The Bare Bones of It

‘No, it will not do,’ he thought as he held the door open for the woman struggling with the push chair and the toddler at her side. The shopping bag fell from the handle of the pushchair, Wagon Wheels dropped to the ground, ham shaped like a bear’s face, alphabetti spaghetti.

‘Waaagh,’ cried the child by her side, seeing the loss of the sustenance as final and irreversible.

‘You may cry now, just wait until you’re older and the realisation hits you that This Is Your Life. This is life. You will lose your imagination and all the magic will spill from your childish mind into a pool by your feet, lost to the boredom of gravity’s inevitable pull, lost to the soil that is calling your bones back down down down.’ He handed her the ham shaped like a bear’s face and she shoved it in the bottom of the buggy and off she went. She did not say ‘thank you’.

Would the ham bear face sustain the child? Would it cause growth? He suspected not. He wondered of what precisely it consisted, as he watched her dragging the screaming child along by the wrist. He could see the child spelling out its first words in alphabetti spaghetti: ‘Fuk yew,’ little Benny’s first written words, aged eight, a proud little smile on his tomato-sauce encrusted face as he swings his stunted legs with glee under the table, just managing to kick his little sister in the process, making her cry. This, little Benny felt, was his finest moment.

He worried about little Benny and all the other children that didn’t stand a bloody chance, probably unwanted and barely loved, dragged into life and dragged through it, just about scraping through. Just about scraping through; that was how he felt every day.

He pondered his theory regarding the frequency of crying within the human life: We cry more when we are babies and children because we are only just getting used to the inconvenience of life and the shock of coming out of the warm womb into a life of too hot, too cold, hungry, full up, sick, tired, bad dreams, awake, constipated, sitting in your own shit, waiting for someone to come and clean it all up. But as you get older, you realise that no one is going to come and clean it up, not when you’re an adult. And as you get used to a life outside the womb, you grow more acclimatised to the little inconveniences of life until you accept them and then you stop crying. At least you stop crying outwardly. The inner tears drip constantly. They needed a washer but he knew you couldn’t buy one the right size. Not in B&Q.

He thought about Anne. After he had told her this theory, when they were very young, she had looked at him as though he had shat in her handbag and then had knighted him ‘Eeyore,’ tapping his shoulders with her fork. Dear Anne. Every time he thought of her this way he had a brief holiday from his loneliness but it returned again with a vengeance. Now he was back on familiar ground and he trod it alone.

He opened the door to the offices, helped Robert Glew carry some boxes upstairs (another thankless task, he noted) and was about to push the door to his office open when something stopped him. He stood motionless at the door, his breath condensing on the pane of glass, his nose an inch away from the eight hours of futile boredom which awaited him beyond the door.

‘No, it will not do,’ thought he, turning on his heel and walking down the steps, guilt and a sense of duty hot on his heels but he shook them off at the door where he burst out into the fresh air of the day, the endless sky opening up before him. ‘No, it will not do.’

He was fifty three. He felt he had achieved nothing but the days kept turning and so he kept on going, like a cog driven by the movement of the sun, yet disconnected from all else around him. A cog without purpose. As sure as the sun would come up, he would rise, do his exercises, have his cup of tea, water the plants and then water himself in that pathetic dribble of a shower. He must remember to buy that limescale remover. And that washer. The plants. He must always water the plants. That was his purpose; to keep them alive, to keep them green and growing for Anne. For Anne.

He walked across the heath, noting the beautiful browns and oranges of the autumn emerging. Leaves had begun to fall. He felt at home in the autumn, when everything was curling at the edges, when everything was getting tired. He was at ease in the melancholy end that autumn brought. Autumn was bittersweet; such vibrancy, such beauty, yet an end nonetheless. He felt an affinity with the autumn. He wanted to be as beautiful, to be as colourful and as noticeable as the leaves. Only Anne had really seen him. Why could no one else? He wanted to be like the leaves, to burn as brightly before fading away.

‘No, it will not do.’ He kept walking, up the steps to the hilltop that overlooked the town, the harbour, the sea. Since Anne had gone he no longer felt attached to the town, to other people. He felt attached to the plants; they kept him rooted to her. He kept them alive and they kept him alive. They swapped vapours, they breathed life into him, they gave him purpose. He was more at home here, amongst the ferns and the trees than down in the town, amongst the unfathomable people.

He felt he could be closer still to his leafy cousins. He stopped in a patch of ferns, beneath a horse chestnut tree. He watched a curled leaf fall to the ground. He took off his shoes and socks and placed them at the foot of the tree. Another leaf fell. He removed his carefully ironed trousers, folded them neatly and placed them beside his shoes. He unbuttoned his jacket, undid his tie, his shirt. He watched the leaves falling. He folded his underpants and placed them on the top of the pile of clothes.

He felt calm and free and honest. He stepped out from under the tree, onto the footpath. The sun shone brightly on the sea. The air was crisp and fresh, the ground soft under his bare feet. He walked. He felt the air about his body. He thought about the movement of each muscle as it worked to move him along the path on top of the cliff. It really was beautiful.

His heart leapt when he saw a middle-aged woman approaching. He would nip into the nearest bush. Too late! She moved her hand to her gaping mouth. He had been spotted. What to do? He kept walking, nonchalantly, as if all were well. She reacted in the correct and English manner by concentrating on her dog and pretending he was not there at all. As he passed her he said, ‘Sorry.’ She glanced at him, disgusted, wrapping her Barbour jacket around her as if his nakedness might be infectious.

He felt offended that she could be so offended by his body. Then he felt amused. He smiled to himself and walked boldly onwards. She had noticed him, at least.

The ground, the path, the air, the view belonged to him as he belonged to it. He could be there in his body, in his honest form. Life suddenly seemed simple to him. He belonged here amongst the trees and the ferns and the sky. There was no confusion. Nature did not rush or shout. Nature took its time, stayed as steady and true as his footsteps.

He walked on, the leaves fell around his bare feet. He took a left and walked down a rockier path. Dusk was coming. He had walked all day long. He grew tired. He saw the sea. The sea was tired too. It fell, exhausted onto the shore, it exhaled. It wanted to rest, to stop, to stay but the shore would not let it stay. He felt tired like the sea. It grew dark and he stood, staring at the sea. He cried. He missed Anne. He walked on, into the sea. The sea was tired too. He walked on. He would water the plants later. First he would meet with the sea; together they would know what to do.