David Mathew - O My Days

Goodbye, Alfreth. Think of me a last time, if you will. I should be evacuating your memory anyway; everything else does—your memory and mine. You hit road and you be a good man, you hear me? Don’t get vex with nobody and nobody get vex with you. I don’t want to see you here. Best wishes for the future.

The letter is not signed.

Dizzy and sprite-like, I chase the ambulance down the hills, away from the prison; I’m a supersonic moth, in flight to touch the pimple-shaped light that crowns the ambulances roof. The siren has been silenced; the illumination has not been dimmed—casting pockets of shadow like bats’ wings from left to right, hurling darkness like sheets of soot. I catch hold. Hills banking to either side of the otherwise unoccupied road: they could, in the darkness, be sand dunes. This could be a desert. The prison, an oasis of life—still life, at least for the time being. Inside my skull I repeat, again, every word I can recall Dott using—every example, every bookish reference, every scintilla of sarcasm. Thinking harder—and how the wind punishes my sweat at this moment!—I am able to climb inside the vehicle. Dott is lying down on a gurney. Though I can’t see the condition of his body, that of his face is indication enough of the savagery of the hiding he’s received. A newly plump face, in hues of grey and cerise. I ask him if he’s all right but he decides not to answer. I repeat the question—subconscious to subconscious, like twins—and he tells me:

I’ll live.

The words take on ugly connotations, given Dott’s resolution to die.

Why do you need the hospital? I ask him.

I don’t. This is all superficial; I’ll be right as rain in a couple of weeks, he tells me. Just thought, better be out of Dellacotte when the shit descends.

What shit?

You’ll see. Tonight’s the night, Alfreth.

And silent he goes once again. No amount of geeing him up can fire further discourse. He’s saving—he’s saving his energy. But I’m still there, I think. I’m still in my cell.

Don’t worry, Billy-Boy, Dott whispers to me; you’re asleep. I’ll take this time away from you. You won’t need to see a thing.

I want to see a thing! I complained. I’ve waited so long, Dott!

As you like it. Dott waves wearily at the air.

The paramedic sitting on the other gurney wants to know if Dott’s trying to say something.

I’m thirsty, Dott croaks. Can I have some water, please?

The paramedic shakes his head. Not just yet. Very soon. We’ll be there in about fifteen minutes, he replies.

Dott’s eyelids feather closed. On either side of the ambulance, as we decline to sea level—sea level?—the trees and bushes on the hills melt into the land. The slopes appear more than ever like sand dunes I want to climb. If tonight’s the night, as Dott puts it, I want it started tout suite. What’s the sense in hanging around? And I can’t mistrust what he’s told me. If he doesn’t intend to call in what he needs to call in, why is he performing the act of goodness and kindness that will protect me from the ugly bombs landing? We know that goodness and kindness are no fucking good to the yoot.

Do it now, Dott, I stress as loudly as I can.

Oh, all right, Dott says aloud, making his carer frown confusion.

As you’ve asked nicely. Wake up, Billy! The show must go on.

Dear Julie

It shouldn’t happen like this but it has. A great but terrible realisation has come upon me and it’s taken me several days to be able to pick up my pen, let alone find the words to express how I’m feeling. But here goes. You need to be without me. I cannot support your decision to start a family with Billy Cardman. It is not right with anyone. But if I hold up my hands and accept defeat, it might be easier for all involved. Still, I need to know. Will he take care of Patrice? Please consider this question honestly. If you think the answer is yes, I will not so much walk away as stand still. It’s not as if I can move very far anyway. But I won’t interfere. I don’t think you should visit me again—and I don’t want to see Patrice either. It’s too painful. I cannot communicate with her and she cannot communicate with me. In this respect, she and I are like you and I. When she can talk—or better, when she can read—there will be a letter waiting for her. I haven’t written it yet; and even if I write it tomorrow, which I doubt I’ll be strong enough to do, I won’t send it yet. Why not? Because I can’t, and because. Cardman will destroy it, I think. Before you get angry, please don’t tell me I don’t know him. Please don’t proffer platitudes. ‘His heart’s in the right place.’ ‘He wouldn’t harm a fly.’ Both of those things are as may be. But I’ll ask you this: how much more intimate can you get than knife-craft?—than wounding? Believe me, Julie—an attack is a personal thing, even if the victim is random, as was the case with Cardman. I had nothing against him I do now, mind, but that’s my problem; he simply wouldn’t give me what I thought I had every right to claim. I think differently now, as you know. So what did I learn about him, by attacking him? I learned a brisk lesson about his stoicism and resolve. He resisted me; he resisted a knife. And now this: I can tell you that he’s strong- willed, opinionated, hurt and excited about his new adventure. He won’t want me to write to Patrice, any more than he’ll want you to come and see me. In his mind, you’re his now. And I know that you’ll hate a sentence like that, but it’s true. You will learn, very quickly, I think, about male pride and male jealousy. He will take care of you and our daughter, I hope. Only if he doesn’t will I return to your lives. Please pass this message to Billy. There really is nothing much to add. I have resigned my position as the Library Redband. I needed a change of scene, ho ho. With Christmas approaching, I wanted to begin the new year with a new job; and for once serendipity and bald good fortune were on my side. It was Ostrich who gave me the idea, but it was luck that made it happen. Ostrich—you’ve never met him, of course, but perhaps you feel you know him a little bit, seeing as I’ve talked about him often enough when you’ve come to visit and I had nothing of my own to tell you—well, he’s enrolled on the Mechanics course; and I thought—okay, I’ll try that. Unfortunately, Motor Mechs already has a Redband who’s good at his job. On the other hand, when I looked around a little more, I found out that the Bricks Workshop Redband has been transferred to another prison because of some gang connections on the out that are threatening to brew up a war inside. So the job was vacant. I applied. I am the Bricks Workshop Redband, starting on January 1 . Happy New Year! A new year and a new beginning: that’s the plan at least. All I fervently want to do, Julie, is to keep my cerebellum busy. Ride my time. It won’t be long before I’m released: this is what I endeavour to teach myself. And at the end of my time—what then? A dead five years. Five years of my transitional period between late teenage-hood and early adulthood—gone, all gone. Dust and breeze. Rain and filth. Five years of mould. So you’ll do me this favour, won’t you, Julie? Please don’t write back; and save your money on train fares or petrol—I don’t want to see you again. Not for a long, long time. Let me serve my sentence in peace. It’s a favour. And I’ll be sending a very similar letter to Mumsy, straight after this one. I am certain, if you ask her—if you really want her to—she will continue to support you with her granddaughter. Patrice is the only one she’ll have and mothers, I think, do not ever stop being mothers; they do not wish to cease caring. Irrespective of how she might moan from time to time, she will take Patrice in the pushchair—to the park, to the shop, to the doctor, to JobCentre Plus. If I may, allow me a second favour. Don’t cut Mumsy out of Patrice’s life. Please. Goodbye, Julie. In this spirit of utter candour, I will go a step further. Truthfully, I don’t know if I ever loved you; but I thought the world of you. I don’t know what love really means, but if I can convince you of anything, allow me to convince you of this: the photograph of you on Ealing High Street, by the bookshop—that photograph got me through many a tricky night. I would stare at it for hours sometimes. But I don’t anymore. And I don’t stare at the photo of you bathing Patrice in the kitchen sink either. I loved it then. I’m scared of it now. I’m scared of the outside world. People have told me that this might happen, even though I’ve still got a good chunk of my tariff left to ride. It’s my fault, Julie. It’s all my own fault. Don’t blame yourself. Kiss Patrice goodbye for me, would you?