to do. Once it started to walk, that was when things started to get trickier when her emotional responses and desire to control and direct kicked in. She found it difficult to stop herself thinking of her baby boy as 'it'. It did things too her. Aged two, Robert liked nothing better than to get its hands really dirty by burying its hands deep in the soil, the muddier the better, of their back garden. Later it loved climbing up on top of the back wall, or any wall for that matter. By the time it was four, it had already fallen from a great height twice and had the hospital visits and cranial scars to prove this. 

The self help books on child rearing they'd read before Susan was born, had encouraged them to be consistent in how they chose to respond to good or bad behaviour, whether the perpetrator was your son or your daughter. Out of a desire not to too tightly control the children's play, they'd decided both children could use each other's toys. Robert could play with Susan's dolls and Susan with Robert's cars, if they wanted to. But Robert not only hurled the dolls across the room, but also ripped off cloths, tore out limbs, decapitated heads and pulled out eyes. This was not taking respectful care of the things the child was given, and this annoyed Joan intensely. Not least because toys were not cheap and the money to replace them wasn't always available.

Robert, however, loved his red metal tricycle to bits, because it was the first thing that gave him an expanding sense of freedom. He filled up the boot with stones and rode it, with great accompanying cacophony, up and down the pavement from one end of the street to the other. Then, most disconcertingly, started to venture further out. A neighbour reported back that they'd seen Robert blithely cycling the tricycle across the broad and busy road junction at the end of their street. Unaware of the risks he was taking, yet single-mindedly following the desire to go on adventures, to explore the world beyond the back streets and snickets near home. Particularly the abandoned railway cutting on the other side of that junction. Robert didn't recognise the dangers or unforeseen consequences. He was a child, inexperienced in the outside world, but led by a curiosity about it.  For Joan, Robert was becoming the living breathing source for every worry she had. And now he had flooded the bathroom - again. 

It wasn't that Joan was completely oblivious to how her attitude towards Robert crinkled around the edges. She knew she felt love, but also a fatigued type of alienation. To counter this, she took herself - her own motivations and temperament and overlay these onto Robert. Now, he would be easier to understand. Repeating constantly to anyone who'd listen, how much like her Robert was, not just in appearance but in sensibility and personality. Re-conceiving him as this cloned replica of herself appeared to work. Though you never needed an expert in genetics to tell you whose son he was.

However, whenever Robert made a mistake or got something wrong in his Mother's eyes, those other less loving resentful feelings towards him re-erupted. Robert often would wonder as he heard his Mother coming up the stairs to his attic bedroom - 'will this be good Mummy or bad Mummy?'  Joan, once aroused by her frustration to a contained anger, would tend to recount the complete litany of Robert's past failures to be 'a good boy', pouring them out in infinitesimal detail to him.

This long lineage of his wrongs and past stupidities could not be interrupted, invariably concluded with the second bathroom flooding. It had become through repetition one of those family stories which, through being so frequently recounted in an almost fond manner, felt as though it had been dealt with, done, successfully neutered. But in reality it just no longer revealed the gremlin that still lived within it. 

For Robert, this story was a familiar but subtle knife that would get stuck back into the old wound, to be given yet another twist. The rest of the family hardly noticing the hurt hardwired into its retelling anymore. So when his Mother retold to Robert the words she'd originally said to Brenda - " You wished him on me, you can have him.' - she never imagined the emotional ricochet this caused.  For it held within it a painful unspoken implication.

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Teatime at Dottie & Reg's

'She can be right odd.......  other day she wer out, shopping in Demaines, fura loaf a bread, cake and the like. So she'd not gone far, just round corner. and you'd a thought she'd a left a chip pan on. Elsie says she ran out of her shop fast as a bullet, came back five minutes later as if nothin happened. All flushed in face, rasping breathin, but not a word of explanation.'

'Ah, but Mum, when I wer round there last week. I found a pan in the kitchen bin with a hard boiled eggs cremated in bottom that looked like the water ad boiled completely dry. She is gettin forgetful.'

'Well, you can't say its cos she spends too much time on her own. Ida wer sayin to me that recently she's been round hers at sometime, almost every day - every day! When yr best friend starts complaining, sumats not right'

'Being on your own after living all your life with you're Mother, it must be quite a change.... do you think she's OK?'

'Its always hard to tell with her, you'd think after all those years of being Mother's carer it would be liberating....... Its become quite a regular thing for her to conveniently turn up just that little bit before lunch or teatime, never after it starts, cos that would be to intrude. Its not that she can't afford to feed herself. Pensions way more generous than mine. She's done this a lot to us..... a lot - aint she Reg.?'

'I - she knew our Brenda wer coming round for tea last Satday, so who turns up half hour afore teatime, little miss Maureen.  Always bringing something thoughtful for our Dot, a knitting pattern , wool or cake from chapel bezzare. 'Oh, are you about to ave tea', she'll say all innocent like. Expectin I'll be kind and ask er to stay,  If am feelin that way out I just say 'I we are' and leave it at that. You should see look on er face. But I don't like it when our generosity is taken for granted.'

'She knows you and our Harold are here, so she'll be boobin up here afore long......Anyway, what'd you fancy for tea, I've gotta bit a ham, pork pie or corned beef, all with a bita salad, I don't quite stretch to making  quiche yet ... not over fond o foreign food are we Reg?. 

'No, we aren't, pasta!- egh!- tasteless baby food'

'Made a fruit cake this morning cos I knew u wer comin '

'Ham sounds all right to me....your brother will eat anything you put in front of him......won't you?

'Eh?.....Am easy'

'The cake your Mum's recipe?'

'Tis'

'Mother were good at bakin, but cookin food, Sunday roasts and the like, well, they were always bit spartan, never looked as though there wer much on plate shall we say'

'Not just the plates wer cold either! '

'I think she niver quite got over rationing'

'She could always make room for a cake, like everyone else in this family'

I'll plate up some ham later on .. do you want a cuppa now or after?

I'm fair partched Mum, I could down a quick cuppa tea, then I'll be headin off. Steve's mindin kids, but he has a job to go round and cost up'

'Aren't you stoppin to see your Auntie Maureen ?'

'No Dad, I get more than my share of her round mine too you know'

'But first thing she'll say will be, 'our Julie not here then?' and throw her self in that armchair, little legs stickin out like a dolls'

'Oooh, stop it Reg, be kind'

We wouldn't mind a cuppa tea, would we Harold'

'I'

'He'll have cake too'

How is yr Mum Joan?'

Still fine, settling in to the home, its difficult for anyone, but at her age'

'Loosing yr independence must be hard'

'Well, she's never any trouble, she's always there sitting in the same armchair, every time we go, chatting, smiling away, not a care in the world.'

'Must be a relief for you to know she's been looked after so well'

'Tis'

'Must dash Mum, great to see you all.... Bye'

'Such a credit to you both.'

'She's been very helpful to Maureen, pops round see how shes' doin, often does shoppin in town for er. Not that Maureen shows appreciation.......she's not really the grateful type. To be fair, she has helped Julie out with the kids occasionally. Brings all her Brown Owl experience to bear' 

'Whether they like it or not'

'Do you think she has any plans for that house?'

'Well, strictly speaking whole family owns it. We agreed she can live there for as long as she wants. She's hardly altered anything as yet, just occasionally runs up a new pair o curtains n matchin cushions.'

'Still can't tear her away from her sewing machine then?'

Oh no Joan, she'll regularly appear in something she ran up overnight. She never were a great sleeper even when she were younger, so she does a lot of it late at night. Good job Mother were deaf, must drive her neighbours bonkers'

'Sewin yourself a wardrobe runs in family. Auntie Edith used to make her own cloths. She'd make some right garish concoctions. We dreaded what she'd come dressed in to our wedding, didn't we Reg.'

'Pink and green, like a carnation, if I remember rightly.'

'Her colour choices were there 'inspired by nature'.......(sarcastically) so she said....I think she were colour blind actually'

'U oh, I can see her, she's at the crossroads. Get out an extra plate Dottie, she'll be with us soon,'

'Is she bringing owt with er?'

'I, she's weighed down wi a bag. We know what she'll have got in that'

'How old is Maureen now?'

'Seventy one, still cracks a fair walking pace though. 

'You letting er in' Reginald' - seen as your such bosom pals?'

'If you insist'

(the door bell rings, followed by prolonged muffled conversation )

'You can leave yr coat there if you like Maureen'

'Oooo its still a bit parky,  not quite Spring weather yet'

'You look a bit flushed Maureen, you alright'

'I - I'm not on short list for heaven yet Dottie. Hello Joan... Harold.......Our Julie not ere then?'

'You just missed her....had to rush home'

'That a new dress, not seen it afore.'

'It's a bit o fabric I originally got for Mother's bedroom, couldn't see it go to waste'

'Looks ......warm'

Well, am fair sweating from walk-in up that hill at the moment..... You've ad a cuppa then?'

'Mhu, there's more if you want some'

'If its no trouble.....You heading back tu Lincolnshire later Joan?'

'After Teatime'

'You can't travel anywhere on n empty stomach, I say'

'Is that so?'

'Well, it ruins yr concentration, so I read in People's Friend'

'Good job you've not got far to walk home then.'

'Reg! pass the cake round'

'Brought a couple a recent photo albums for you to look at Joan. Summer hols and what av yu.'

'Oh, you put us to shame Maureen, we've had ours printed for ages but Harold hasn't had time to do much, have you Harold?'

'No, I gotta a list o stuff June wants doi....'

'Gardens in such a mess after the Winter, he doesn't know where to start do you love?'

'No'

'I come very low down the priority list these days. His daughter's needs get more attention than mine.'

'She havin work done then?'

'He's making her a new set of gates.'

'Like yours?'

'Similar.... aren't they Harold'

'But blue'

'Well, you'll want to be havin your meal soonish, I guess'

'There's no hurry, its a while yet before we need to go, isn't?'

'What?'

'What time do we need to leave by?'

'Bout six,'

'Well, I'll plate up sooner rather than later.... you stoppin are you Maureen?'

'If its n bother, wouldn't mind'

'Noooo....its no bother.....(quietly to herself)  more the merrier'

'Is that cuppa tea comin anytime soon, am fair gaggin here'

'Sorry Maureen, not bein an attentive host am I'

'Now the photos in that folder are all from a coach tour holiday with Ida in the Summer'

'Looks like you had good weather Maureen. We love Devon and Cornwall, even though its a long drive down. Its hard on you isn't it Harold?....... Harold!'

'What?'

'The drive down to Devon, you find it hard'

'Alright, if you tek it steady'

'But you drive a lot when we are there too luv'

'Its n bother'

'All I'm saying is you never get yourself a break'

'Its not a problem'

'Well it might be for me Harold should you die young like your Father did'

'Agh! stop yr mithering'

'Have you heard anymore about hospital appointment Maureen, you hadn't heard last we spoke?'

'Next month - 23rd,'

'Your throat still sounds really sore

'I - its n better....... a cuppa tea helps!'

'Its coming .....(as she walks into the kitchen) Have they said what might be wrong?'

'Not specifically, that's what tests are for.

'That must be a worry for you'

Well, I keep miself busy, sewin..... visiting friends, being out n about keeps you from dwellin on it.

( an awkward pause  )

I've brought some left over wool. I've been havin a bit of a clear out, if its any use to you Dottie.....or Joan, seein as yr here'

Very kind of you Maureen, I've got too much unused in a cupboard at home already.'

'I haven't time for knitting at the mo, could take it to next chapel jumble sale'

'Well, I could do that if av a mind...........is that tea makin happenin, or should I go boil kettle miself?'

'Coming up right now'

( from the kitchen the sound of crockery breaking )

'You OK Dottie? Want a hand?

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Voyeur In The Attic

22nd October 1932
Mother has been shouting for me up the stairs, on and off, for at least the last twenty minutes. I am currently pretending not to be here. I know what she wants, she wants me to go to the corner shop for her ciggarettes. Even though Mrs W has said she can't have any more on tick. But she knows Mrs W thinks I'm a her 'luvly boy 'and that I remind her 'of my Winston' and hence, can deny me nothing. Why Winston is no longer around no one wants to say. You just see an awkward look fleet across their faces. Whatever the reason, he long ago abandoned this place.

What am I doing instead? Well, I'm enjoying staring out of  my bedroom window, just watching. There are regulars who pass by each day like clockwork. Current;y, Mr B, lunch pack in hand, is waiting for his regular lift into town to turn up. I'm expecting R soon, on her way to buy cake from Mrs W's in another doomed attempt to please her grump of a husband. There's not a lot going on around here otherwise. Its only just a village, with a few straggled streets, a tiny chapel, a pub and Mrs W's general store. Our Victorian terraced houses look like they've been in a pub brawl, and lost a few teeth. I'm fourteen years old and don't mind saying, I'm mostly bored.

What I do is read novels and listen to classical music on the radio. I don't understand why people think that's odd. Even my Mother wonders where I got my posh 'la-di-da' tastes from. Not her, nor my Father either - inbred in the Pennine hills, hardly ever ventures down to the valley bottom, let alone into Halifax, if he can at all help it. And he chides me for being 'such a sissy'!. Doesn't think its healthy for a boy my age to have no interest in sport and few friends. He's ashamed of me, and hasn't minded saying so either. So I lose myself in stories, escape into listening to music for a while, observe the world outside, there is frankly not much else to do. 

Sounds like Mother stomping up the staircase. Better conclude.

15th January 1933
It's been snowing heavily for a couple of days now. As usual the buses can't make it up the steep and tight bending approach roads to the moor top. Abandoned where they slip until it begins to thaw. After a few hours of snow yesterday, we were officially cut off from civilisation, or should that be more cut off? There is therefore not much work on the farm, so once he'd checked and fed the animals Father was sent home by his boss. Been slumped in his chair ever since, generally getting in Mother's way.  She is whining at him all the time. To the same tune I've heard all my life. 'There are jobs around the house you could be doing, but do you do them? do you eck' I'm keeping well out of their way today. War has been declared. I don't want to get caught in the crossfire.

I can't see much anyway, no one is about, just one big continuous flurry of snow. I despise, no, I hate the Winter. I like observing people, where they are going, what they're up to, I get a bit despondent otherwise.  But it has meant I've reached the end of the book I've been reading, its taken me ages, hundreds and hundreds of pages. Its Thomas Hardy, so the plot trajectory has been clear from the start, no one will escape their past misdemeanors. Like the weather outside, it was never going to turn out well, and it didn't.

6th March 1933
For the first time this year there is a whiff of Spring. Mrs Goodall obviously believes so. She's stood by the terminus bus stop spruced up in her best coat and hat, which usually means she's off into town in hot pursuit of a cheap shank of beef. The bus is late, I've got the timetable here, should be 9.45 and its already gone 10. She keeps glancing nervously at her watch. Well, here it is now. Oh...she's not going into town, she's meeting someone off the bus. Its a young chap, early twenties, dapper, quite handsome, his face half hidden behind a floppy fringe,he kisses her! She seems very pleased to see him, and does that annoying thing of tidying up a lads hair in public, even though he's fully grown up. 

11th March 1933
There was a lot of talk at school today about exams, our interests, favorite subjects, to start thinking about your future career etc etc. I just want to do something that will enable me to get away from this place. So just tell me what that is and I'll do it. Mr A talked vaguely about being ambitious and grasping opportunities blah d blah. He obviously wasn't brought up round here. I think I might like teaching, I'm quite good at drawing.

One of the things you can rely on my Mother for, is the fast transmission of gossip. She tells my Father everything, even though he professes to not want to know 'about other folks goings on'.  I hear it all from the other side of our kitchen door though. Mother slaps the back of my head hard if discovered - some things not being 'for your ears', apparently. Nonetheless it very quickly came to light that Mrs Goodall's visitor is her nephew Duncan, her younger sister Daphne's eldest.  Not much more to report, as yet.

12th March 1933
Saw D walking up to Mrs W's this morning. Came back with a cigarette lit, hanging suspended to one side on his lips, he's such a film star. Still no news, as yet ,on why he's staying with Mrs G, but Mother;s got her sniffer dogs out, it wont be long.

I've decided to grow the fringe of my hair longer, not exactly like how D has his, but similar. Mother might not let it alone for long. She keeps threatening me with the scissors, says my hairs too thin, lank and greasy - 'you're not a hermaphrodite' - which is probably the longest word she uses but doesn't know the meaning of. Don't really care, if floppy fringes are good enough for D, then that's fine by me.

14th March 1933
There's one problem with an attic window, like seats in a theatre, it has a restricted view. By rights I ought to be able to see all of what happens up and down our street on either side. Yet I have a better view of the pub at the top one side and Mrs W's on the other, than the bits closest in of the houses next door. Case in point, this afternoon D was out doing some gardening for Mrs G, but he kept sitting down on the doorstep which placed him out of view. He seemed to be making heavy going of the digging then stopping and staring across the valley blankly, before returning to more aggressive digging. It has also been unseasonably warm, shirts have been removed and laid over walls ! 

4th April 1933
The gossip update came incomplete. Mother came in all of a terrible fluster, literally bursting a blood vessel to tell Father something scandalous. She'd been to her hairdressers in Mytholmroyd and someone there knew someone else who'd worked in an engineering works in the Pudsey area over Bradford way. Seeing I was all ears, she said, 'and you young man had better clear off to your room'. As I left, she made a point of closing the kitchen door loudly behind me. 

I made the sounds appropriate for going back to the attic, then returned. What I heard was muffled and spasmodic. There was some big upset, something happened at the engineering works, beaten up, sacked, bricks thrown through windows somewhere, sent away for safety. This was followed by a prolonged silence. Then she clearly said ' Should we say anything to Lawrence, do you think?'  That's the bit I don't really understand, what's this got to do with me?

April 24th 1933
I was in Mrs W's  on an errand. There was the usual gaggle of local woman in a gossip huddle by the entrance. Whilst looking for the items on the shopping list Mother had sent me with, it suddenly went deathly quiet, the clucking chatter abruptly stopped. Just the echo of the entrance bell and the door creaking closed. I turned and there was D. He gave me a self conscious nod, but looked deathly white as if the ground was about to swallow him up. I've not seen him close up before. Its obvious why the fringe is long; it conceals a serious scar down his temple. 

He walked over to the counter and bought twenty Players, Mrs W looked at him with what I read as sympathy in her eyes. Once he'd left, the group resumed talking, becoming indignantly more animated. Mrs W appeared to become really irritated and barked  'Are you going to buy anything Masie Thomas or should I start charging you for floor space?' which appeared to stir everyone into action shopping lists came out, baskets quickly filled and paid for. It was clear Mother's news has been widely disseminated and had not resulted in universal admiration or understanding, quite the opposite. 

22nd June 1933
In the Summer I take the old pack-horse track when I walk too and from school in the valley bottom. It keeps me out of the way of a gang of bullies who pursue me, call me names - 'my lady' and 'girlie' are the current ones I get from them. The old pack-horse track is actually more direct, its steep and overgrown in places and, to be honest, it is more knackering. But I'd rather that than be pushed or chucked over a stone wall again.  

About half way down, on the left is a granite overhang we used to call 'the cave' when we played there as kids. I often stop there for a while. As I approached today I could see two people already sat down there on the grass. I didn't think they'd seen me, so I hung back in the bushes, watched for a while. Holding hands, hugging and kissing, the usual sort of thing. I couldn't really see who they were as they walked further away from me. In my rush to hide myself in the gorse I got badly scratched on the face, which took some explaining away when I got home. 

8th July 1933
I've been spending most of today listening to the radio and reading. Even though its really hot out there I'm indoors staying out of the sun, my pale skin turns bright red if I stay out too long in it. There are plenty of folk walking up and down the street as if they're on the seaside promenade. D comes out at least once a day, a visit to Mrs W's for cigarettes mostly, but also, I notice, an occasional wander down the pack-horse track.

9th July 1933
Once the warm weather arrives people open there windows wide, to let fresh air into there stuffy little lives, Mrs G does it like clock work every day from ten in the morning to early evening some days. Yesterday evening I was sat here reading, pretty much as I am now. I heard raised voices from next door. 

'Your Mother promised me there'd be none of that Duncan, that you'd put a stop to that....behaviour'
then a male voice 
'I don't think I was seen Auntie, we are careful '
'round here its better to assume everyone will see, because sooner or later they seem to know everything somehow'
there then followed a very long pause
'Sorry Auntie, I just wanted to see....... '
the voice tailing off into smothered sobbing.
'Well Duncan try to think beyond your self, consider what the consequences for me would be, should the police knock on my door'
Mrs G's tone sounded kinder
'the situation isn't fair on you.....this was only meant to be a temporary solution..... I should go somewhere no one knows me at all'
'and where might that be?'
'Down south, anywhere other than here. 
'Your Mother's not going to thank me for pushing you to go still further away'  
'but if I stay here there will never be an end to this, not a good one anyway, it will keep coming back, Askew's such a twisted vindictive bastard'
with that the window suddenly slammed shut.

I did some investigating, well, I looked through a telephone directory in the Mytholmroyd  Library. and there is an Askew's engineering works in Pudsey.

31st July 1933
In the middle of the night the police came knocking next door. Their car headlights having illuminated their presence and the whole terrace, so obviously everyone came to their window to peek out of their net curtains, if they have any.  The police weren't there for long. Once they'd left I could hear Mrs G through the wall wailing loudly on and off for an hour or so. Something bad's happened for sure, but no one, not even my Mother, knows what. Mrs G hasn't put a foot outside the door all today, and there's been no sign of D either.

1st August 1933
The whole place has been rife with speculation. I can see folk stopping complete strangers to ask what they know, if they've heard anything. Mother has been unusually quiet.  

At teatime, Father came home, the Evening Courier was tucked under his arm. He had a triumphant smirk on his face as he laid down the paper in front of Mother and put his finger on the lead story - Savage Murders in Mytholmroyd. She put on her glasses and carefully read the paper. 'I knew something like that would happen' and went back to tend to tea.

I picked up the Courier to read:

'A local man walking home from a local Public House in Mytholmroyd found the dead bodies of two young men in a back alley. The police say the bodies were of a twenty two year old, Stanley Riley of Headingley and twenty four year old Duncan Hemmings, originally from Armley.  Both bodies had been brutely attacked, being severely kicked and incurring several heavy blows to the head that were the cause of death. Police suspect the attack happened shortly after the pubs closed at 10pm. Its not known at time of going to press exactly what the relationship between the two men was. There are indications they may have been former work colleagues. Police enquiries are continuing and all the deceased's relatives have been informed. Police are appealing for any witnesses who may have seen the two men at anytime during the night of the 31st July to come forward.' 

Mother emerged from the kitchen, she'd obviously been weeping, saw I'd read the newspaper article. She stared right at me and said. 'I really don't mind what you choose to do with your life, but don't ever end up like that Lawrence, I couldn't bare the shame of it' and returned to the kitchen sniffling.

Father, following her into the kitchen, cleared his throat uncomfortably and half gestured towards me
'Don't you start blubbing too Lawrence, make yourself useful and set the table'

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - The Proximity of Memories

The position of the dark red high backed armchair was predetermined within the room. The coals in the small fireplace occasionally spat out bright orange phlegm, just to its right. From here you could view whatever was going on in the back room of this terraced house. The floor space always looked cluttered; a folded down dining table and its guardian chairs; a three piece suite with brightly crocheted antimacassars; various poofs, sewing, sewing machine, thread boxes, photo albums stacked under the low coffee table. A long sideboard and display cabinets fully inhabited each alcove, containing a miscellany of cutlery, plates and ceramic objects. Everywhere stuffed to the gill in this nonetheless cosy nook.

The wings of the armchair formed huge amplifying baffles, directing softly spoken conversational details to any person who sat between them. Dora, as usual, was ensconced there, attentively listening, legs placed close together, feet front facing, arms relaxed, hands at ease in her lap. The frailness of her body dwarfed by the chair in which she rocked. Today she was seventy, the supposed focus of a family celebration, a queen for the day being greeted by her subjects.

Currently frowning, she wasn't in pain, but simply straining to follow the chaotic mess of interactions between her grown up children, whilst their own youthful offspring energetically bounded under, over and around tables and chairs. Though it was her birthday, this felt like too many people. Frequently proving tricky for her to hear, she missed, or misinterpreted, a lot. 

'It ud help me if the didn't gabble su much' 

She thought half aloud, never quite sure where the volume knob her own speaking was set. An under the breath mutter easily came out as an exclamation. Too quiet you wouldn't be able to successfully interject, too loud and it sounded as if she were shouting them down. It was rare that they fully caught her drift anyway. She was used to non-comprehension, both her own and other people's.

Their gossipy chatter continued hopping around from one subject to another and then back again. Sometimes Dora managed to keep up with this conversational flow quite well, through a combination of lip reading and snippets her hearing aid picked up. On other days, like today, everything was painfully distorted, as though passed through a hiss of static. The consequent experience of isolation was distressing. She had the desire to be at the heart of these family get-togethers, but it was common for her to be the mute figurehead. 

The feeling of being forcibly removed that the deafness imposed upon her, had only increased in frequency as she'd got older. Being ignored in a group growing in direct proportion to how elderly you were anyway. She often resigned herself to sitting back and being the quiet observer, voluntarily absenting from active engagement. The proximity of memories became easier to interact with than other people. So her attention drifted off, gazed into the fire or empty space. Remembering past incidents from decades ago, to the days before her husband died. 

Her husband Douglas? Well, almost to the end he'd been an active hulk of a man. Though, after fifty six years of life, he was snatched away in just a matter of days by un-diagnosed  blood pressure and circulation problems. Dora, suddenly bereft, was bringing up the remaining dependents of her brood of eight, single-handed. Her children had done their best to step up and help out, Reginald and Maureen, the eldest, in particular. 

The following years were tough financially and emotionally. The family would be a strain to feed until more of them were working age. No matter that the children at that time were ranged in age from on the brink of teenage to into their twenties or married, she'd needed to rapidly reduce the size of the family home and then somehow fit the remaining progeny into this more manageable terrace, The one she was now retired in, with her eldest daughter Maureen as her default carer, still living with her.

Was it a coincidence that Douglas's death had also been the point when she'd first noticed the decline in her hearing? Initially she'd made light of it. Jokingly blaming it on over twenty years of perpetual pregnancy. Yet the drain on her energy of repeatedly giving birth had weakened her physical stamina, as did forever clambering up and down the cellar steps to fetch water to boil and wash clothes. The day to day drudgery any Mother had to do then for her children. 

'Douglas! wer useless at bein a Father.....no elp to nobdy but hiself.'
She muttered.
Maureen looked up from her sewing 
'What wer that Mother? 
You Father...blumin useless' 
'Ay, suppose he was, didn't behave as if he wer though' 

Everyone accepted Douglas would retire to his 'study' the moment he arrived home after work. To do whatever it was he found to do in there. Only eating a meal or spending quality time with them on a Sunday. As a consequence he'd become more feared than loved.  He appeared to want to keep everyone at a distance, the paternal mystery man. Playing the aloof Edwardian patriarch and the disciplinarian with a leather belt whenever it felt appropriate. Yet, apart from bringing in the money and being the sire of children, he was sod all use around the house. There were things he considered played no part in his role as Father, or as a man, however self serving that appeared now.

'Eeeee.......e wer gud wi is hands though, wurever they were involved in mekin.'

Dora spoke to herself fondly, without any hint of innuendo or irony.

Just as she'd started to feel the first bodily signs of declining energy, this had happened. She'd become the sole director and centre of a whirlwind of unending activity, of things needing to be done, money to be earned. She remembered the constant tiredness and concern. The weary weight of it lingered on now in her body, in the tenderness and creaking of her arthritic joints. She loved all her family, but there was the tattered remnant of bitterness still hanging out back to dry. It had taken a toll on her outlook on life.

When she'd first gone for the hearing tests they'd informed her of the many known causes of deafness. That most probably hers was inherited, a family disposition. She couldn't remember any of her family being deaf, not in middle age anyway. But then maybe, like her, they too had become expert at disguising it. Life up on the edge of the moors in the low granite cottage where she'd been born and brought up, was always physically cold. The family temperament as austere as the moors that surrounded them. They were never a close knit family, more the reverse. No one seemed to have much to say to anyone, even at the best of times. They were self contained, chapel stained through and through, each as silently morose company as carved gravestones. They could have all been deaf as a door post and nobody would have known.

'If thee has nowt useful to say, tha shoudn't speak on it' 

She'd heard her Father's voice speak that phrase, with the usual pseudo biblical inflection of the part-time Methodist lay preacher, countless times. Hearing it again echoing through her mind, accompanied by the usual finger waving reproof. If there'd been any love in that man, it had been driven out by the cold of a persistent north westerly wind.

The hearing loss occurred in both ears. Though progressing slowly at first, it was cumulative and mostly irretrievable by the time it was finally diagnosed and treated. Yet if the deafness was not a family legacy, then prolonged physical stress or a severe blow to the head were some of the other less palatable options. Half recollecting murky events from earlier life, she thought it best not to go there. 

Though if truth be told, Douglas too had not been averse to administering a well aimed clout or two, whenever his temper, the children, or her backchat got the better of him. His pride had proved to be a surprisingly fragile thing. She forgave him his failings now, she'd even forgiven him for dying. Forgiving helped when she had cause to miss his companionship. It would be far too convenient to lay blame at his unresponsive feet for her being deaf. Nothing could be done about any of that. She'd been widowed and become profoundly deaf. None of it was going to be removed by knowing of its cause.

Though not hearing absolutely everything sometimes had its advantages. Whenever Maureen was bustling round, trying to boss her into having yet another radio in the house, that she did not want. She had a practiced way of looking blankly or confused, sometimes deliberately choosing not to comprehend. Those radios she knew would be bought anyway, making her hearing aids whine and whistle wherever she went. 

'Ow many more did she blumin need? '

There was only so much blathering from her daughters and daughters in law that she could tolerate. Her sons and son in laws,? well, they fell all too conveniently into the cowardly tendency of the northern male - the stoical but unknowable silence. 

Dora had moments when she was really glad to be able to shut herself off completely. Pretend that she was listening, but really it all just floated over her head. Occasionally interjecting, but never entirely sure whether the topic of conversation had moved on or not. So she'd just throw in a comment, to test the water, as a way of letting them all know she was still there.

'well, mebay he should just gee up tryin and start afresh some weir else' 

If everyone looked puzzled or pretended to ignore what she said, then obviously she was way off  the current topic. She'd see Maureen's shoulders shudder from a chuckle, then loudly over enunciate the confirmation: 

'Mother... Weev moved on from... talkin... about r Ben'

Being left on her own could in many ways be easier, more manageable than company. There was always a conflict within her, feeling isolated and lonely on the one hand, or longing for the quieter stiller hours of the day, on the other. Those times when Maureen would go into town, or was out at work. Times when she could just sit in her armchair, not have to worry about what she had or had not heard, or trying to make herself understood, she could commune with the flames in the fireplace for hours if she wanted.

On the better days, she'd sense a change in the air quality.  The fire would briefly bring smoke into the room, as if someone had just come in the back door. Then there would be the recognisable form and mass of her husband approaching. Quietly slipping into the back room for a chat, with an appreciative -

'Hello Luv'

On this evening of her seventieth, all the family having now departed, Maureen was upstairs sorting out photos humming along to one of her blessed radios. Then she heard the familiar tones of his voice in the doorway saying -

'Happy Birthday Dora'

As he emerged from the kitchen into the back room, her attention skipped to alert in an echo of younger love. There he was. Douglas, visibly sitting down in front of her, smiling with àll the warmth in his eyes she remembered from long ago. He rarely said more than his opening greeting. Yet without even opening her mouth she could give him an uninterrupted catch up on how his daughters and sons were doing, all the up to date family gossip. Mind to mind like.

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - Maureen Fills Another Photo Album

The following short story had its beginnings in a recollection of the bizarre and frequently hilarious photo albums that one of my Aunts would make. This forms the nucleus of truth from which my imagination has freely deviated and run with, taking it in unexpected directions. The result is almost an entirely fictitious tale. Only I know the bits that have some truth to them.  I hope you enjoy it.

Am I happy? was a question Maureen rarely left open long enough to respond to. As she spread out the latest batch of photographs picked up from the chemists, she was quick to divert her attention away from wading into any residual pools of sadness. Firmly reasserting that it had been such an enjoyable coach tour with her best friend Ida. Great weather in Cornwall, far better than last year. But then,the very next moment, she picked up one photo and with a pair of scissors aggressively lopped off the half blurred gentleman shown just to the right of her. Maureen was taken aback by the abruptness. But then, feelings, memories, photos themselves, always had the potential to divert ones attention.

There'd been no pause to consider whether or not to leave the gentleman in. The impulse to chop arose from the distortion in the man's face, that self-pitying beseeching look to his eyes. As if he knew a form of death voodoo was nearby, to be delivered by a pair of dinky blue handled pinking sheers, that had once come free with The People's Friend.

Having so brusquely snipped it off she picked the fragment up again.  Did she know him? Was he one of their coach party? That quiet man who always sat on his own at the back of the coach or disconsolately played with his bacon at breakfast in the B&B. Tall, Brylcreem, back combed hair, walking stick seat, slightly abraded cord jacket. By the time she came back to herself, a largely fictitious narrative had been conjured out of one smudgy snippet from a photograph. Whoever he was, she felt a pang of regret. Censoring her photographs was just not the done thing.

She persisted with the musing. There was always 'the quiet single man' on coach excursions. Kept themselves to themselves, never said much, but you could usually extract from the tour rep that they were 'recently bereaved'. Hardly a wild guess, gentlemen who traveled alone on coach trips often were bereaved, or were, euphemistically speaking - 'light on their feet', sometimes both. Coach travelling being predominantly the mode for ladies of a mature age, accompanied by a female companion, also sympathetically bereaved. Single men stuck out.

Though Maureen had lost her Mother barely a year or two ago, her reasons for taking coach trip holidays had always been quite practical. When Mother had been alive, they had briefly taken her out of the narrow confines of a chronically deaf nonagenarian's world view. Her regular travel companion, Ida, was a close friend and old work colleague. It was a friendship largely forged around their shared spinsterhood and, once retired, a mutual desire to travel. They'd both worked out how to make going on holiday as a single woman work, in a world that penalised you financially for travelling alone. Travel together and share a room. 

By the time your bosoms sagged and a colour rinse became essential, no one made anything of two women travelling together. It was as though society was certain that once a woman passed the menopause, the need for physical intimacy completely vanished. That all one needed from life then on, was the frisson of conspicuous pampering. 

She continued rustling through the remaining photos on the low coffee table. Here was where the joy lay for her, in the composition. Contriving an artifice, a sequence of pleasant recollections, and to then make that feel casual and spontaneous. Emotionally the essence of a holiday experience was relived through the laying out, shaping, sorting and, very importantly, the labeling of her snaps. Apt ways to encapsulate in one brief sentence something perhaps not quite captured by the image. If indeed there was an image at all.

Over the years she'd become resigned to her camera's occasional malfunctioning  There were venues where a small plastic point and press film camera would always take a dim view of the lack of light. Once processed and printed there would be a dark glossy rectangle with just the suggestion of a small vertical smudge centre left, that may have been Ida or herself smiling or pointing at something, also unidentifiable. 

If the photo was of Maureen then the fault would obviously be Ida's, who was forever putting her short fat fingers over the lens. A pithy sentence underneath would make that abundantly clear - 'those sausage fingers are not mine!' - 'it's too close for flash Ida' - ' Ida, the camera strap, it's over the lens.' Even if it was almost a totally blank picture it would say - 'there's a large organ near me on the left hand side' - 'the flower festival in St Josephs was very colourful' - ' I had a lovely ham sandwich in the cafe here'.   This was done without any sense of being archly ironic or tongue in cheek. It was simply to sketch a context into the overall visual darkness.

Most folk would have thrown these photographic failures away with a regretful sigh, but not Maureen. Everything means something, was a useful little phrase she'd picked up from the paper craft pages of a long forgotten magazine. It was shorthand for 'I don't know why this is here'. Her alignment with the spirit of wabi-sabi was completely unconscious. sticking into her albums every crashed exposure, shutter jamb, end of photo reel, and person or persons photographed only from the legs down - 'Everything looking ship shape down below'  What did it matter if they were over exposed - It was a very bright delightful day.'  The albums were a record of her travels, mishaps and all.

These short explanatory phrases attempted to make the calamitous nature if her photography, never exactly her fault. She frequently laced them with sarcasm about it being a reflection of her companions mood - ' It was Ida's time of the month again'  - 'do put your glasses on woman'  Ida was always the handy stooge. The snipped photo felt different, this continued to bemuse her, there was a reason to keep it. Somewhere in the backroom of her mind, a memory was currently peddling madly away from her.

Maureen never realised that when she proudly plonked the latest completed photo album on the knees of a family member, it produced in them an uneasy, if not sinking heart - 'my god, what appreciative response can I summon this time?' It wasn't that her photo albums were a glorious experience universally treasured. For some they were, but not quite in the way Maureen envisaged. For the regular visitor they were a too frequent and burdensome responsibility for even the most secretive of camp giggling.

A brief look around her small terraced house quickly revealed photo albums in plastic folders stuffed into every available nook and cranny. Rows and rows of them on bookshelves, packed in boxes in cupboards under stairs, large stacks left by armchairs on the lounge floor for causal perusal, dozens and dozens of them. In the kitchen and the bedroom we're other photo projects, as yet half finished. Works in progress were scattered across every available white melamine surface. For such tasks took time and consideration, with her Mother dead, the house, the space, and all the time in the world, were now her own. 

She put so much into them, they became like small house extensions to her equally diminutive physical frame, gradually building up to an encyclopedic length.  Her family thought her self-obsessed, teetering on the edge of narcissistic. Always ensuring it was her presence that was kept centre stage, either visually or in words. Never leaving authorship open to doubt. Maureen had turned herself singlehandedly into the curator and repository for her families history. Relishing the apocryphal tales in particular.  No one else knew the extent of how embellished, and hence unreliable, these were.

Then, there was a suggestive feeling of a particular individual. One previously hung just outside conscious reach. Recollections began to bubble, then they arrived in a series of photographic flashes - there was a male tour guide.....in Penzance....flirtatious... quite amusing.. well oiled patter... flattered... felt bashful.... well he was half my age!... the delight... in masculine attention... appreciative....... touched....beyond that.....the edge of....... something soft..... tender ..mournful...... an emptiness......devoid of intimacy...... unlovable.  Hold on, pull back, pull back, pull back, no no no no, this will not do, this will not happen. no wallowing Maureen! ........double warning.... exclamation marks...!! 

She shook her head violently as if these thoughts and the feelings accompanying them only resided in her hair. The ground could easily have collapsed from beneath the triumph she'd made of living happily alone, and fallen into that sticky tar pit where her loneliness presided. Even as she dabbed back a trickle of tears, she was re-constructing the firm emotional staircase up and out. There was no point in dwelling now on what had not happened in the past. None whatsoever.

Composure eventually restored, she could gaze equanimous at the out of focus gentleman with a calmer kinder self regard. Progressing swiftly on to the practical issue of the photographs restoration, how should she do that? She could hardly pretend the crimped edges didn't exist by butting the two pieces back together, that would be too much like a badly concealed toupee. Eventually settling upon permitting a thin meandering river of white paper to show between the two parts. 

Though this fully honoured 'the process' of its creation, something was still absent - the man's name. If she ever had known it, this refused to be unearthed from the fluster and bluster surrounding her melancholy. She wasn't venturing back into that. So she decided on this occasion to abandon her loyal allegiance to factual accuracy, and simply make one up. Drawing a dramatic arrow from outside the photo to right on the nose of the man's face, at the other end she wrote BRIAN! in blue Biro.  She always loved using exclamation marks, two or more if possible, with their pert suggestion of surprise. 

Her efforts concluded with the swiftly following breeze of a succinct title. Then having achieved satisfaction and a sense of closure, Maureen placed the completed album 'Penzance 1989' on the 'ready for viewing' pile. Beneath the now sensitively restored photo Maureen had written:-

'Oops!!!'

Written December 2020 by Stephen Lumb

FAMILY FRAGMENTS - For Those Left In Shreds & Patches

All life stories through the mouth of the storyteller can fall quickly into the well worn tropes of ancient myths and legends. One only has to compare them with the spiteful, jealous vengeful way the Greek Pantheon behave. These personal tales drawn from life may still remain true to the person. the place or the time, even in the very moment that a narrative drifts into being light fingered with the facts, or run off to get completely divorced. This was never more true than of family stories, oft repeated and equally exaggerated and embellished in many a communal retelling. 

Over years and lifetimes these repetitions gradually turn their face away from verisimilitude in order to relish the heightened melodrama of it all. The remnants of old grievances, revenge, soured loves and shattered dreams, live on in the family tales of self-righteous stances, the monstrous affronts, of the many personal mistakes redrawn as loosing the noble battle with fate. Its them against the world where the world always won, thwarting any hope of who they could become. History is hard on everyone's legacy because it is knowingly negligent and forgetful, leaving out anything inconvenient or off message.

When I look back at my own life stories, and they are definitely plural, I present them as if they are situated in a finely wrought stage play, framed within a proscenium arch with all exits and entrances clearly marked.  I'm well aware of the plot holes, the deliberately misremembered bits because they make living with the shame of an event a teeny bit easier, or the once blind determination in my youth to turn wish fulfillment into a career strategy.  For stories to have impact its all about the artifice and staging, the telling detail, a look, a small word out of place, a kind gesture, the much treasured meaningful memento left on the mantelpiece. For these were just so them 

Any family is a nest of broken eggs, you have to be careful how, and even if you should, reassemble the fragments of shells you know of. Even as I turn towards the retelling of the stories associated with members of my family, its impossible to keep subjective feelings at bay. It feels strange to find myself knowingly taking on the mantle of the classic unreliable narrator of family fictions, traducing reputations, installing halos, spreading half remembered untruths, or even full untruths, based on only the merest hint from the Chinese whisperers in my own memory. 

At times remembering them comes as a small madly flapping bird flys past your bedroom window. It catches the sleepy eyed corner of your attention where daydreams coalesce with memory. You find your imagination suddenly refleshes a person, maybe long gone, whom you haven't thought of in a long long while. In the flurry and bustle of your daily life your focus can be so head down absorbing the cracks in the pavement of the present moment, then up pops to mind this personality from the past  At which the heart breaks open a magnum bottle of sentiment and we luxuriate in the brief bubbly froth of recollection.

Images seem to be nothing without their emotional background and the grand arc of the story that accompanies them. How we paint in words our family portraits, will always be riddled with the faults and factual inaccuracies that memory is prone to, yet still hold true to what remains of them in us. Its as though a perfume lingers on in a room, you can never quite place where on earth you smelt it first, but you recognise it nonetheless. It is them.

This occasional series of essays, Family Fragments, will contain contain short largely fictionalised portrait stories of individuals (all now deceased ) within the three generations of my family that I have known. 

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