According to the website, you have to ask the tree’s permission to contact it. I try a formal approach, thinking: Dear Tree, my name is Oliver Tate. I would like to be intuitive with you, to learn about myself through your deep connection with nature. The details are on www.forestsangha.org. The tree says nothing. I don’t think it’ll take too long – I know myself pretty well. Still, no reply. I understand the tree’s indifference. If you don’t say anything then I’ll just assume it’s okay?
Okay. Firstly, I have to close my eyes and clear my mind. I think of my mind as my attic bedroom. I throw out the bed, the desk, the books, the annuals, the wardrobe, the Super Nintendo; I tear down the postcards, posters, shelves; I sledgehammer the blue, sponge-painted walls; I crash a wrecking ball through my parents’ bay windows; I authorize an air strike that reduces my street to rubble; I fold Swansea Bay like an enormous omelette and scoff it all in one giant bite…
… the nothingness doesn’t last long. The emptiness unwraps to reveal a memory, a new memory, a memory about a dream.
When I was ten years old, I was in love with our German au pair, Hilde. She studied theology at the university and cooked an excellent chocolate bread-and-butter pudding. She had boy-short yellow hair. Her eyebrows were so blonde they were almost invisible, making it difficult for her to look angry, apologetic or quizzical. She used to call me ‘Olifer’. We used to walk to the supermarket and she would tease me about having a girlfriend, which I didn’t, but I liked to be teased. She stayed in the spare room, next door to my bedroom. I used to put my ear against the wall and listen to her singing along to The Stone Roses.
She was always very polite around my parents and cleared the table after every meal. They sometimes discussed religion and ethics at the dinner table. It was a Sunday, the night before she was due to go back to Germany. I had spent the day writing her a comic book as a leaving present. It was called Warp, and was about time travel. It used multiple-choice endings to good effect. And I remember, when I went to bed that night, I was very upset, plus we had eaten mushroom lasagne for tea. And so I would not have been surprised to have dreamt of my tongue becoming a rat or that everything I touched turned to salt. I remember the dream I had.
I dreamt that I woke up in the middle of the night and got out of bed. My room was the usual version of my room. I was wearing the same pyjamas I went to bed in. Everything was normal. There was a smell of burning plastic, like when Jordana put a ruler in the Bunsen flame. I put on my slippers – who puts on slippers in a dream? – and went across the corridor into Hilde’s room. Her stuff was already gone. Which was also normal because her flight was very early in the morning and Dad was going to drive her to Heathrow.
The door to my parents’ room was open. The bed was unmade and empty. I could hear some noise from downstairs. I went down to the living room. It was not a particularly cold night but Mum had made a fire. She was sat on the edge of the coffee table, blowing her nose into the sleeve of her white cotton nightie, the one that makes her look like a ghost.
I knew it was a dream because she had the bay windows fully open. The smell from the fire was tarry and sharp. The fire was spitting and the smoke was black. Presented neatly along the mantelpiece was a series of five of my father’s classical record sleeves. The sleeves of classical records are designed to look worthless. Dad has some records that are worth over two hundred pounds.
Mum looked up from her hands. She looked at me and she stopped snivelling, although she was still evidently unhappy. Classical music is about these sorts of topics: death, sadness, loss. I was only ten years old and I was not yet familiar with Jerry Springer or Vanessa Feltz, but I had played football for my primary school so I said: ‘Chin up, Mum, get stuck in.’
Then I went upstairs, got into bed and, in my dream, I had a little trouble sleeping but I soon dozed off.
I woke up in the real world and my mum had pulled back the curtains and it was a school day. Dad had already arrived back from Heathrow. He was in bed.
Before heading off to school, I went in to say hello. His tiny head was the only thing showing above the bed sheet. He was not asleep. I asked him who he would save first in a house fire given the hypothetical situation that both me and my mother were of exactly equal difficulty and risk to save. He did not hesitate: ‘I would save your mother first so that we could have a better chance of working together to save you.’
I wondered whether he had prepared the answer in advance.
*
I may have slept. The tree smells like my mother’s Faith In Nature shampoo. The bark feels rough as a loofah. I am cleansed. This surprises me. To meditate also means to think deeply, to reflect. I am aware of the river trickling. Meditation is like a long bath.
I polish off the rest of the muffins in the first rays of sun. My teeth feel furry as moss.
At mealtimes, the pagoda is deserted.
I break cover and sprint out across the grass. I run up the grassy incline, along the side of the pagoda and straight in through the open cloakroom door. Monks do not believe in locked doors. Nor do they believe in possessions. The two may be linked.
The door leading to the main hall opens without a creak. Sunlight beams through the wall of windows, heating the room. My trainers squeal on the floorboards, leaving black scuffmarks.
A Sony CD player squats in the corner of the room. I turn the volume down and press play: the sound of the man chanting rises to fill the space. I am disappointed by the thought of the spectacled Asian man chanting in a recording studio. I thought they would have a real-live chanter. Taking my Dictaphone off my waistband and pressing record, I hold it close to the speaker. The chant will never go platinum but it stays with me like a splinter. I want to keep this as a reminder. The man chants to an empty hall. I am on my knees in sunlight.
I pack once the sun is up, but I am not leaving yet. Before pulling on my knapsack I kick and trample the ‘HELP!’.
I wait for breakfast to finish: the pagoda fills up – a full thirty people – the chant is played and the meditators settle down. I give them time to get spiritually involved.
Crossing the lawned area, I pass the waist-high baby trees that have little plastic labels on – pear, cherry, apple – and I approach the windows of the pagoda. Their eyes are all closed. Mum faces out, cross-legged, her palms on her thighs. She has her hair pushed back with a purple band and she is not wearing a bra. Her chest and shoulders rise, fall. Graham sits on the other side of the room, with the men, totally still.
This was going to be the moment. I was going to bang on the windows and reveal my mother’s illicit affair. I was going to point at Graham, then at my mother, then I would have simulated sex with my fingers. I planned to scream into their peaceful, empty minds.
Nobody blinks. Everything is fine.
I put my forehead gently against the cool glass. Mum is no further away than a forward roll, a hop-skip-jump. I watch her breasts gently swell and droop. I see the simple, unfussy wrinkles around her eyes, her faultless neck. Chips calls her a yummy mummy; I made him promise not to fantasize about her.
I breathe in and out, in and out. The glass starts to mist up. My mother disappears. With my forefinger, I write the word ‘Lloyd’ in the condensation and draw a heart around it. The glass squeaks. No one opens their eyes.
I feel like a schoolteacher whose pupils have fallen asleep.
I stand back from the window. The condensation fades, nothing permanent. I think of cartwheeling, of stripping, of wanking. They wouldn’t notice.
One man’s head bobs in tiny circles. His hair is half-dreadlocks, half-normal.
I stand in Graham’s line of sight and concentrate on the dull scar on his forehead. I imagine pressing my thumbnail into the brawny skin. He doesn’t open his eyes.
I start to feel hot. I rub my hands on my face. I look at my mother. I would do anything she told me to. I would throw myself off a cliff if she took the time to suggest it.
It’s a strange kind of pressure – so many grown men and women in a room together, empty-headed. I just don’t believe them. They must be thinking about something. At the very least, they’re thinking about not thinking.
Then my legs have an idea. They are doing it by themselves.
The word retreat also refers to the act of withdrawing, especially from something hazardous, unpleasant or formidable.
I swing round the corner of the pagoda, pegging it along the track that leads down through the farm. The weight of my knapsack propels me. I kick and scuff. The gravel makes maracas but it is not nearly loud enough. I stomp past the stable-cum-shower block; it is innocent and clean.
In the middle of the yard, the gong – dark-bronze coloured, not gold as I expected – hangs from a wooden post. I pick up the beater that lies beneath it. I think I might be on autopilot. I concentrate on a physical process.
The noise will fill their empty heads. This is not the worst thing I could have done.
The only word is gong.
Fastigium
On 5.7.97 <Jordanabanana@yahoomail.com> wrote
Hellooooo!
Where have you been, mystery man? I rang you and your dad said you were at Dave’s. Who is Dave? You’re not allowed to make any new friends!
Mam’s in Morriston Hospital at the moment. The operation is next Friday. I’m going to be off school to stay at the hospital with her. You better miss me. I got a new word for you: fastigium. It’s the part of the brain where the tumour is growing. On top of the fourth ventricle. After spending three days at the hospital, I feel like I know as much about brain tumours as the doctors do.
You could come and visit her after the operation, if that’s not too weird? Maybe it is too weird…
Anyway, I’ll be in the hospital some of tomorrow but I might be at home for a bit, so anyway… call me! (Who said that?) Call me…!
Jo xxx
12.7.97
Word of the day: monologophobia – fear of using the same word twice.
Dear Diary,
I’ve decided not to reply to Jordana’s email. Either the operation will have been a success, in which case she will be too happy to care whether I email her, or her mother is dead, in which case she will be beyond comfort and, as such, my well-worded commiserations would be a waste of time and talent.
Because I have been away on business, I have not had a chance to do any revision for my forthcoming mock GCSEs. To make up for lost time, I will, therefore, undertake a short comprehension exercise:
The use of the colloquial ‘hellooooo’ and the playful banter of the opening paragraph immediately sets this piece up as a communiqué between two friends.
The narrator mentions the word hospital four times. This is stylistically poor. She could have spiced things up a bit with words like infirmary and clinic. The repetition does, I think, highlight her worries about her mother; she is understandably fearful that her mother might die.
As a symbol of affection towards the recipient, she offers a ‘new word’: fastigium. Sadly, she only lists one of its definitions. Fastigium also means the acme or period of full development of a disease.
It is worth noting that the narrator uses the rhetorical device of pretending to have a split personality. She uses the line: ‘Who said that?’ This is used to make light of her underlying desperation.
She suggests that the recipient might visit her mum in hospital; the implication is that by seeing her mother full of wires and tubes and morphine the recipient will gain a better idea of what the narrator is going through. She wisely preempts the possibility that the visit might be weird.
The overriding tone of this piece is neediness. It strikes me that the recipient of the email is the one in a position of power in the relationship. Perhaps he is thinking of the phrase: ‘Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen.’
Later alligator,
Oliver
PS The truth often rhymes.
Euthenics
Tonight, for the first time in over a month, my parents are going out together. They’re going to see the Welsh Philharmonic performing Bartók at the Brangwyn Hall. My dad has been looking forward to it; the tickets came months ago, pinned to the cork board in the kitchen. He wears a corduroy suit jacket and a cloth tie. He has a handkerchief in his breast pocket.
Mum is still in the shower. Dad wanders around the house, putting things in their places. I follow him from room to room, just watching. He positions the remote control on top of the TV. He moves the unopened letters off the dining-room table and lays them on the third stair. Pulling a towel off the radiator, he folds it carefully into a square, places it in the airing cupboard. He washes out an empty cat-food tin, removes the label, scrubs off the glue and stands it on the windowsill above the sink. After doing each thing, he glances at his wristwatch. Whenever he walks past the bathroom, he looks at the steam curling from under the door.
My mum comes out of the shower. Her towel, tucked into itself above her breasts, hangs down to the middle of her thighs. With wet hair and her cheeks and forehead flushed, she looks like a boy. She goes into their bedroom, shuts the door. The hairdryer hums. Dad examines his watch.
He goes and gets the car keys from the hook, puts them in his pocket. Then he disappears into the cellar and brings out a tray of frozen pork chops. He puts them in the fridge.
‘Dad’s special lemongrass pork tomorrow,’ he says, smiling at me.
I don’t say anything.
The hairdryer stops.
My dad shouts up from the hallway.
‘We need to go now.’
He puts on his long navy coat, although it is a mild evening.
There’s no reply. He goes upstairs and stands in their bedroom doorway. I follow at a distance, hanging back on the landing, watching through the spaces in the banisters. I watch Mum in her pants, filing through the clothes in her wardrobe. I am careful to not focus on anything in particular.
‘We’re going to be late,’ he says.
She is so white and the tops of her thighs bulge out from her knickers.
She pulls out a black dress and considers it. Dad backs out of the room and closes the door quite loudly.
He walks away, then stops. He turns around and shouts at the closed door: ‘Every. Fucking. Time.’
Dad clomps past me on the landing, down the stairs and out the front door, which he also slams. My mum opens the door to her bedroom. She smiles at me and raises her eyebrows. She is wearing the black dress; it stops just above her knees. Her red kneecaps protrude like swellings.
‘Are you going to be alright on your own tonight?’ she asks.
‘Yeah, there’s some things I need to do,’ I say, expecting her not to take an interest.
‘What things are they then, mystery man?’
I must be losing my touch.
I buy myself some time by walking into her bedroom and looking out the window. Dad is conducting a three-point turn in the road. I try and think of things.
‘Hatch some plots. Plan some coups,’ I say.
‘Oh well,’ she says, hopping as she puts on her posh shoes, ‘good luck.’
Dad has turned the car so that it faces in the right direction. He is an excellent getaway driver. She takes a pair of silver earrings out of a felt-lined box and holds them to her ears. She is a useless jewel thief.
‘Yes or no?’ she asks.
I hesitate, but I’m thinking no.
‘No?’ she says before I can speak. ‘No, you’re right.’
She drops the earrings in their box, which, in turn, she puts back in her chest of drawers. Dad beeps the car horn for three seconds. Mum picks up her towel from the floor and hangs it on the radiator in the hallway.
‘We won’t be back too late,’ she says, wandering downstairs, her feet moving deliberately, each step a distinct action. On the third stair from last, she picks up a letter; it has a picture of an aquamarine-coloured credit card with cartoon fish swimming around it. Standing on the bottom step, she rips open the envelope and glances over its contents. She tosses the free biro into her brown leather handbag hanging from the newel post and dumps the rest of the letter in the wastepaper basket. She walks, without hurry, to the front door. She opens it, steps outside, closes it. I don’t know how much my mother likes classical music.
Over the last few weeks, the dimmer switch in my parents’ bedroom has remained at full: showing no sign of an increase in bedroom activity. I’ve been thinking about ways to ignite the bonfire of their passion.
thefengshuicastle.co.uk has been very helpful. Peach-coloured walls and furnishings are said to encourage affairs. I can see why: peach is the worst colour. Luckily, my mother despises it.
Shades of red, however, encourage romance. Yesterday, I bought balloons from The Party Shop. I had to buy fifty, of which only six are red.
I blow them up and Sellotape two above their bedroom door, two to the legs of the ironing board and two to the lightshade above the dining table. I swap all the white candles on the living-room mantelpiece with the festive red ones.
The mirror on the dressing table opposite my parents’ bed ‘drains them of vital chi and may attract a third party to the relationship’. I spin the mirror round to face the wall. Apparently, it is important to wake up and see an image that inspires you, one that is ‘tranquil and uplifting – epitomizing your journey in life’. I scan a photo of myself as a baby – ugly as Play-Doh – blow it up to A4 size and stick it to the back of the mirror. I am their greatest achievement.
The finishing touch will come from the back garden. Because our street is on a steep hill, all the gardens are terraced with shallow steps joining each zone. Zone one is the yard, zone two has grass and a picnic table, zone three contains flowers, herbs and a feeble-looking apple tree. At zone two, I jump over the stone wall into the next-door neighbour’s garden. They’re on holiday in Spain, so we’re looking after their house. ‘A heavy statue or figurine at floor level at the base of the stairs could act to bring stability to the situation.’ Next to their tiny pond sits a statue of an overweight monk, meditating on a beanbag, his palms flat together. With my hands round his neck, I tip the monk back so I can get a grip underneath him. Beneath the statue, in the mud, an earthworm gets nowhere.
I hear the key in the door. I am sitting at the top of the stairs in my black Lands’ End pyjamas waiting for them.
‘Hello?’ Mum calls, entering the porch.
‘Hello!’ I reply.
She walks into the hallway, flicking the light switch on.
‘Why are you in the dark?’
I hadn’t noticed. Dad follows behind, not slamming the front door.
They stop to gawp at the monk.
‘Oliver – what’s this?’
‘He’s feng shui, Mum.’
She takes a couple of steps closer, looks down.
‘And what’s all this muck?’ she says, pointing to the trail of footprints on the linoleum.
‘Looks like muddy shui, to me.’
Holiday Dad appears for a few hours after a successful concert.
Mum almost laughs. I think a little less of her.
‘Where on earth did you get him?’ she asks me.
I had hoped she would ask this question.
I speak slow and Buddha-serene: ‘Do not question the how, simply enjoy the now.’
She looks up sharply, one eyebrow kinked: ‘What have you done with Oliver?’
I imagine a dead-eyed Oliver clone chopping me into pieces, cackling.
My dad is wearing his coat and flat cap; he pretends to be puffing on a pipe, tracking my footprints into the dining room.
‘By Jove, I think I have it.’ His voice grows more distant as he heads towards the kitchen. ‘The perpetrator ’alf-inched the figurine from our neighbour’s back yard!’
‘Oh God, Oliver.’ She crouches down next to the monk, looks him in the eye. ‘You have to take him back.’
She strokes the monk’s bald bronze head. She is wasting valuable affection on an inanimate object.
Dad returns from the kitchen with a dustpan and brush. He holds them up towards me. ‘Oi, boy, back to work.’ He is still pretending to be Victorian. ‘ ’Em chimneys wunt sweep ’emselves.’
My mother, against expectation, finds this genuinely funny.
They stand side by side at the bottom of the stairs, gazing up at me, blinking. They both look small. I am the grown-up and they are my hideous children.
‘We’re waiting,’ Mum says.
Dad nods.
They look perfectly happy.
So that’s that then. Job done.
I expected to feel more euphoric, having salvaged my parents’ marriage.
15.7.97
Word: euthenics – the science of improving the condition of humans by improving their surroundings.
Dear Diary,
Close, but no cigar. They seemed happy in the evening but the next day they made me take down the photo of myself on the mirror. They allowed the balloons but within a couple of days even they’d started to sag and wrinkle in the style of Grampa’s neck, so I took them down too.
Every night, I listen until two for the sound of fucking. I check each morning but the dimmer switch is always turned up as high as it can go.
Mum sat on the end of my bed this morning. She was smiling and her eyes and mouth were a little puffy because she’d only just woken up. We had a chat that could never have happened in the afternoon or evening; she caught me while I was sleepy. Here are some of the things we said:
Her: ‘Olly, thank you so much for the balloons.’
Me: ‘S’okay. Your chi was blocked.’
Her: ‘You know that me and your dad are going through a rough patch?’
Me: ‘Yah.’
I say yah instead of yes sometimes.
Her: ‘Well, I want you to know that we really appreciate your trying to help…’
Me: ‘Yup.’
Yup is chirpier than yes.
Her: ‘… but that you really needn’t worry – your dad and I are both adults and although we may not always act like it, we can sort out these problems ourselves.’
I asked her how she was hoping to do this, if she had considered writing a step-by-step plan. She said that she was going to talk to my dad about it. I told her that I was going to check up on their progress.
All important conversations should take place before breakfast.
They have a number of options:
1) Seek ‘help’. My mother used to use this tactic with me – leaving leaflets around the house. But it did not work with me and it would not work with her. She would tidy them away.
2) A romantic long weekend. We often go to La Rochelle, France, by car. Even if the trip is a success and my parents are blissfully in love, all the good work will inevitably be undone by the travel. (Car journeys are the frowning parentheses at the start and end of any good holiday.)
3) Spending quality time together – this is a good option. If only there were classical concerts every night.
There is one option that they must avoid at all costs: a baby. Couples say this: ‘We’re staying together for the baby,’ so, logically, the reverse is also true: ‘A baby will glue us back together.’ The last thing any of us wants is to go through childbirth. A placenta is terrible; it looks worse than jellied eels. A third-degree tear is a rip that may occur during labour – two holes become one.
I do not trust them to take the appropriate action to fix their relationship. I will count the number of tampons my mother has left each month. There are currently eight. If she is not using them, I will intervene and suggest an abortion, more feng shui and self-help books.
I am running low on solutions.
Peace,
O
Botanical
Jordana ought to be keen by now. I’ve let her hang on for long enough. She’s not been in school since her mum
went into hospital.
I called her up and her dad answered. He seemed very pleased to hear from me. Without prompting, he mentioned his emotions.
‘Alright, Butt,’ he said. ‘We haven’t seen you in a bit. Don’t worry though. Jordana’s had so much on her plate at the moment. We’ve all been having a hard time.
‘The first operation went okay but the doctors have said that she’ll need to have one more operation, just to make sure they get rid of all of it.’
‘Oh, I understand,’ I said.
We arranged to meet up in Singleton Park to retrace the route we used to walk with Fred. Habit can be reassuring in difficult times. I get there early and wait on the bench by the north entrance. As a gift, I have brought a pack of her favourite matches: Swan Extra-Long.
I see her coming down through the gates; she spots me and smiles. She keeps smiling as she walks; her eyes are half-closed. She’s wearing khaki combats and pink trainers. She’s wearing her crop top with the smiley rave face on it. Her hair is up on top of her head like a samurai’s.
‘Helloo,’ she says.
‘Hiya,’ I say.
I feel something uncomfortable and tight in my chest, like I’m filling with insulation foam. I realize that I have not seen Jordana for a long time. If she’s calling you all the time and trying to meet up and saying that she needs you then the only thing to do is ignore her. This was the right thing to do; I talked it through with Chips. The foam is filling my lungs.
I stand up. I look over Jordana’s shoulder. We hug.
‘I’ve missed you,’ she says.
The foam is hardening, working its way up my throat.
I put my lips against the downy hair on the back of her neck. Her skin is smooth and pale and less dry than usual.
‘I’m saw sorry. I’ve bin nowhere,’ she says.
She sounds more Welshy today.
‘Oh God,’ she says, squeezing me, ‘I’ve needed a cwtch.’
Normally, I would tell her about the other words that have no vowels. Syzygy means the alignment of three celestial objects.
I feel my mouth and jaw seizing up.
We stand back to look at each other. I take in her midriff and her arms and her neck and her feet.
‘I sen’ you an email,’ she says.
‘Yes,’ I say.
We hold hands in silence as we walk. We pass the lake, then the Swiss cottage, then the stone circle. We walk up towards the botanical gardens, dipping in and out of sunlight, silhouettes of tree-tops mapped across the path. There are birds wolf-whistling.
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