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Jan. 30th, 2008 11:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_elyanI got thinking about rabbit Hole Day (which I missed), and the memory meme that's been floating around, and just general stuff, and this was the result. It's a sort of amalgam of things that didn't happen quite that way, but might have done, on the other side of the mirror, and I'm kind of proud of it.
Do you remember that weekend we all spent together – must have been ten years ago now? It was at the old place near Winchester, back when John and Mary still had it – I really loved that house. We spent so much time there, you and I, from when we were kids – exploring up in the attic, and finding the passage that linked the two halves of the house together, digging through the clothes in the last box room on the right. It was a whole life, right there in that place.
Anyway, the weekend I’m thinking of, everyone seemed to be free to get together, which didn’t happen too often, even back then when we didn’t have so much on. You were there, of course, and all the old gang – Nick was there, before his family moved away, and Steph, and Jonathan. Penny was there, even – come to think, that might have been the last time we saw her before the accident. I remember she looked like a Botticelli angel that weekend – I wish she was here now, but if a memory is all that’s left, that one will do better than most.
I remember the endless games of hide-and-seek in their wilderness of a garden – it was already getting too much for John, and he knew it, but it made it great for playing hide-and-seek. I could always find you – you couldn’t hold in the giggles, and anyway we both knew the secrets of that garden. Well, I thought we did, but Nick managed to find a shed down near the pond somewhere, half-covered in weeds, and it took us twenty minutes to find him. Josie was having kittens about us losing him, then he popped up from behind the rushes right on cue, and we just fell about.
We all took a few drinks that night, let’s be honest. First in the garden, while the evening lasted, then in the living-room, half of us on the sofas, and the other half sprawled somewhere nearby. Penny sat on my lap for a while, and I felt like the King of All Creation – you caught my eye, and grinned like a lunatic. I remember that, right enough. We got John and Mary’s old Dansette record player in, and dug out their record collection. All the oldies – the Beatles, the Kinks, the Byrds, even Simon and Garfunkel when it got late, and we were all getting tired, but not quite ready to go to bed yet. You and Josie sang The Boxer together, and none of us could believe you knew all the harmonies. We’d have given you a standing ovation, if any of us had the energy to stand. We must have sorted out the problems of the world ten times around the living-room that night, but my memory still comes back to you two, standing by the fireplace, singing those sweet, sad words to us all. I’m sorry if I cried at the end – I might have done – but it was so lovely, and I can still hear the echoes as I write this.
I always wondered why John and Mary put up with us all, using the place virtually as an open house. I asked Mary once, when we were having a brandy by the fire, and she said if was so good to hear the house full of laughter again. Well, we did our best, and it was a fine effort – John and Mary joined us for a glass of wine before they went to bed, and told us about how they’d met at a party just like this, listening to the same Byrds album. It was new, then, and they’d been given it by the hosts to take home, and had never got round to giving it back. There were a few scratches on it now, but it still sounded pretty sweet. I guess they just trusted us, you and I, mainly, but our friends too, and we were smart enough to know that if we overstepped the mark, things would change. It was such a privilege to bring people there that we never did.
We got everyone to bed somehow, around the house. There were a few blankets spread on floors, but most people got a bed – I could never get over just how many people that place could sleep. There always seemed to be another bedroom, up a couple of steps or around a corner. I slept in the same bed I’d used since I was a little kid, whenever we stayed there, and slept like a log. There were probably a few creaking bedsprings – hell, we were all of that age – but I doubt it disturbed anybody, or if it did, they never said.
Most of us didn’t see much of the next morning. I woke up early – I always did, even back then – and went for a walk, down by the brook that ran along the back of the garden, and towards the village. I came round a hedge and saw half a dozen deer in the meadow – they stood, blithely ignorant of me for a minute, then bounded off all in a rush. I don’t think I’ve seen a deer since, in the wild. Coming back through the garden, I met you, and we sat by the pond, watching the fish, and wondering if there were any frogs. Probably the wrong time of the year. We talked about what we wanted to do with our lives, and where we wanted to live, and how we were all going to have a house like this, one day. We knew life had to start sooner or later, and that it wouldn’t be quite what we’d expect, but at least we’d all face it together – you, me, Nick, Josie, Jonathan … and Penny. Especially Penny – if anyone was going to be sorted for whatever the world had in store, it was Penny. The fish kept swimming round, happily, forever.
We all trooped off to the George and Dragon in the village, with John and Mary, for Sunday lunch. They had to push half the tables on the patio together for us, but we squashed in somehow, and they did us a damned good spread. Mary had offered to cook, but we wouldn’t hear of it. We all put a kitty together, and bought them lunch, and drinks, and it was lovely. Even the wasps stayed away, unless you got too close to the honeysuckle. Nick said he had to go and catch the train, but we said he had time for another half, and that became another pint, and two hours later we were all still there, enjoying the sunshine and the view. If it hadn’t been for John needing to get back to sort out some papers for a meeting next day, I reckon we’d be there still. We threaded our way back along the path by the brook, a bit wobbly, but all OK. No-one fell in, anyway.
Afternoon became evening, and none of us felt like going inside. We knew we’d all have to get going sooner or later – Nick would be late for whatever his parents had planned – but no-one wanted to say it. We sat in a circle by the oak tree, near the kitchen window, and the talk slowed down, as the sky dimmed from blue to gold, and then to red. I don’t know who started it, but I found your hand reaching for mine, and I reached out to Steph on my other side, and soon we were in a ring, not doing anything, just all breathing, and feeling the evening breeze on our faces. We must have looked like the youngest hippy commune in the country, but I felt so blessed. Someone started singing – Let It Be, I think. We all joined in, even me, who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and it sounded great. Come Tomorrow, Waterloo Sunset, Mr Tambourine Man – I don’t know why but that weekend it was all oldies, recorded before any of us were born. Goodness knows what John must have thought if he’d looked down from his study and seen us. We just sat for a moment, and no-one spoke. You squeezed my hand, and smiled, and we knew this one was forever. It should have been, too. Then we heard Mary calling from the kitchen door, and we drifted apart like thistledown in the breeze. She drove some of us down to the station, and Josie drove some others back to London in that Renault she was so proud of, and somehow we all made it back into our everyday lives. Penny kissed me on the cheek, and told me she’d see me soon, when she was next back in the area, and certainly before Christmas. I waved from the train, and that was that.
I think you only get that kind of weekend once or twice in a lifetime, if you’re lucky. Even back then, when life was so much simpler and Monday morning wasn’t always hanging over us, getting everyone together was a rarity. And to have a place like that to go to – well, we should all have such luck. They sold it soon after – it really was too big for them – but I don’t think Mary ever really got used to the house in Lewes that they moved to. Just before she died, she talked about everything as if they still had the old place, with the endless rooms, and the mysterious hummocks of furniture that had lain under dust-sheets for twenty years. I thought I missed the place – goodness knows what it must have been like for them.
I don’t know if the world has changed since then, or if I’ve just moved across it without noticing. I haven’t heard from Steph or Jonathan for five years or so – last time I heard, their marriage wasn’t so happy, but they were bearing up. And Nick is out in Australia now, where his parents always wanted to be – I used to get long letters, asking how things were back here in the green fields, but now we’re down to Christmas cards, and there are less words on them every year. I don’t know if we were ever going to be such firm friends again, anyway, after I next saw him, under the strip-lights in the hospital, where Penny was in Intensive Care. The doctor told us we could look in on her, through the glass, and we both did, and whoever that was under the covers, it wasn’t Penny. We looked at each other, and neither of us felt we could say it, or even cry. I cried like a baby that night, but somehow, it was too late. By the time we all stood together at her funeral, a fortnight later, it was a little too late for all of us, and that same summer sunshine seemed too bright on the marble, and the plastic flowers, and the earth.
You’re still around, though. It’s good to meet up for a pint, when we can, maybe a meal, sometimes a show. Doesn’t happen as often as I’d like – life’s just so fast these days – and every time, we say we’ll meet in a week, and it’s always a month, or three months. We always say we should make the effort, and we do mean to, but then we mean so many things. You’re still the best person I know in so many ways, and I’m so glad you’re still a friend, despite the world trying to get in the way. You were so perfect that night when you sang the Boxer, with Josie, and we all clapped, but only quietly, because John and Mary were in bed.
I haven’t got round to saying it for a while – maybe I never have – but I love you. I loved you then, and I love you now.
Well, you know what I mean.
I mean it, too.
Do you remember that weekend we all spent together – must have been ten years ago now? It was at the old place near Winchester, back when John and Mary still had it – I really loved that house. We spent so much time there, you and I, from when we were kids – exploring up in the attic, and finding the passage that linked the two halves of the house together, digging through the clothes in the last box room on the right. It was a whole life, right there in that place.
Anyway, the weekend I’m thinking of, everyone seemed to be free to get together, which didn’t happen too often, even back then when we didn’t have so much on. You were there, of course, and all the old gang – Nick was there, before his family moved away, and Steph, and Jonathan. Penny was there, even – come to think, that might have been the last time we saw her before the accident. I remember she looked like a Botticelli angel that weekend – I wish she was here now, but if a memory is all that’s left, that one will do better than most.
I remember the endless games of hide-and-seek in their wilderness of a garden – it was already getting too much for John, and he knew it, but it made it great for playing hide-and-seek. I could always find you – you couldn’t hold in the giggles, and anyway we both knew the secrets of that garden. Well, I thought we did, but Nick managed to find a shed down near the pond somewhere, half-covered in weeds, and it took us twenty minutes to find him. Josie was having kittens about us losing him, then he popped up from behind the rushes right on cue, and we just fell about.
We all took a few drinks that night, let’s be honest. First in the garden, while the evening lasted, then in the living-room, half of us on the sofas, and the other half sprawled somewhere nearby. Penny sat on my lap for a while, and I felt like the King of All Creation – you caught my eye, and grinned like a lunatic. I remember that, right enough. We got John and Mary’s old Dansette record player in, and dug out their record collection. All the oldies – the Beatles, the Kinks, the Byrds, even Simon and Garfunkel when it got late, and we were all getting tired, but not quite ready to go to bed yet. You and Josie sang The Boxer together, and none of us could believe you knew all the harmonies. We’d have given you a standing ovation, if any of us had the energy to stand. We must have sorted out the problems of the world ten times around the living-room that night, but my memory still comes back to you two, standing by the fireplace, singing those sweet, sad words to us all. I’m sorry if I cried at the end – I might have done – but it was so lovely, and I can still hear the echoes as I write this.
I always wondered why John and Mary put up with us all, using the place virtually as an open house. I asked Mary once, when we were having a brandy by the fire, and she said if was so good to hear the house full of laughter again. Well, we did our best, and it was a fine effort – John and Mary joined us for a glass of wine before they went to bed, and told us about how they’d met at a party just like this, listening to the same Byrds album. It was new, then, and they’d been given it by the hosts to take home, and had never got round to giving it back. There were a few scratches on it now, but it still sounded pretty sweet. I guess they just trusted us, you and I, mainly, but our friends too, and we were smart enough to know that if we overstepped the mark, things would change. It was such a privilege to bring people there that we never did.
We got everyone to bed somehow, around the house. There were a few blankets spread on floors, but most people got a bed – I could never get over just how many people that place could sleep. There always seemed to be another bedroom, up a couple of steps or around a corner. I slept in the same bed I’d used since I was a little kid, whenever we stayed there, and slept like a log. There were probably a few creaking bedsprings – hell, we were all of that age – but I doubt it disturbed anybody, or if it did, they never said.
Most of us didn’t see much of the next morning. I woke up early – I always did, even back then – and went for a walk, down by the brook that ran along the back of the garden, and towards the village. I came round a hedge and saw half a dozen deer in the meadow – they stood, blithely ignorant of me for a minute, then bounded off all in a rush. I don’t think I’ve seen a deer since, in the wild. Coming back through the garden, I met you, and we sat by the pond, watching the fish, and wondering if there were any frogs. Probably the wrong time of the year. We talked about what we wanted to do with our lives, and where we wanted to live, and how we were all going to have a house like this, one day. We knew life had to start sooner or later, and that it wouldn’t be quite what we’d expect, but at least we’d all face it together – you, me, Nick, Josie, Jonathan … and Penny. Especially Penny – if anyone was going to be sorted for whatever the world had in store, it was Penny. The fish kept swimming round, happily, forever.
We all trooped off to the George and Dragon in the village, with John and Mary, for Sunday lunch. They had to push half the tables on the patio together for us, but we squashed in somehow, and they did us a damned good spread. Mary had offered to cook, but we wouldn’t hear of it. We all put a kitty together, and bought them lunch, and drinks, and it was lovely. Even the wasps stayed away, unless you got too close to the honeysuckle. Nick said he had to go and catch the train, but we said he had time for another half, and that became another pint, and two hours later we were all still there, enjoying the sunshine and the view. If it hadn’t been for John needing to get back to sort out some papers for a meeting next day, I reckon we’d be there still. We threaded our way back along the path by the brook, a bit wobbly, but all OK. No-one fell in, anyway.
Afternoon became evening, and none of us felt like going inside. We knew we’d all have to get going sooner or later – Nick would be late for whatever his parents had planned – but no-one wanted to say it. We sat in a circle by the oak tree, near the kitchen window, and the talk slowed down, as the sky dimmed from blue to gold, and then to red. I don’t know who started it, but I found your hand reaching for mine, and I reached out to Steph on my other side, and soon we were in a ring, not doing anything, just all breathing, and feeling the evening breeze on our faces. We must have looked like the youngest hippy commune in the country, but I felt so blessed. Someone started singing – Let It Be, I think. We all joined in, even me, who couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, and it sounded great. Come Tomorrow, Waterloo Sunset, Mr Tambourine Man – I don’t know why but that weekend it was all oldies, recorded before any of us were born. Goodness knows what John must have thought if he’d looked down from his study and seen us. We just sat for a moment, and no-one spoke. You squeezed my hand, and smiled, and we knew this one was forever. It should have been, too. Then we heard Mary calling from the kitchen door, and we drifted apart like thistledown in the breeze. She drove some of us down to the station, and Josie drove some others back to London in that Renault she was so proud of, and somehow we all made it back into our everyday lives. Penny kissed me on the cheek, and told me she’d see me soon, when she was next back in the area, and certainly before Christmas. I waved from the train, and that was that.
I think you only get that kind of weekend once or twice in a lifetime, if you’re lucky. Even back then, when life was so much simpler and Monday morning wasn’t always hanging over us, getting everyone together was a rarity. And to have a place like that to go to – well, we should all have such luck. They sold it soon after – it really was too big for them – but I don’t think Mary ever really got used to the house in Lewes that they moved to. Just before she died, she talked about everything as if they still had the old place, with the endless rooms, and the mysterious hummocks of furniture that had lain under dust-sheets for twenty years. I thought I missed the place – goodness knows what it must have been like for them.
I don’t know if the world has changed since then, or if I’ve just moved across it without noticing. I haven’t heard from Steph or Jonathan for five years or so – last time I heard, their marriage wasn’t so happy, but they were bearing up. And Nick is out in Australia now, where his parents always wanted to be – I used to get long letters, asking how things were back here in the green fields, but now we’re down to Christmas cards, and there are less words on them every year. I don’t know if we were ever going to be such firm friends again, anyway, after I next saw him, under the strip-lights in the hospital, where Penny was in Intensive Care. The doctor told us we could look in on her, through the glass, and we both did, and whoever that was under the covers, it wasn’t Penny. We looked at each other, and neither of us felt we could say it, or even cry. I cried like a baby that night, but somehow, it was too late. By the time we all stood together at her funeral, a fortnight later, it was a little too late for all of us, and that same summer sunshine seemed too bright on the marble, and the plastic flowers, and the earth.
You’re still around, though. It’s good to meet up for a pint, when we can, maybe a meal, sometimes a show. Doesn’t happen as often as I’d like – life’s just so fast these days – and every time, we say we’ll meet in a week, and it’s always a month, or three months. We always say we should make the effort, and we do mean to, but then we mean so many things. You’re still the best person I know in so many ways, and I’m so glad you’re still a friend, despite the world trying to get in the way. You were so perfect that night when you sang the Boxer, with Josie, and we all clapped, but only quietly, because John and Mary were in bed.
I haven’t got round to saying it for a while – maybe I never have – but I love you. I loved you then, and I love you now.
Well, you know what I mean.
I mean it, too.
