HINDU
A hot night. I’m walking through Westfield Shopping Centre on my way to Stratford International and the Kentish trains. At one time I used to resent the necessity for this – cutting across from the North London Line - but have grown to enjoy it, though I never shop, let alone eat at the many fast food places, jam packed with hundreds of (presumably) satisfied customers. This is the new London - white faces take their place among the international mix. A couple of minutes away, down the escalator on platform two of the station, waiting for the 6.57pm high speed to Ashford and Canterbury West, I notice there’s not a black (or international beige) face in sight. It feels odd.
I’ve just spent three or four days in the East End, not doing much, windows closed and blinds down against the unusual June heat. I’ve worked, an hour or two, first thing, before it got too hot. But the truth is – tropical conditions or no - I am increasingly capable of doing nothing. I’ve not even bought a newspaper. I muse. Read a bit. Have a drink. Prepare a salad. Listen to the radio. Look something up on the computer my friends have left for me. Stroll around the park. Water the tomato plants. I’ve not seen anybody to talk to but that’s all right. The odd text comes in. Two e mails.
So the glittering buzz of Westfield for the short time it takes me to pass through interests me. It would be a nightmare to me to spend any significant time there and I find it difficult to imagine how anyone would choose to go there, apart from, maybe, some dismal winter’s day. But I’m old. I don’t want what (to me) is flash electronic gadgetry and to the (mainly) young crowd a delightful near necessity. And I’m wondering about what I do, these plays I write. Who’s – here – interested in a visit the writer Samuel Beckett made to Folkestone in the Spring of 1961, or (my previous effort) the thoughts of a vegetarian long distance walker in 1903? I’ve written about Russians, French, Italians and Dutch, (all historical figures) but my only contemporary British Asian character was a garage attendant (see ‘Coppers’). I’ve had a five decade run of writing (more or less) what I want to write, lately mainly literary figures or quiet dramas about the jog trot of everyday life – not box set material, not plot, plot, plot. I think it’s time to pack in – and be grateful.
I cleared out of London twenty years ago for a quieter life, to find myself again as a writer. And have the feeling of coming to an end again (let’s be frank, am coming to an end, full stop). Hindus, I’ve noted, talk of the various stages of life from activity to withdrawal. I think I’m at the entering the forest stage.
But something else has happened lately that has taken me by surprise. The previous essay dwelt on my Orphan Annie status and I’ve dealt enough elsewhere with my decision to sell my flat and go a wander. The house sitter (which is what I became) needs a bolthole from time to time and I had two. The first was my friend Helen’s house in Canterbury. A top floor bedroom, mansard roof, previously let out to students. I paid a modest rent, was allowed to leave some stuff there – mainly books and papers – along with my suit (just in case), though when I finally needed the damn thing – it was a fine Italian suit, bought in my prosperous London days - the moths had got at it. I had to buy another rapidly (for a wedding), inferior, less stylish - as befitted my reduced status. The second bolt hole was the house in France described in the previous batch of essays. It was just across the Channel and useful – if the necessity arose - in being easy to get back to London. It’s owned by my pals, David and Martin. They were both still working then and would come over from time to time at weekends. It amuses me that because I was there so much it got so they’d ring to ask if it was all right to visit. But my first few years there I didn’t have a car, and would stock up, with them, at supermarkets. I learnt to quite like UHT milk: it’s not bad on breakfast cereal. The French aren’t the best at convenience food so I ate a lot of tinned stuff: some quite unusual concoctions. This was my Famous Five period - tinned peaches, meats and ‘lashings of ginger beer’ – well, wine at half the price as in England. Sometimes I would get on my bike and head down into town for lunch, returning – inevitably – with a baguette broken in half to fit into my saddle bag.
There were twelve years of this itinerant existence. I’m still nostalgic for it, but – wisely – could see that it might be best not to push my luck too far, and, at just over sixty, a couple of small pensions started coming in. I realised I could safely afford to rent somewhere of my own. Martin and Helen (my long time ‘landlords’) helped me move in. Both liked my new flat with its top terrace and views of the sea. So I ‘settled,’ still coming and going with house sits and, indeed, frequently returning to France for long periods. A new routine established itself. Then, five or six years on, out of the blue, I fell ill (I write about this in ’Federer’). Helen took me in. She came with me on my visits to the doctor, cooked for me, worried on my behalf. David, Martin’s partner, who’s a GP, would later accompany me to see the surgeon in London. After the operation I was kept unconscious for four days. David came and sat with me on the second day, Helen on the third. I have only the vaguest memory of this last. Apparently, wired and tubed up, I signalled with my hands ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I do remember sticking up my finger - though not what the question was. I have no recollection of my negative gesture – a lateral to and fro gesture of my left hand. David came to pick me up after a week, as a medical professional helping expedite the (otherwise slow) administrative process of discharge, fixing me up with a wheel chair to exit the ward and get me down to their car (illegally parked) Martin waiting at the wheel (I like to imagine he kept the engine running for the getaway). I spent my first night at their – London – place. The following day Martin drove me down to Kent in my car, which had been parked in London, David following in his. We needed to get to Folkestone for my first appointment at what I call the Warferin clinic. I then took David, Martin and Helen for a fairly swish lunch. And so the process of recovery began.
One day Martin said, ‘Do you want to live with us, Steve?’ I didn’t, really, but they were about to retire and travel. Their place would be empty a lot of the time. I said, ‘No, but I’ll look after the place when you’re away.’ It’s where I’ve just come back from in the East End – hence my trip through Westfield to the Canterbury train. And then last year, on a visit they paid to the house by the harbour in Folkestone where I’d moved during my illness (not being able to manage the stairs in my flat ), they surprised me again by saying: ‘If we bought a house, would you live in it?’ Their money wasn’t doing anything. There was no talk of rent. They were unclear who paid bills, Council Tax and the rest. They liked my Folkestone house a lot (as did I), often calling in on their way back and forward from France: ‘We can’t see why you would want to move from here…’ But my tenancy wasn’t for ever. It had been a wonderful house to be ill - and convalescent - in, the sea and harbour right outside. Their instruction was to choose the house, within certain financial parameters ‘– wherever you want to live..’ An offer you can’t refuse.
I faffed around a bit – going back to Derbyshire? Or North Yorkshire, where I’d once lived? But I like Kent and I like Canterbury, which I’ve been coming on and off for twenty years. My doctor (relaxed over the years about my travelling around) is here, the hospital is walkable (I visit today). Helen lives less than ten minutes away. I go round later after the hospital appointment to watch Ascot on their television. She was in here yesterday watering my plants, when I was in London doing the same at David and Martin’s. Quite a bit of my living room furniture belonged to Helen’s mother, of whom I was fond: a Georgian bureau, a Victorian sofa. When they arrived (they had been lingering in Helen’s garage) they so overwhelmed my own bits and bobs (I’d got rid of a lot in my move from the flat to the smaller house in Folkestone) that a new carpet was needed. Helen helped me pick it, and transport it. We carried it (rolled) down the high street in rain, like a battering ram. David and Martin arrive from time to time, sorting out the dishwasher or locks (I am impractical). Plants arrive from Martin, a keen gardener. He whisks through the garden, pruning, planting, occasionally chiding me for my inadequate efforts. I prepare a light lunch. Helen arrives, approves, says it’s too early for wine. ‘A half glass?’ Accepted.
I lived on and off with Helen in Oxford after her first husband left her. Ours was a close but platonic relationship. I had a brief fling with David, al fresco, on a midsummer night over thirty years ago. He recently texted me with the four word message ‘Am at the cemetery,’ which gives you enough of a clue. Those were the days. Both relationships could have developed, I suppose. I don’t know what either of them thought, but I certainly considered a possible future, at separate times, with both of them. It was that period in your thirties where, if you haven’t, you think of a partner. But I can’t have wanted it very much, I now think. My instinct was always to keep clear. I wonder if losing my parents early led me into a defensiveness about loving and being loved.
But I have found a form of family.
June 2017
A hot night. I’m walking through Westfield Shopping Centre on my way to Stratford International and the Kentish trains. At one time I used to resent the necessity for this – cutting across from the North London Line - but have grown to enjoy it, though I never shop, let alone eat at the many fast food places, jam packed with hundreds of (presumably) satisfied customers. This is the new London - white faces take their place among the international mix. A couple of minutes away, down the escalator on platform two of the station, waiting for the 6.57pm high speed to Ashford and Canterbury West, I notice there’s not a black (or international beige) face in sight. It feels odd.
I’ve just spent three or four days in the East End, not doing much, windows closed and blinds down against the unusual June heat. I’ve worked, an hour or two, first thing, before it got too hot. But the truth is – tropical conditions or no - I am increasingly capable of doing nothing. I’ve not even bought a newspaper. I muse. Read a bit. Have a drink. Prepare a salad. Listen to the radio. Look something up on the computer my friends have left for me. Stroll around the park. Water the tomato plants. I’ve not seen anybody to talk to but that’s all right. The odd text comes in. Two e mails.
So the glittering buzz of Westfield for the short time it takes me to pass through interests me. It would be a nightmare to me to spend any significant time there and I find it difficult to imagine how anyone would choose to go there, apart from, maybe, some dismal winter’s day. But I’m old. I don’t want what (to me) is flash electronic gadgetry and to the (mainly) young crowd a delightful near necessity. And I’m wondering about what I do, these plays I write. Who’s – here – interested in a visit the writer Samuel Beckett made to Folkestone in the Spring of 1961, or (my previous effort) the thoughts of a vegetarian long distance walker in 1903? I’ve written about Russians, French, Italians and Dutch, (all historical figures) but my only contemporary British Asian character was a garage attendant (see ‘Coppers’). I’ve had a five decade run of writing (more or less) what I want to write, lately mainly literary figures or quiet dramas about the jog trot of everyday life – not box set material, not plot, plot, plot. I think it’s time to pack in – and be grateful.
I cleared out of London twenty years ago for a quieter life, to find myself again as a writer. And have the feeling of coming to an end again (let’s be frank, am coming to an end, full stop). Hindus, I’ve noted, talk of the various stages of life from activity to withdrawal. I think I’m at the entering the forest stage.
But something else has happened lately that has taken me by surprise. The previous essay dwelt on my Orphan Annie status and I’ve dealt enough elsewhere with my decision to sell my flat and go a wander. The house sitter (which is what I became) needs a bolthole from time to time and I had two. The first was my friend Helen’s house in Canterbury. A top floor bedroom, mansard roof, previously let out to students. I paid a modest rent, was allowed to leave some stuff there – mainly books and papers – along with my suit (just in case), though when I finally needed the damn thing – it was a fine Italian suit, bought in my prosperous London days - the moths had got at it. I had to buy another rapidly (for a wedding), inferior, less stylish - as befitted my reduced status. The second bolt hole was the house in France described in the previous batch of essays. It was just across the Channel and useful – if the necessity arose - in being easy to get back to London. It’s owned by my pals, David and Martin. They were both still working then and would come over from time to time at weekends. It amuses me that because I was there so much it got so they’d ring to ask if it was all right to visit. But my first few years there I didn’t have a car, and would stock up, with them, at supermarkets. I learnt to quite like UHT milk: it’s not bad on breakfast cereal. The French aren’t the best at convenience food so I ate a lot of tinned stuff: some quite unusual concoctions. This was my Famous Five period - tinned peaches, meats and ‘lashings of ginger beer’ – well, wine at half the price as in England. Sometimes I would get on my bike and head down into town for lunch, returning – inevitably – with a baguette broken in half to fit into my saddle bag.
There were twelve years of this itinerant existence. I’m still nostalgic for it, but – wisely – could see that it might be best not to push my luck too far, and, at just over sixty, a couple of small pensions started coming in. I realised I could safely afford to rent somewhere of my own. Martin and Helen (my long time ‘landlords’) helped me move in. Both liked my new flat with its top terrace and views of the sea. So I ‘settled,’ still coming and going with house sits and, indeed, frequently returning to France for long periods. A new routine established itself. Then, five or six years on, out of the blue, I fell ill (I write about this in ’Federer’). Helen took me in. She came with me on my visits to the doctor, cooked for me, worried on my behalf. David, Martin’s partner, who’s a GP, would later accompany me to see the surgeon in London. After the operation I was kept unconscious for four days. David came and sat with me on the second day, Helen on the third. I have only the vaguest memory of this last. Apparently, wired and tubed up, I signalled with my hands ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. I do remember sticking up my finger - though not what the question was. I have no recollection of my negative gesture – a lateral to and fro gesture of my left hand. David came to pick me up after a week, as a medical professional helping expedite the (otherwise slow) administrative process of discharge, fixing me up with a wheel chair to exit the ward and get me down to their car (illegally parked) Martin waiting at the wheel (I like to imagine he kept the engine running for the getaway). I spent my first night at their – London – place. The following day Martin drove me down to Kent in my car, which had been parked in London, David following in his. We needed to get to Folkestone for my first appointment at what I call the Warferin clinic. I then took David, Martin and Helen for a fairly swish lunch. And so the process of recovery began.
One day Martin said, ‘Do you want to live with us, Steve?’ I didn’t, really, but they were about to retire and travel. Their place would be empty a lot of the time. I said, ‘No, but I’ll look after the place when you’re away.’ It’s where I’ve just come back from in the East End – hence my trip through Westfield to the Canterbury train. And then last year, on a visit they paid to the house by the harbour in Folkestone where I’d moved during my illness (not being able to manage the stairs in my flat ), they surprised me again by saying: ‘If we bought a house, would you live in it?’ Their money wasn’t doing anything. There was no talk of rent. They were unclear who paid bills, Council Tax and the rest. They liked my Folkestone house a lot (as did I), often calling in on their way back and forward from France: ‘We can’t see why you would want to move from here…’ But my tenancy wasn’t for ever. It had been a wonderful house to be ill - and convalescent - in, the sea and harbour right outside. Their instruction was to choose the house, within certain financial parameters ‘– wherever you want to live..’ An offer you can’t refuse.
I faffed around a bit – going back to Derbyshire? Or North Yorkshire, where I’d once lived? But I like Kent and I like Canterbury, which I’ve been coming on and off for twenty years. My doctor (relaxed over the years about my travelling around) is here, the hospital is walkable (I visit today). Helen lives less than ten minutes away. I go round later after the hospital appointment to watch Ascot on their television. She was in here yesterday watering my plants, when I was in London doing the same at David and Martin’s. Quite a bit of my living room furniture belonged to Helen’s mother, of whom I was fond: a Georgian bureau, a Victorian sofa. When they arrived (they had been lingering in Helen’s garage) they so overwhelmed my own bits and bobs (I’d got rid of a lot in my move from the flat to the smaller house in Folkestone) that a new carpet was needed. Helen helped me pick it, and transport it. We carried it (rolled) down the high street in rain, like a battering ram. David and Martin arrive from time to time, sorting out the dishwasher or locks (I am impractical). Plants arrive from Martin, a keen gardener. He whisks through the garden, pruning, planting, occasionally chiding me for my inadequate efforts. I prepare a light lunch. Helen arrives, approves, says it’s too early for wine. ‘A half glass?’ Accepted.
I lived on and off with Helen in Oxford after her first husband left her. Ours was a close but platonic relationship. I had a brief fling with David, al fresco, on a midsummer night over thirty years ago. He recently texted me with the four word message ‘Am at the cemetery,’ which gives you enough of a clue. Those were the days. Both relationships could have developed, I suppose. I don’t know what either of them thought, but I certainly considered a possible future, at separate times, with both of them. It was that period in your thirties where, if you haven’t, you think of a partner. But I can’t have wanted it very much, I now think. My instinct was always to keep clear. I wonder if losing my parents early led me into a defensiveness about loving and being loved.
But I have found a form of family.
June 2017