Brideshead Revisited: selected passages

Waugh is a genius. DO NOT watch the series before you read the book. The book, although it repulsed Waugh himself by his own admission in places, is still full of wit and pace. The series is unbelievably earnest and slow. I hated it, until I read the book and relished reliving any of the fine moments in this story. I think it's quite obvious that Charles' father is by far my favourite character. 

[Charles' father to Charles on giving advice about going to Oxford.]

'I suppose this is the time I should give you advice. I never had any myself except once from your cousin Alfred. Do you know, in the summer before I was going up, your cousin Alfred rode over to Boughton especially to give me a piece of advice? And do you know what that advice was? "Ned," he said, "there's only one thing I must beg of you. Always wear a tall hat on Sundays during term. It is by that, more than anything, that a man is judged." And do you know,' continued my father, snuffling deeply, 'I always did?  Some men did, some didn't. I never saw any difference between them or heard it commented on, but I always wore mine. It only shows what effect judicious advice can have, properly delivered at the right moment. I wish I had some for you, but I haven't.'

***********

[Charles' cousin Jasper giving advice on how to do Oxford]

'...You're reading History? A perfectly respectable school. The very worst is English literature and the next worst is Modern Greats. You want either a first or a fourth. There is no value in anything between. Time spent on a good second is time thrown away. You should go to the best lectures - Arkwright on Demosthenes for instances - irrespective of whether they are in your school or not... Clothes. Dress as you do in a country house. Never wear a tweed coat and flannel trousers - always a suit. And go to a London tailor, you get better cut and longer credit... Clubs. Join the Carlton now and the Grid at the beginning of your second year. If you want to run for the Union - and it's not a bad thing to do - make your reputation outside first, at the Canning or the Chatham, and begin by speaking on the paper... Keep clear of Boar's Hill...' The sky over the opposing gables glowed and then darkened; I put more coal on the fire and turned on the light, revealing in their respectability his London-made plus-fours and his Leander tie... 'Don't treat dons like schoolmasters, treat them as you would the vicar at home... You'll find you spend half your second year shaking off the undesirable friends you made in your first... Beware of the Anglo-Catholics - they're all sodomites with unpleasant accents. In fact, steer clear of all religious groups; they do nothing but harm...'

************

It is the feast of S. Nichodemus of Thyatira, who was martyred by having a goat skin nailed to his pate, and is accordingly the patron of bald heads. Tell Collins, who I am sure will be bald before us. There are too many people here, but one, praise heaven! has an ear-trumpet, and that keeps me in good humour. And now I must try to catch a fish. It is too far to send it to you so I will keep the backbone.

[Sebastian Flyte's  letter to Chares who is vacationing with Collins in Italy over Easter]

*************

[Charles whilst staying with his father in the holidays, invites an old school aquaintance, Jorkins to dinner]

My father was a master of the situation. He had made a little fantasy for himself that Jorkins should be an American, and throughout the evening he played a delicate, one-sided parlour-game with him, explaining any peculiarly English terms that occured in the conversation, translating pounds into dollars, and courteously deffering to him with such phrases as 'Of course, by your standards....'; 'All this must seem very parochial to Mr Jorkins'; 'In the vast spaces to which you are accustomed...' so that my guest was left with the vague sense that there was a misconception somewhere as to his identity, which he never got the chance of explaining. Again and again during the dinner he sought my father's eye, thinking to read there the simple statement that this form of address was an elaborate joke, but met instead a look of such mild benignity that he was left baffled.

Once I thought my father had gone too far, when he said: 'I am afraid that, living in London, you must sadly miss your national game.'

'My national game?' asked Jorkins, slow in the uptake, but scenting that here, at last, was the opportunity for clearing the matter up. 

My father glanced from him to me and his expression changed from kindness to malice; then back to kindness again as he turned once more to Jorkins. It was the look of a gambler who lays down fours against a full house. 'Your national game,' he said gently, 'cricket.' and he snuffled uncontrollably, shaking all over and wiping his eyes with his napkin. 'Surely, working in the City, you find your time on the cricket-field greatly curtailed?'

At the door of the dining-room he left us. 'Good night, Mr Jorkins' he said 'I hope you will pay us another visit when you next "cross the herring pond".'

'I say, what did your governor mean by that? He seemed almost to think I was American.'

'He's rather odd at times.'

'I mean all that about advising me to visit Westminster Abbey. It seemed rum.'

'Yea. I can't quite explain.'

'I almost thought he was pulling my leg,' said Jorkins in puzzled tones.

*********************

It is thus I like to remember Sebastian, as he was that summer, when we wandered alone together through that enchanted palace; Sebastian in his wheel-chair spinning down the box-edged walks of the kitchen gardens in search of alpine strawberries and warm figs, propelling himself through the succession of hot-houses, from scent to scent and climate to climate, to cut the muscat grapes and choose orchids for our button-holes; Sebastian hobbling with a pantomime of difficulty to the old nurseries, sitting beside me on the threadbare, flowered carpet with the toy-cupboard empty about us and Nanny Hawkins stitching complacently in the corner, saying 'You're one as bad as the other; a pair of children the tow of you. Is that what they teach you at College?' Sebastian supine on the sunny seat in the colonnade, as he was now, and I in a hard chair beside him, trying to draw the fountain.

'Is the dome Inigo Jones too? It looks later.'

'Oh, Charles, don't be such a tourist. What does it matter when it was built, if it's pretty?'

************************

Wilcox welcomed our interest; we had bottles brought up from every bin, and it was during theose tranquil evenings with Sebastian that I first made a serious acquaintace with wine and sowed the seed of that rich harvest which was to be my stay in many barren years. We would sit, he and I, in the Painted Parlour with three bottles open on the table and three galsses before each of us; Sebastian had found a book on wine-tasting, and we followed its instructions in detail. We warmed the glass slightly at the candle, filled it a third high, swirled the wine round, nursed it in our hands, held it to the light, breathed it, sipped it, filled our mouths with it, and rolled it over the tongue, ringing it on the palate like a coin on a counter, tilted our heads back and let it trickle down the throat. Then we talked of it and nibbled Bath Oliver biscuits, and passed on to another wine then back to the first, then on to another, until all three were in circulation and the order of glasses got confused, and we fell out over which was which, and we pased the glasses to and fro between us until there were six glasses, some of them with mixed wines in them which we had filled from the wrong bottle, till we were obliged to start again with the three clean glasses each, and the bottles were empty and our praise of them wilder and more exotic.

'...It is a little, shy wine like a gazelle.'

'Like a leprechaun.'

'Dappled, in a tapestry meadow.'

'Like a flute by still water.'

'...And this is a wise old wine.'

'A prophet in a cave.'

'...And this is a necklace of pearls on white neck.'

'Like a swan.'

'Like the last unicorn.'

And we would leave the golden candlelight of the dining-room for the starlight outside and sit on the edge of the fountain, cooling our hands in the water and listening drunkenly to its splash and gurgle over the rocks.

'Ought we to be drunk every night?' Sebastian asked one morning. 

'Yes, I think so.'

'I think so too.'

***********

The fortnight at Venice passed quickly and sweetly - perhaps too sweetly. I was drowning in honey, stingless. On some days life kept pace with the gondol, as we nosed through the side canals and the boatman uttered his plaintive musical bird-cry of warning, on other day with the speed-boat bouncing over the lagoon in a stream of sun-lit foam; it left a confused memory of fierce sunlight on the sands and cool, marble interiors; of water everywhere, lapping on smooth stone, refelcted in a dapple of light on painted ceilings of a night at the Corombona palace such as Byron might have known, and another Byronic night fishing for scampi in the shallows of Chioggia, the phospherescent wake of the little ship, the lantern swinging in the prow, and the net coming up filled with weed and sand and floundering fishes; of melon and prosciutto on the balcony in the cool of the morning, of hor cheese sandwiches and champagne cocktails at Harry's bar. 

***********

My father greeted me with his usual air of mild regret.

"Here today," he said; "gone tomorrow. I seem to see very littel of you. Perhaps it is very dull for you here. How could it be otherwise? You have enjoyed yourself?"

"Very much. I went to Venice."

"Yes. Yes. I suppose so. The weather was fine?"

When he went to bed after an evening of silent study, he paused to ask: "The friend of yours you were so much concerned about, did he die?"

"No."

"I am very thankful. You should have written to tell me. I worried about him so much."

*****************

Then, back at Oxford, we took up again the life that seemed to be shrinking in the cold air. The sadness that had been strong in Sebastian the term before gave place to a kind of sullenness even towards me. He was sick at heart somwhere, I did not know how, and I grieved for him, unable to help. 

When he was gay now it was usually because he was drunk,  and when drunk he developed an obsession of 'mocking Mr Samgrass'. He composed a ditty of which the refrain was, 'Green arse, Samgrass - Samgrass green arse', sung to the tune of St Mary's chime, and he would thus serenade him, perhaps once a week, under his windows.

*********************

Next day Lady Marchmaine left Oxford, taking Sebastian with her. Brideshead and I went to his rooms to sort out what he would have sent on and what leave behind. 

Brideshead was as grave and impersonal as ever. 'It's a pity Sebastian doesn't know Mgr Bell better,' he said. 'He'd find him him a charming man to live with. I was there my last year. my mother believes Sebastian is a confirmed drunkard. Is he?'

'He's in danger of becoming one.'

'I believe God prefers drunkards to a lot of respectable people.'

'For God's sake,' I said, for I was near to tears that morning, 'why bring God into everything?'

'I'm sorry. I forgot. But you know that's an extremely funny question.'

'Is it?'

'To me. Not to you.'

'No, not to me. It seems to me that without your religion Sebastian would have the chance to be a happy and healthy man.'

'It's arguable,' said Brideshead. 'Do you think he will need this elephant's foot again?'

****************

[Charles to his father on leaving  oxford in the second year]

'I only thought that if I was not going to take up one of the professions where a degree is necessary, it might be best to start now on what I intend doing. I intend to be a painter.'

But to this my father made no answer at the time.

The idea, however, seemed to take root in his mind; by the time we spoke of the matter again it was firmly established. 

'When you're a painter,' he said at Sunday luncheon, 'you'll need a studio.'

'Yes.'

'Well, there isn't a studio here. There isn't even room you could use decently as a studio. I'm not going to have you painting in the gallery.'

'No. I never meant to.'

'Nor will I have undraped models all over the house, nor critics with their horrible jargon. And I don't like the smell of turpentine. I presume you intend to do the thing thoroughly and use oil paint?'

My father belonged to a generation which divided painters into the serious and the amateur, according as they used oil or water.

'I don't suppose I will do much painting the first year. Anyway I should be working at a school.'

'Abroad?' asked my father hopefully. 'There are some excellent schools abroad, I believe.'

It was all happening rather faster than I intended. 

'Abroad or here. I should have to look round first.'

'Look round abroad.' he said.

'Then you agree to my leaving Oxford?'

'Agree? Agree? My dear boy, you're twenty-two.'

'Twenty.' I said, 'twenty-one in October.'

'Is that all? It seems much longer.'

*****************

[Charles on being told off  by Lady  Marchmaine  for  giving Sebastian  money for drink  and  leaving  Brideshead.]

I was unmoved; there was no part of me remotely touched by her distress. It was as I had often imagined being expelled from school. I almost expected to hear her say: 'I have already written to inform your unhappy father.' But as I drove away and turned back in the car to take what promised to be my last view of the house, I felt that I was leavning part of myself behind, and that wherever I went afterwards I should feel the lack of it, and search for it hopelessly, as ghosts are said to do, frequenting the spots where they buried materials without which they cannot pay their way to the nether world. 

'I shall never go back,' I said to myself. 

************************

It is time to speak of Julia, who til now has played an intermittent and somewhat enigmatic part in Sebastian's drama. It was thus she appeared to me at the time, and I to her. We pursued seperate aims which brought us near to one another, but we remained strangers. 

She told me later that she had made a kind of note of me in her mind, as, scanning the shelf for a particular book, one will sometimes have one's attention caught by another, take it down, glance at the title page and, saying 'I must read that, too, when I've time.' replace it, and continue the search. On my side the interest was keener, for there was always the physical likeness between brother and sister, which, caught repeatedly in different poses, under different lights, each time pierced me anew; and, as Sebastian in his sharp decline seemed daily to fade and crumble, so much the more did Julia stand out clear and firm.

***************************

[Rex on  converting to Catholisism on Lady Marchmain's order  for him to marry Julia]

'I don't pretend to be a very devout man,' he said, 'nor much of a theologian, but I know it's a bad plan to have two religions in one house. A man needs a religion. If your Church is good enough for Julia, it's good enough for me.'

'Very well,' she said, 'I will see about having you instructed.'

'Look, Lady Marchmain, I haven't the time. Instruction will be wasted on me. Just you give me the form and I'll sign on the dotted line. 

'It usually takes some months - often a lifetime.'

'Well, I'm a quick learner. Try me.'

So Rex was sent to Farm Street to Father Mowbray, a priest renowned for his triumphs with obdurate catechumens. AFter the third interview he came to tea with Lady Marchmain. 

'Well, how do you find my future son-on-law?'

'He's the most difficult convert I have ever met.'

'Oh dear, I thought he was going to make it so easy.'

'That's exactly it. I can't get anwhere near him. He doesn't seem to have the least intellectual curiosity or natural piety.

'The first day I wanted to find out what sort of religious life he had till now, so I asked him what he meant by prayer. he said "I don't mean anything. You tell me."  I tried to, in a few words, and he said: "Right. So much for prayer. What's the next thing?" I gave him the catechism to take away. Yesterday I asked him whether Our Lord had more than one nature. He said: "Just as many as you say, Father."

'Then again I asked him: "Supposing the Pope looked up and saw a cloud and said 'It's going to rain', would that be bound to happen?" "Oh yes, Father." "But supposing it didn't?" He thought a moment and said, "I suppose it would be sort of raining spiritually, only we were too sinful to see it."''

Conversations With My Grandad

Grandad: the war was so exciting....
Me: but, I mean, it was kinda bad aswell wasn't it?
Grandad: we used to sit on the roof of this great big hotel just off Tottenham Court Road with these long shovels, do you know about the London Blitz?
Me: yeah
Grandad: well the incendary bombs, they used to fall and set fire to things, so when it was your turn on the roof you had to pick them up in these shovels and fling them into someone else's back garden!
Me: errrrr!!!
Grandad: it was a brilliant time that.


Grandad: Do you know why Beavers make dams?
Me: Errr, no actually. Yeah hang on, why *do* beavers make dams?
Grandad: Becuase they cannot *stand* the sound of running water.


Grandad: I love museums, war museums I would so love to go to one
Me: OK well we should definately go! There's an aeroplane one in Malton nearby, we could go there?
Grandad: Oh I would love to go. Any museum, I love them.
Me: Well let's go there then.
Grandad: Oh wait a minute, I think Vicky and Dave [my mum and dad] took me there last year. It was very dissappointing to me, because they had lots and lots of aeroplanes and ones like the ones I flew but they didn't have the ACTUAL aeroplanes I flew. Yes it was very disappointing.


Me: I think if I were to go into the army I would go into 'Intelligence'
Grandad:  [pause] No you wouldn't. You'd be a driver.


Grandad: I like your buttons on your jacket. They are like Michael Jackson
Me: Oh wow, thanks! Yes they are a bit Michael Jackson. Isn't it sad that he died?
Grandad: Oh yes, it is quite sad. He was such a talented little boy.
Me: Yeah, I mean he was talented all the way through really....
Grandad: I saw a film of him once
Me: Oh yeah?
Grandad: Yes, he was doing all this fantastic dancing and he'd blacked up his face, you know?
Me: Errrm... he was black!
Grandad: [long pause] Oh! So he was!!

My Ideal Husband

My ideal husband has got glowing, bright red eyes which it uses for walking you home in the dark after parties along unlit streets and short-cuts. It has a nose as long as a peacock feather that swishes about when it walks so that other people stay a nice distance away. It has black, pointed teeth that are razor sharp and my ideal husband uses these to bite off tags you accidentally leave in your clothes so you don't make a fool of yourself out in public. Did I mention that instead of nails it has claws and it is VERY possessive? Those claws, by the way, are reinforced with diamond; the hardest substance on the planet. It also has its heart on the outside of its chest so you can see that it is really beating for you.

No Bananas

He was in with this girl, that was a certain! He was so in with her, he might as well BE in her! Scratch that sentence, it's too filthy, even for YOUR mind! But you understand just how in with her he was. The date had moved from the cinema to the cinema bar to the cinema restaurant part of the bar to the pub next door to the cinema to a stroll along the river where she kept touching his arm to her street to her front door to her KITCHEN! The line that had got him in wasn't “do you.. want a cup of coffee?” it was “Hey! Maybe I could make us banana milkshake!” and then they both laughed loads because it was a reference to a flirty jokey conversation they had had earlier in the evening. He walked through the door into her kitchen still laughing. She touched his chest in a 'oh don't! It hurts because I'm laughing so much' sort of way. Then she told him to take a seat at the kitchen table while she made the milkshake. She put the stereo on and David Bowie's 'Low' came blasting out.
“Don't you worry about the neighbours?” he asked, referring to the late hour and the volume nob.
“Don't you wonder... SOMETI-I-I-I-I-MES!”
and then they both sang along with David Bowie:
“'BOUT SOUND AND VISION! DOO DOO DOOOO DOO DOOO!” and then they fell about laughing while David Bowie had to carry on playing and singing.
He took her hands and put her into mock ballroom dance hold and then waltzed her in great big leaps around the kitchen while they sang along at full volume
“BLUE, BLUE, ELECTRIC BLUE THAT'S THE COLOUR OF MY ROOM!”
“That's the colour of your kitchen, MATE!” he said, pointing at the extreme colour choice of her kitchen blind.
“I know!” she said, “I picked it out on purpose. The landlord's gonna go mental when he finds out I chucked away his perfectly nice cream one!” and then they both laughed again until they stopped laughing and David Bowie was still playing things. There was that sort of moment where they probably could have kissed, but they didn't and as the moment lingered it was getting awkward so she broke away suddenly and said
“FUCK!”
and he, relieved of the moment though disappointed in himself for having not initiated a kiss at that perfect moment, said
“What's the matter?”
and she said
“There's no bananas!!”
and he said
“FUCK!”
and she said
“I know! How can I make banana milkshake if there's no bananas?”
and he said
“Yeah! I only came in because you said there was banana milkshake on the cards! This will not do at all!”
and she pulled a sad face and then looked up at him with a cheeky eye-glint and said
“Well... the 24 hour supermarket will be open!”
and he said
“RIGHT! Then that's what I'll do! I'll be the knight and go get you bananas, my lady!”
and then he bowed very low and took her hand and kissed it very gently and gave a sly little look up in to her eyes for a very brief second.
“WHOOOOOOOOSH!” he said as he swept up his coat from the back of the chair and exited out the door into the night.

He was pretty pleased with his exit. It was cool, it was fun and it was gallant. He would get bananas and she would make milkshake and they would drink it and then they would talk about how good the milkshake was and then he would tell a joke and then she would laugh and then he would kiss her.
Ten minutes later he was standing in the fruit isle of the 24 hour supermarket, looking at the card that said 'BANANAS 36p EACH. TEMPORARILY OUT OF STOCK'.

“There's no bananas AT ALL?” he asked the guy stocking the kiwis up.
“No, sorry. They're all gone, we'll have more in the morning I guess.”
“But the morning's not good enough! I need them now! She needs to make milkshake!”

The guy stocking the kiwis looked away and back at the kiwis. He wasn't interested in his milkshake crisis.

“I mean, it's not about milkshake you understand? It's my ticket to...”
The guy stocking the kiwis interrupted him,
“They just called me on the tannoy. I need to go now.”
And he left him there in the fruit isle, biting his finger, sobering up.

Half an hour later he was at her door.
“Knock knock, my lady” but his language and manner had sort of lost gusto somehow.
She looked tired. What had she been doing for the last forty minutes or so?
“Have you got the bananas?” she said, trying to regain enthusiasm for the whole milkshake thing.
“Errrm, no. Can you believe it, they didn't have any! No bananas!” he said, unable to think of anything funny to say about the situation.
“Oh.” she said. “That's a real shame, I think.”
“Yeah.”
And he was still stood on her doorstep. He looked over her shoulder into her kitchen and saw himself only an hour before hand laughing and flirting with her in there and cursing himself for not having gone in for that kiss earlier.
“Well. There'll be other nights for banana milkshakes! Don't worry.” she said in a tone that was too forced to be as light as she had intended.
“Yes. Of course. Sorry, I feel I let you down.” he said.
“No, don't.” she said and the mood was becoming serious but in a dull sort of way.
“No.” he said. “I guess we can blame the supermarket, eh?”
“Yeah” she said with a small, false laugh.
“Well.” he said, after a pause. He took a low bow again and kissed her hand again though this time she didn't return his eye contact and he quickly let it go.
“I bid you goodnight, my lady. Thank you for a wonderful evening.”
“Yes” she said with a genuine, small smile. “It's been really lovely.” and she sort of curtsied.
He bowed even lower and blew her a kiss. She smiled and nodded her head and gave a wave of her hand, and then she saluted him. He knew it was over. He saluted her back and just before he disappeared behind the wall and into the night he said
“WHOOOOSH”.

The Town And Times of Leo Jennings PART ONE: The Job

In the town where I live, there are two football teams: Fishermen and Firemen. Don't be fooled, they are professional players, it's just one of those team name things that started before the dawn of time, and has stuck through everything ever since. There's barely a fisherman left in this town, and apparently the Firemen name came from the guys that would stoke the fires on the boats and nothing to do with the emergency services. Anyway, the point is, people were passionate about these teams. They both played in the second highest league and would switch and swap around positions in the table; usually around the 5th and 6th mark. One year Fishermen finished top, but they didn't get bumped up because of something dodgy to do with the manager stealing money and owing it back and nobody really knew and the local paper favours Fishermen so the story was hushed up pretty quickly and all anybody knew was that Fishermen started in the same league the next season.

Supporters of the teams aren't geographically based. It has nothing to do with what side of the railway line you live on, or what church is on your corner. It's more to do with what school you went to and whether you got on with the kids of the managers or players from various teams or sometimes it was just as simple as who your dad supported. The girls got a bit involved I guess, but it was definitely a man thing of the town.

Being a man of this town who was born and bred here, I had my team - Firemen, and I supported them with a generous level of enthusiasm. I would go and watch them play every other weekend, sometimes every weekend if I was feeling particularly flush or wanted to piss off my girlfriend. One of the lads in my year at school was son of the star player for Fishermen and I hated him. Hence my allegiance with the opposition. He went on to also play for Fishermen like his dad and mysteriously it was around this time that my support for the Firemen grew more intense.

Four years ago, I lost my job. I'd been working in the office of a Removals company and when the recession hit, people stopped moving house and one day when I was sat there by the silent phone, twiddling my thumbs, the boss called me into his office for a chat.

At first I tried to keep quite optimistic; I was a hard worker, I'd been with that company for five years which showed loyalty and had gained me a lot of experience in office and people skills. I applied for jobs I wanted and didn't get them so then I started applying for every single job that ever came up, but by this time, that's what everyone was doing and I just kept losing out and being pipped at the post. It was tough. My girlfriend was supporting the both of us but the pressure became too much and after a few months we both had to move back to our respective parents' houses as we couldn't keep up with the rent. The living separation put a strain on our relationship as she discovered that she quite enjoyed living without me and so we broke up. Well, I say we broke up but really she broke my heart and kicked me in the balls and spat in my eye while I was rolling around the alley letting every last shred of dignity leave me. In my imagination, I see me laying in that alley, writhing in pain and clutching my stomach and balls and moaning while just being able to see through the spit in my eye, the blurred shape of her walking off in her high stilettos and getting into the car of a guy I knew was new at her office and then the car pulling away and the rain starting.
But the official line is that we broke up. That's what we tell people.

I hate her.

So, there was I; nursing my wounds and with no job, back at my parents' and unable to find work anywhere, when one day my mother knocked on my bedroom door. My bedroom still had stars on the ceiling and posters of my favourite Firemen players from back when I was at school. There's a desk in my bedroom, which has been there since my 11th birthday when I wanted to be a sports journalist, and it's built for a child. When my mother entered that day after the knock on the door, I was sitting at that desk writing a hate poem for my ex girlfriend while listening to a really bad punk band I was really into at school. When I think of myself in that moment: a grown man in that room, it makes me want to punch myself in the face.

Anyway, my mother came into my room and told me that she'd just been down the doctor's surgery and seen an old neighbour of ours' son, Matthew, who was all grown up now and that he had said that he had just gotten a new job that was starting next week and that his old job would be coming up. She suggested I should get in there before they advertised the job and I agreed.

The company was a security company, that's what Matthew had told my mother and what she told me anyway. It was office stuff; admin mainly. To be honest at that point I didn't care what it was, but it actually seemed really decent in way of what I could be good for. I called the number that was scribbled on the back of a 'So You're Worried About An Autoimmune Disease?' pamphlet and asked to speak to the boss. I explained that I was a close friend (lie) of his old employee and I pushed myself on him so that he agreed to having a meeting with me that very afternoon.

In my best office attire and clean shaven employ-me-face I rang the top buzzer at 45 Cork Street and, on hearing the click, walked through that heavy door and up the stairs to the very top floor. I was greeted by a young lady I would have ordinarily considered very attractive if she didn't look so much like my sister, at the reception desk.
"Ah, Mr Jennings. Please take a seat. Mr Petersen will see you in just a few minutes."
I thanked her and took a seat in the empty reception area. On the walls I saw frames containing black and white images of what appeared to be local landscape aerial photographs. They was something a bit odd about them, like they were taken with a fish-eye lens but I couldn't be sure. I noticed one was of the Fishermen grounds and draped over it was a Fishermen's blue and yellow striped scarf.
"Mr Jennings" said my frustratingly cleavage-blessed sister. "Mr Petersen will see you now." and she gestured toward a frosted glass door which bore no name or logo.
"Thanks" I said trying my hardest to look at her face.

Upon entering Mr Petersen's office, I was a little taken aback to find that he was smoking at his desk. The smoking ban had been in place for years and it just seemed so peculiar to see someone in a workplace, in an office smoking! It threw me immediately near to the point of losing my manners in distraction.
I remembered myself and shook his hand, beaming. He was tall, skinny, blond hair, not as old as I had imagined him to be from our phone call. He had high cheek bones and wore a very tight fitting drainpipe suit. He was quite something to look at, but whether this was just because he wasn't what I expected I couldn't be sure. Everything about him had thrown me off guard.

"Mr Jennings! Leo Jennings! Please. My friend, take a seat." He smiled and took another deep, long drag off his cigarette. "Smoke?" and offered me a packet of soft top foreign cigarettes. I hadn't smoked in years, since I had started going out with The Bitch in fact, and seeing those foreign cigarettes that felt like lazy summer holidays with friends in Europe; outside bars, sangria, warm nights, girls...
"Thanks" I said and took a long, white filter-tipped cigarette from him. He held up a lighter decorated with the Danish flag and I started to relax and took in the first drag of my first cigarette in three years and seven months. I leaned back a little and he smiled at me and I smiled back.

"So." he said, "You know Matthew?" I nodded. "He's a good man." I was about to nod again when I sensed the tone and took a punt on a sudden hunch I felt and tilted my head and sort of grimaced ever so slightly." Mr Petersen nodded. "I know." he said. "I know." Then he smiled at me even more. His teeth were so perfect and white and straight. He put out his cigarette out and leaned forward.

"I know you know this isn't just an office job. I know you know why Matthew had to leave and I know you know that I know you know. I am impressed by your discretion and opacity. I am impressed that you knew the drill with the cigarettes."
I was completely overwhelmed and had absolutely no idea what he was talking about but all I knew is that I needed a job and he was about to offer me one. I just needed to hold it together for a few more minutes. I put my cigarette out too and smiled at him across the desk.
"Well. You need not worry about me, Mr Petersen. I am VERY discreet." And then I winked.
He started laughing, "ahh Leo" he said in between giggles "I like you. You will do very nicely. But there's one last thing I need to know." and he leaned forward, so I did too. Our heads were but centimetres apart. He looked me straight in the eye and said
"Which team?"
and without blinking, but having a flash of that image of me sitting in my room earlier that morning listening to bad youth punk and writing hate poetry to my ex at a desk for an eleven year old in a room full of stars on the ceiling and my childhood favourite Firemen posters I said
"Why, Fishermen of course."
Mr Petersen leaned right back on his chair laughing loudly and banging his fist on the table.
"I knew it!!" He was still laughing and rocking back and forth on his chair. "I knew it! I'll see you here Monday morning ten thirty am. Oh don't worry, it's not like we don't work you late to make up for it! April will tell you all you need to know outside, but if you'll excuse me for now I have a telephone call to make."
I couldn't believe it. I had a job!
"Thank you, Mr Petersen. You won't regret it, I promise!" I shook his hand enthusiastically and almost waltzed out of the door right into April, my horribly sexy sister.

"Well, well" she smiled. Her lips were stained red like raspberry puree. I love raspberry puree. Inwardly I groaned, cursing my actual sister.
She went through my pay (30% more than my salary at the Removals place!), showed me where I'd be working, what my log in was, where the tea and coffee was and when she showed me where the paper for the printer was kept, bending over to the bottom drawer, I had to look away.

Karmaic By Nature - For Jessie

Karmaic By Nature
he said
in a way that suggested
he didn't know what he was saying.
Karmaic by Nature?
I asked.
He
looked
down
and said that when he was
tall
he used to look down
all the time at people.
and what about now?
I asked
now that you have been shrunk to the size of
a flea
by your time machine that went wrong again?
he sighed
Well, that's just it
he said
I still look down, but now I look down so that people won't see
my hideous
human
face
on the body of
a flea.

The Last Time I Saw John

The last time I saw John in real life was at his dad’s farm. We were asked to look after it while his dad and step-mum went on their annual holiday. We didn’t know shit about running a farm, but somehow we managed to blunder through. It was early autumn and nice enough weather to want to spend hours in a field trying to catch a sheep that had a poorly leg; or to bomb around the farm on the quad, trying to count the cows. We miscounted them every single time, and so drastically that we didn’t even notice that two calves had been born under our jurisdiction. On an evening, John would hand me a garden fork and gesture toward the vegetable patch saying “have a look round and see what you fancy for your tea” and then we’d cook giant marrows and cabbages into any sort of dish we could manage. After we’d made sure all the chickens were safely shut up in their pen for the night, we’d settle down with a fine wine from his dad’s cellar and watch cheap horror films. It was easy, really.

Being on the farm was good, hard, honest work. The occasion I mentioned with the sheep was especially interesting as we had to call upon the help of a local farmer, Alastair, who sometimes helped out on this one. He was a dairy farmer and after we had managed to catch the sheep (which was fine by the way, just a little lame) we had a long cup of tea with him and he told us all about the industry and where it’s going and how it had changed and that his dad had been born in the very barn we kept the quad in. (Alastair didn't make too subtle a hints at the fact that he wanted to rent the land on this farm and so was eager to press his emotional attachment to it upon us, hoping the sentiment would seep upwards to John's dad.)He was a really great guy and you felt good just by getting on with him; as if vicariously, you were as wholesome as he was, even if for just a few days.

One day some of our friends, including John’s girlfriend, came to stay at the farm for the night. Earlier that day John had asked me if I wouldn’t mind mowing the lawns and the paddock (of which there was a lot). I think he wanted everything looking shipshape and impressive and he strutted about like a land owner as he opened up the shed to reveal the ride-on mower. I’d never used one before and so leaped at the opportunity. I had great fun trying to make the lines as straight as possible and, I admit, to behaving a little bit over-confident and cavalier at times; making too tight a turns too quickly and knocking down a length of fencing John had only finished a few days before. The fence-blow aside, I was really enjoying mowing. I chugged along singing pop songs that I’d re-purposed for my newfound love of mowing.

The Beatles: - please don’t spoil my day I’m miles away and after all, I’m only mowing. Dum dum dum dum dum.
The Bangles: Am I only dreaming, or am I mowing an eternal lawn...
Kate Bush: Keep mowing up that lawn, keep mowing up that hill, keep mowing round that corner
etc.etc.

When I eventually finished and came inside I was shocked to discover that the others had already arrived; they must have driven up the track right next to the paddock I was mowing and I had not noticed them at all.
“Gosh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you were all here I would have come and said hello otherwise!
and Vicky said
“It’s OK, we’ve been watching you through the window but John had said ‘leave her’.”
Three and a half hours I’d been mowing and it had passed in a blink.

A few days later we were at the end of our farm fostering term and it was the last afternoon. John was staying on that night to make a clean switch over with his dad and step mum but I was leaving that evening. We’d spent the morning putting up a section of fencing that had been destroyed by Tarragon, the bull, in an attempt to reach a sapling just over the fence that must have looked tastier than anything in his field. He watched us as we worked; snorting and generally stropping about. You often find you can get used to anything after a while; sewerage workers get used to their surroundings and the smell, high-rise builders get used to the precarious positions they are in every day (we’ve all seen the famous photo of a bunch of builders having their lunch on some sort of insanely high piece of scaff.) But anyway, my point being, that no matter how one can usually get used to anything with enough exposure, I never got used to being near Tarragon. I simply didn’t trust him and his little devil eyes.
“He’s a softy” John would say, but that’s just what Tarragon wanted him to say and I knew it.

The rest of the afternoon had been spent shoveling muck off the long track up to the farm. We literally used shovels and a stiff brush and it was hard work on the arms and the back. The air was fresh though and the sun was low in the sky. The Dales glowed gently; green lit through orange.
We got back in and cleaned off our wellies and fed the dogs. John flung himself on the sofa and stretched out, while I put the kettle on and as I was stood there making the tea he started talking about the music business and what artists he especially hated. Even with all that good, honest fresh air inside his lungs, out bellowed this vitriol and hatred so quickly that by the time I was handing him his mug, he was already onto the ‘televised’ part of his plan. I laughed it off of course, and only half-listened while I caught up on my emails and reported in jest back to friends on instant messengers the basic gist of John’s hate-filled pipe dream of what he would like to do with Lady Gaga.

I left the farm in a form of goodbye, as it was truly the end of the summer now, and John was moving back through to university the following week and I was away all the days to follow until then. It was a nice way to spend the end of the summer; on the farm and driving down that track in the setting sun with a snoring dog on the front seat who was exhausted from all the excitement of being a farm dog for a week. It felt like the end of a holiday and the beginning of head-down, work mode which has always pretty much been my favourite sort of seasonal feeling.

It was two months later when I saw John again, but this time it wasn’t in real life. I’d been working in the recording studio all day and then came through to the front room to watch Coronation Street with my dinner on a tray on my knees. My mum, dad and sister were all away so it was just me and the dog and the cat. I was sitting there with a horribly catchy whistling melody ringing around my ears, trying to forget about arrangements and kick drum patterns and just enjoy watching new-mother-Molly trying to get around the fact that Tyrone wasn’t the father and that Kevin, who was the father and Tyrone’s business partner was there at the birth and how his wife, who was clueless to the whole situation helped deliver the thing. It was just what I needed, and there, with my vegetable stew, I sank into my planned evening.

Just as Tyrone was suggesting that heroic baby-deliverer Kevin ought to be the godfather, the picture on the television went a little fuzzy and before I could even reach for the remote to try and fiddle around with the settings, there was John’s face looking right at me, from the screen. I simply couldn’t understand what had happened. Had I accidentally set playing some sort of video recording John and I had made messing around on the farm or something? But it didn’t take long to realise that this was not the case, the video nor DVD player were even turned on, I was watching ITV and ITV was broadcasting John... John on a boat...? Yes, he was on a boat of some sort, at sea it seemed from all the motion, and he was adjusting the camera.

My vegetable stew fell from the tray on my lap onto the floor which the dog was quick to take care of and I sat there in absolute bafflement as to what could possibly be going on. Even though it was the strangest thing in the world, for some reason it also seemed familiar somehow in a way that I couldn’t quite understand or remember. John, who was wearing an orange life jacket and had a weather-beaten face with his cheeks even rosier than normal looked nothing but... angry. His arm reached forward to something on the camera and with a clunk he had turned on the microphone. Wind battering the mic like scrunching up crisp packets and the sound of halyards wildly clanging against a mast. It was now clear that John was on a yacht that was not under sail, merely drifting about in whatever body of water he was in the middle of. Above the wind and the clanging sounds came John’s voice while he stared right down the lens.
“Right. I’m sorry to interrupt, but this just had to be done. It’s just gone too far, so I’ve gone too far to even things out. If you think this is extreme just have a little listen to the top 40 charts. Want to arrest me? I don’t give a shit, I’m saving humanity and what you gonna do anyway? I’m in the middle of the fucking ocean, it will be way too late by the time you find me....” and then the really sinister bit where I suddenly remembered why this was familiar to me:
“Or by the time you find her....” at this point, John leaned forward and took a hold of the camera. He jerked it across the deck and zoomed in then out a little until she was bang in focus. There she was; Lady Gaga, bound and gagged to the pulpit. I clapped my hands to my mouth and watched with wide eyes, utterly incapable of turning away even though I KNEW what was coming next.

So that was the last time I saw John in any form. I watched him on that boat with Lady Gaga, dressed in her finest lead bodice that had crude parrots John had obviously made from the foils of KitKat wrappers hanging off her like a baby’s cot mobile. She was wearing an eye patch made from a patch of astro-turf and she wore thigh-length boots that appeared to be made of thousands of snail shells glued together. The whole ITV-watching nation watched as he made her walk the plank whilst blasting out from some elaborate sound system he had rigged up on the deck, the title track from the Marvin Gaye What’s Going On album. When the splash was made John turned to the camera and said
“Sorry you missed Corrie. In a bitch. Over and out!”
and then the picture went fuzzy and came back on to the end credits and mournful horn theme tune of Coronation Street. My phone started ringing immediately, but I didn’t answer the calls.
I’ll ring them back in a bit, I thought as I went to clean up what the dog had missed of the vegetable stew from the floor. Just before I went to fetch the floor cloth and stain remover though I headed for the CD player, and took out What’s Going On.
He’s got a point, I thought as I turned up the volume.