Long Haired Cat

THE CAT WAS sitting on the cold platform licking its long black and white hair. The man sat down on the bench. It was a strange bench designed in a way that things imposed now rarely are; to last the length of the age. It was divided into three wide seats by decorative iron arm rests which were colder than the ground – the black and white long hair cat began its ritual for sitting on his lap. First it travelled in front of him whilst looking into the middle distance, its head raised proud -- he was sitting, as usual, in the middle of the three seats, this was right and proper. After passing in front of him it took great care in jumping onto the seat furthest from where it started. He opened a button on his jacket with great ceremony and the cat stepped into his lap. It extended its claws and mussed and fluffed his shirt where the material rested upon his stomach, preparing. The man widely drew his jacket around the cat gently, and it burrowed its head in under his armpit. The wind blew across his chest and he shivered, the cat’s hair was cold, and under his chilled hands it felt brittle, dry and coarse. The pads of its paws felt like soft blebs of ice and the ground glittered like sandpaper.

He remembered patterns from his childhood, a brown flower-patterned towel, thin rainbow striped wallpaper – remembered the brightness and specialness of individual objects in the accumulated and important poverty of everything else around, like polished stones sitting in dust. The cat made him think of people who throw things away; old things because they are messy; or have a room within which messiness is allowed to take place. These people terrify him – there is something in themselves that asks “W h y do we have t h e s e things?” Now he answers, "we have them because they anchor us to the ground, to places. They mark our territory, they prohibit us from leaving at short notice, they mean that someone cannot easily take our place; they mean that small provocations must be worked through, they are a commitment to specific time and specific space – they are at the very least a promise to return and organise, perhaps."

The man had lived his life carelessly, and was grateful for all the things he had lost. He gave away or missed, he never disposed of. The cat was asleep, but a train was approaching. He shifted his weight with his hips and crossed his legs, the cat stirred. He raised himself in the seat and the cat slid to his knees and stepped onto the ground.

Dictaphone Dreams

That morning, because of reading the article where Nigel Slater invited Paul, Stella and Mary McCartney to lunch, I daydreamed about how brilliant it would be to own a Dictaphone. It might be the single most entertaining purchase I could make. It fitted with the daydream about having my own photocopier.

When I went to work in the shop I work in, I made sure I was wearing something with a pocket. This is useful for two reasons: somewhere to put my locker key, and it means I can carry my Dictaphone.
Sorting clothes in the back of the shop, I hear someone say a sentence containing the word ‘kite’. I start to think long and hard about kites. I realise kites are something I think about exceptionally rarely. I try to put a timescale on it – once a year? – could be too hasty an exaggeration. Once a month – NO I don’t! I try to work backwards: Do I think about kites once in every two months? No! Once in every four months? Probably not, you know. Woah. Kites are far less part of my conscious than hundreds of fictional things. It must be time to turn on my Dictaphone:
“Fiona, have you ever flown a kite?” I ask.
“Have I ever flown a kite?? Or have I ever attempted to fly a kite? I tried when I was little, it didn’t really work.”
“Do you think most people have flown a kite?”
“I think most people have tried. I don’t think most people have succeeded.”
Fiona is practical. I think she is right. Oh – gosh! – this is my experience, too! I remember now, with my sister and brother in the Yorkshire Dales. Trial and not much flight. I suppose experienced kiters can see the correct shapes of the wind.
Rosie comes into the back room, grinning, and holding postcard-sized paper. “Wuz in with the books. Someone must have been using it as a bookmark.”
Lee takes it “Urr”. I look over his shoulder. It is a photograph of a young woman on a sunny pier, topless and arms out at right-angles. The photographer was standing quite far away, and has unnecessarily added oodles of blue sky, meanwhile chopping off her feet. Photographs are a nice shape and feel for a bookmark, provided they’re not still new and sticky. I think of all the types of things that get used as bookmarks, in a row, on a white gallery wall. Ladies of a certain lengthxwidth. OH MY, I WANT TO HAVE AN EXHIBITION OF BOOKMARKS. Maybe I should be taking this down on my Dictaphone. Everybody could relate. Well, readers.
I think of stealing the topless woman shot as the first piece for the exhibition, and because it feels tripley thrilling – stealing soft porn from a charity shop. At the end of my shift, I steal it.
“Ohhh!” says Fiona, opening another donation bag.
“Yeah, I was trying my very best to avoid touching those” says Lee.

In bed at night I listen to the recordings I took with my Dictaphone. I notice on a second hearing that Lee’s reaction to the topless woman was strange. She was quite an attractive woman, after all. Strange. I like to chant my little mantra: How much of this am I recalling and how much am I reconstructing? and I can answer certainly 100% recall, I am remembering the truth. I listen to the recordings of the conversations again while I am part-asleep. Dictaphone dreams.

3 Billion

I wondered, when I was smaller, whether everything just had the same number of heartbeats, one finite number, let’s say 3 billion and when they reach that 3 billionth beat, that’s it. They just die. Unless something bad happens before like a bus hits them or they drown. And so a mouse whose little heart just beats so fast, well he gets there quicker, to the end I mean. And someone who’s stressed, their heart goes a little faster too and pulls their 3 billionth beat a little closer so they sound their last more early. And smokers.
There are no doubt scientific examples that prove this not to be the case, though I can’t say I’m desperate to know them, anyway I was young when I thought this. Though I still wonder and am wondering whether it could be true, at least for most humans. No-one has really proven it wrong…
I’m just firing up a cigarette and listening to reggae instrumentals again, I guess I could wonder what number I’m on.

Olden

I see that you’re bitter with your sense and your youth, and here I am, child, crazy old coot, I’m laughing. I wear sandals and I tear my toes on brambles. And so? And so they bleed; I spit on them, laughing. I spend my money on whisky and tobacco, just like you. Me? I smoke a pipe and when I cough, I laugh. I sip my whisky, evenings in the rocking chair. And? It’s good stuff. I like it, there on the shelf, pour yourself a glass. Not too much. I haven’t had my tea. I have these albums of photographs, hundreds of them, just like you. I look through them, crying and laughing. I don’t expect you’ll be fascinated by them, but wait till I tell you a story. I have fruit cake that never goes stale. I have phonograph records that take a donkey to play them. I had a wife and she’s buried in the graveyard, in the village. I have three sons and a daughter, see them sometimes. At the very least they send letters, they telephone. Yes, I have a telephone. I go walking in the woods, I always come back, I bring berries, whatever fruits are in season. When it snows, I throw snowballs at cows. I think they’re glad of the company. Have you read that poem? The long one? It’s a bit turgid, of course, I don’t care greatly for the tone, but it’s evocative nonetheless. I don’t remember how it goes. I’m too young to remember the Crimean War anyway. What was it that that Florence Nightingale invented? No, neither do I. I heard a lot about her, though, like what she invented. You’d be surprised. Now, where was I? Ah, yes, I have… nine grandchildren. And you’re the youngest one.

Hair On: Mashes (two varieties)

HAIR ON: RECIPES FROM OLDER RELATIVES
Great Aunt Cally says "Once we were playing the Monster Game and someone drew an apple for the head of one of the monsters. We were playing the Monster Game to fill up the time before teatime. Because someone had drawn an apple-head we tore out the little piece of paper around the picture of the apple with a face and persuaded Mam to boil it with all the fruit and mash it into the apple sauce. I dont know why she let us! Normally she'd have said 'Dont be silly'. Mind you, it did take SOME persuading. No-one could taste the picture and ink but it was exciting, like we were eating something that would write on the inside of our stomachs. That was the most important pork&apple sauce I've ever had, and I'm 87."

HAIR ON: MASHING CARAVANS
Caravans are about one and a half feet above the ground and this means that when they are taken away and mashed it is hard to do an impression of when you were inside and you walked from the fridge along to the sink and back again. There is now a line in mid-air at the level of your kneecaps. But if you do the impression by standing on your kneecaps you double the problem.