I try to will a moment of nothing. To be empty of every notion; to free-dive into the darkness, where now and forever are the same thing. I desire all this, yet dread it – like a dog condemned to spend its days in a cage, first sleeping to avoid the pain of thinking, then doing the opposite until only sleep can offer respite. Then it has me in its grip again, and I fight hard to latch on to a single, kind, thought, and hold it in place. But the brilliant filing system operated by my mind, rifles through every record until it digs out the origins of the thought in the worst possible place. And so eventually there was not a single word that could shield me from the torture. I knew, after only a few days, that if I were to be left here alone for any length of time I would cease to function.
I got an evening meal, and it was essentially the same as the breakfast, though hard-boiled eggs came to replace the cold fried eggs, and almost straight away the meals were put into my room while I was in the bathroom.
Yellow and grey eggs. White shells. Gorse and cochineal added colour at Easter. Polk’s pullets produced lots of white eggs. Good for colouring. We kept them in a mixing bowl on the dresser. It smelled of tea inside and the cupboards made a frrrip noise when you dragged your fingers across them. Sometimes I got hummus or a sort of cheesy thing, sometimes jam, but it never came with an old square spreading spoon standing in it. Tea, no water, but I begged a small bottle one day when I was feeling brave which I re-filled on the bathroom visits. I never plucked up the courage to ask a more challenging question though. I didn’t know what the particular superstitions were which drove him to piety, and so I didn’t risk upsetting him for an unintended transgression of his notion of red lines. I just waited. Like I had my entire life. It would be my turn soon.
In my solitude, you haunt me, with dreadful ease, of days gone by.
I listened. In the darkness I tried to attune. I started to recognise a pattern to the comings and goings. I guessed that they had drafted in a cook, the one who’d initiated the hard-boiled eggs perhaps, and started to mix the variety of tea to include citrus sour alongside unbearably sweet.
I gag on egg, dry as powder, and offer a little prayer for my water bottle but the water doesn’t flow and intensifies my choking. For a split second I hope I die. Then I take a sip of lemon tea and its uncompromising acidity cuts through the indigestible compound of soft bread and egg. Encouraged I eat more, too much too fast again, and make the gagging sensation worse. I feel I’ll be lucky to draw breath again, and there’s no one here to pat me on the back to encourage it down. For a moment it is too much of an effort to reach for the tea, but when I finally manage it, its wondrous melting qualities free me from pain again. I wondered if he knew about me, or whether he thought he was cooking for my gaolers? That terrible sweet, acid, tea. It was a treat for a couple of days, after which it became unbearable. Like Wesley’s house, which smelled nice when you first went in, then after a few hours the cloyingly artificial smell of almonds made you feel like you’d been poisoned.
I got the idea that one of them never left. The sweet and sour moron I fancied. Then perhaps two, maybe three of them, who came and went a little. Did the chef bring the shopping with him? Mostly they went in and out through the garage, but one of them used the front door. Perhaps they’d offered a sinecure to a sad old man who was glad of the job. The new butcher who wasn’t appraised of the real purpose of the enterprise? I never heard a phone ring, and I never really heard conversations. There was a monastic solemnity about the place that reached to all corners of the wretched building. But on certain nights, Saturdays and Sundays I fancied, they all seemed to sit down together and watch films. I strained to listen to the remnants of the sound that drifted up to my quarters and they seemed always to be about wars, mainly supportive of US foreign policy as it goes. They enjoyed them, I decided, because they were essentially immature – for their age.
They believe I’m someone else, and for that error, I am left to sit and stare, knowing that I will soon go mad.
He comes in and something in his manner tells you it’s the weekend. ‘Is special day. You may choose good drink tonight,’ he says, unable to suppress his smile, like the village idiot who’d been the first to spot that the carnival was coming.
‘Thank you Sweet, I’ll have a glass of pomade if that’s all right.’
‘Is good feast tonight. Later but better.’ He nods and leaves.
Those moments broke the spell and allowed me to come alive immediately without enduring the demimonde purgatory. Why did it require a third party to do that? It is an argument for reveille. In fact, it makes a strong case for all institutions managed and operated by educationally subnormal filth, like the way Britain built an empire. Like the whole of history come to that.
I couldn’t stand my smell, heated up by the radiator all day and all night. Sat on the nylon carpet in my nylon trousers. The cheap soap disguised the aroma for about half an hour, then the stale smell of upholstered seats from public buildings took over. There wasn’t a name for this smell, poverty perhaps. Neglect maybe.
‘Can I have my clothes now please?’
‘Soon,’ he said. I love our little conversations. Twice a day, they really give me something to look forward to. ‘Soon,’ how sweet. A useless devotee. The promise of a regular meal, is as much of a recruiting sergeant you ever need.
Soon would arrive about three days later.
*many thanks, Andre Moulton for the monkey mirror image.
Dickie White's Diary 