This was meant to be a very short post which I started to write because it started snowing again tonight. But I started to type and like the Lambton worm it grewed and grewed and grewed and this came out instead and all sorts of things which I thought I’d forgot ended up being typed. So it has nothing to do with the title but I can’t be bothered to think of a new one right now and as I haven’t slept for the past two nights I need to go to bed now. In any case if I keep going until we actually get to my Snow Place then we’re going to be here for a while. So here it is, a post that has nothing to do with the title written on no sleep and a glass of red wine (which is a bit of a lethal combination). Should you attempt to read this then I suggest you go get a cup of coffee first….

We had been homeless for nearly two years. The big house was gone, we’d owned it for a year, spent eight months gutting it, rebuilding it, redecorating it and then moved in. We lived there four months, throughout the summer as I seem to recall, until the evening that Dad came home, wandered into the garden, looked back at the house, and realized that this was it. He’d done it. Arrived. Here he could spend the rest of his days. The house hit the market the very next morning.

We knew the drill; we’d done it several, (eight times) before. Our furniture went into storage; our goldfish, (Goldie, Goldy, and Bert) went to stay at my Nan’s. We didn’t miss them much, their gold had started to tarnish by the time we’d knocked the coconuts off and what little was left had turned to gilt by the time we’d walked the damn things home, thin plastic handles straining holes with every step. They, Goldy, Goldie and Bert, didn’t miss us at all and proved it by, (within the month) allowing Grandpa T to teach them tricks.

Our cat Tiger, real name Snow Tiger Terror of the Steppes, proved a little more difficult to place. My Nan, usually a guaranteed soft touch where animals were concerned was convinced that he was the devil incarnate (she just hadn’t quite decided which one) and we, Mum, Herebe and I, had to agree – although privately – that his eyes did glow a strange shade of green whenever he saw her.

Grandma S; who could normally be relied upon to do her Christian duty in matters such as this, flatly refused to have him in her house. He was a lovely looking cat (she said) with those bright green eyes and tufts on his ears and she could quite understand why we were so proud of him. But speaking of ears (she said), Sasha (her dog) was meant to have two of them, not one and half and although the vet had managed to stitch most of it back on, it was just too much worry and expense to go through on a regular basis. In vain did Mum point out that Tiger was just a big softy really, even Herebe and I didn’t quite believe that. In vain did Herebe and I try to explain that as a greyhound/whippet cross with not a few wins under her collar, Sasha should have been quick enough to get out of his way. The fact that she hadn’t, proved that even for a greyhound/whippet cross, she was an incredibly stupid dog and as her ears were much floppier than any self-respecting dog should have anyway you could quite understand Tigers reaction when they were flopping around him. In vain did the three of us suggest that if Tiger was given the run of the garden no-one would ever dare climb over the wall to nobble GrandDad S’s leeks. That might be the case (Said Granddad S) but where in hell was he supposed to put the bodies? Herebe’s suggestion of the leek trench because after all that was where Granddad kept threatening to bury us – along with the rest of his grandchildren – fell on ears as deaf as Sasha’s left.

With nowhere left to turn and time until the move fast running out, Mum did what every child with siblings does in such a situation. She used emotional blackmail on the nearest ones (my godparents). She needn’t have wasted her breath. In the first flush of panic now that Jboy was on wheels (a natty red trike), they leapt at the chance of even temporarily homing our cat, their only reservation being that Mum couldn’t guarantee a more than ninety percent chance of their first born becoming its lunch.

Tiger never made it to my Godparents house. On the day we moved, before we were twenty miles down the road, he’d bitten through the wicker of his basket and escaped. For the next fifty miles, he alternated between crouching viciously behind the brake pedal (used rarely when Dad drove) and launching assaults – via the top of Dads head – on the goldfish, whose tank with its makeshift cardboard breakwaters, was wedged between Herebe and me on the back seat. When the car finally stopped at a junction near to my Godparents, Tiger took off out of the window and was gone. Like so many barbarian chiefs before him, he eschewed the soft belly of a three year old for the freedom of the Steppes, in this case the concrete steps of the outhouse of our ex-almost neighbours, three doors up and on the other side of the back garden to the house we’d lived in four months before.

There he spent the next two years, laying siege to the gates (a dark green back door) of the castle which imprisoned his Queen. That she was a very insipid Queen indeed, (called Susie most definitely without the Q) mattered not one jot to him. Occasionally he’d bring her gifts – half a dead fox, a feebly kicking rabbit or two, on one occasion the mutilated body of another Tom Cat- which he’d lay upon the garden path with a careless aplomb, but mostly he spent his days reclining Genghis like upon a sack, composing poetry in a foreign (and off-key) tongue.

The ex-almost neighbours, it must be said, took it with a very good grace. A far better grace in fact than they’d ever taken to us living three doors down and on the other side of the back gardens from their house. The “Lady of the House” and I use the term in all its drop waisted crimpelened glory, Grandma S’s good friend, when we lived there, it had all been scandalized tones of “They have a drum kit in their dining room, don’t you know (my Grandmas name)?” and “Why was there a lamb in your daughters back garden last weekend?”. Like Grandma S would know. We weren’t that sure. It wasn’t ours. Thank God the night Dad had chased the next door neighbour’s son down the garden path with the samurai sword he’d just made; he’d run him down the front path and not the back. Deserved as it might have been (and it was), we’d never have heard the end of that. But somehow, Tigers lonely vigil had worn through the layers of foundation garments, masticated milk tray and mills and boon romances and found a place – a very small place but a place nonetheless – in her heart.

We knew this because when Mum arrived (three times a day) wielding tins of Whiskas and the odd bit of raw meat, she would open her dark green door, plant her feet firmly upon the white painted well scrubbed step, American tan tights straining over sausaged ankles, and watch him eat. “HE’s not gulping his food down” she would say with a satisfied air, as if the day that Tiger would wield a knife and fork was the day he would be allowed to date her cat. Ha! I’d watched her eat. A Mississippi steamer paddle had more grace.

Tiger paid her little heed. Three times a day he walked to the garden gate, welcomed Mum (who was his pet) with the air of a millionaire showing off his mansion, and then, when dinner was done and the remains of his ears had been scratched and Mum had rearranged his bed to his satisfaction, he walked her home – around the corner to my Grandma’s house – where he would wait at the gate until she was safely in and had waved from the window, before sauntering back to compose another stanza.

That was where we lived. Mum, Herebe and me – at my Grandmas house. When the big house had gone, Dad had moved back to his bed beneath the sea. Living here was a “temporary measure” until we found a home of our own. Our clothes went into bin bags, and we; Mum, Herebe and I moved into the front bedroom, the room with the rose coloured carpets and old-fashioned bunks, the bottom one I shared with mum. Narrow as a plank, hardly big enough for one small child – which I was not- we slept top to toe, me pushed up against the wall with an extra three inches for my head where the bed stood in front of the alcove was. The bunk above was so close that if I sat up straight my hair would catch in the weird patterns of wires and twists and have to be cut free before I could move. When Dad came back – one weekend in every six – Mum and he would sleep around the corner at my Nan’s and in the morning they would pick us up and we’d go off, hunting for a home.

Look, take it from one who knows about these thing, when it comes to birthday parties, or indeed any sort of gathering where more than family member is likely to be present then it’s really not a good idea to get absolutely rat-arsed drunk on your Uncle M’s sloe gin and then proceed to tell each and every person in the room exactly what you think of them in no uncertain (if slightly slurred) terms.

So, what did I go and do at my Mum’s birthday party on Saturday night? That’s right. I didn’t get absolutely rat-arsed drunk on my Uncle M’s sloe gin and I certainly didn’t proceed to tell each and every member of my family exactly what I thought of them in no uncertain (if slightly slurred) terms.

Instead I remained perfectly balanced (a chip on both shoulders and a plate of onion bhaji’s in my hand) for the entire evening. Well, almost the entire evening. It’s bloody difficult to maintain ones equilibrium while pitching headlong down a staircase towards the kitchen table after tripping over the vicious bronze candelabrum that cruel and unfeeling mother has placed on the narrowest point of the curve in a deliberate attempt to murder her only daughter. Especially when, as you fall from a great height, all your bloody relatives move as one – to rescue the food, leaving you several feet of polished hardwood to break the fall rather than the light and fluffy goats cheese quiche you’d been aiming for.

I do have a vague and hazy remembrance of agreeing with my Aunty J at one point (she of the almond green metallic ankle-straps shoes and five ponies – and let’s not even go there, because why she should have five ponies when I don’t even have one is still a sore point - who really doesn’t qualify for the honorific of Aunty as she’s only ten years older than me - which by my reckoning makes her just turned 37 and therefore far too young to be a relative) when she was dissing someone’s sister. But as the aforementioned sister of the sister who was being dissed had been stuck into the (rather nice but I can’t remember what it was) New Zealand white for at least three hours at that point and as the sister who was being dissed was in a completely different room at the time then I think (I hope) that we might have gotten away with it. Besides which I don’t think that I said anything bad about anyone during the course of that conversation. At least I don’t think I did. I may have agreed with various comments but that’s not the same as having said them. Is it?

Rewind. Rewind three months. Rewind to a happier time…

Here I am. In my room. Note the possessive. My room. Not stuck behind a computer in the corner of the kitchen in a city that I hate but here, in a room with two huge windows. Windows which look out, not into other people’s windows, but trees and a yard which has (or will have just as soon as I get round to planting them) flowers in it. The sun is shining, the birds are singing (probably because they need feeding), there’s a red tiled open fire (although the chimney needs sweeping) with a mantelpiece on which I have put some of my prettiest bits and pieces and I am happy. I am happy. I am sitting in front of my computer screen, which is on my table in my room, and I am happy. Life is good. Or at least as good as it can be when you have to start everything from scratch – again. For the third time in thirteen years. But because the greatest thing about life (as far as I’m concerned anyway – although I do have a very low boredom threshold) is that it all will turn to rat-shit and you’ll have to scrap everything you’ve ever done and redo and rebuild it all again – life is incredibly good.

So I’m sitting here in my gorgeous room, at the gorgeous old table kindly donated by Aunty J (she of the green shoes, five ponies and too few years to be called an Aunt at all) who wanted it out of her shed, and I’m in front of my computer screen because that is where I spend all of my life and I’m happy (I was probably singing) and then all of a sudden, as if by magic… an email appears.

From an aunt.

Herebemonsters is six again today. It’s not often I’m nice to (or indeed about) him but seeing as how its his birthday and seeing as how I didn’t send him a card (still working on it bro) I suppose that I can justify breaking the big sister code and saying something nice about him.

He is wonderful. He hasn’t got a clue just how wonderful he really is (which is probably a blessing because he’d be quite unliveable with if he did) but that just adds to his charm. He’s amazing, he’s fantastic, whenever there is danger he is there… oh hang on that’s dangermouse. Anyway I love him to bits, more than I’d ever tell him but no more than he deserves. To cut a long story short - I think that he is the best brother any sister could ever have. If I ever had to pick a brother out - then he would be the brother I would pick.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEREBEMONSTERS! may this be the year that all your dreams come true and all your nightmares vanish with the dawn

Hxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ps. Mum says the same thing - except obviously she means son instead of brother!

OK. F wasn’t making it up. I thought he was. I thought it was just one of those sorts of things that guys said to girls when they were trying to impress them. It wasn’t. It was a true story.

He got most of it wrong mind you. N told me the real story while she was visiting. It wasn’t his godfather; it was his great-uncle on his mother’s side and he didn’t have a broken ankle, it was a broken leg. But he did cycle from Marseilles to Toulon (and in midsummer as well) to visit F’s mum and her new baby.

One of the reasons why I’d never paid the story much attention when F first told it to me was the fact that at the time I’d been neither to Marseille or Toulon, nor travelled on the road that links them. So I didn’t realise that the distance was a neat 64.6km (I’ve just looked it up) one way and of course I’d never even considered the fact that he’d have to cycle back as well; which makes it approximately an eighty mile round trip. Neither did I realise that the temperature in July, in the South of France, gets a bit warm. I was from Newcastle. What did temperaturesin the high 70’s mean to me? If we could wear t-shirts in July without getting frostbite we thought it was a warm day. The four degree increase in temperature in summer between the North and South of England had been the equivalent of moving to tropical climes as far as I was concerned.

So, at the time I didn’t pay much attention to F’s tale. Yes, I thought it was lovely that this great-uncle had made the effort to go visit a newly born baby and yes I thought that the fact that he did so was even more impressive owing to the fact he had a broken leg at the time, but other than thinking it a nice story about a nice gesture which demonstrated that F came from a loving and close-knit family I paid it little heed.

F had prefaced this story with all this other stuff too. Which I’d more or less ignored. Something about Cayenne and Papillon. Butterflies and pepper. That made a lot of sense to me; so I ignored it.

At the time I hadn’t read the book and I hadn’t seen the film and I hadn’t been born with an instinctive knowledge of famous French criminals - in fact other than knowing that the Krays really loved their old mum, my knowledge of the criminal classes was confined to M who lived up the road and who cut her speed with vitamin C (she was a very motherly dealer). Then, a ittle later on when F’s mum mentioned the story I learnt that Cayenne was the French version of Alcatraz and that Papillon had escaped from it.

And now, a fortnight ago, thanks to FN’s recommendation I read Papillion (if you haven’t read it, read it immediately got to be one of the most inspiring books I’ve ever read) and now I know the full tale. F’s great-uncle had been sent to Cayenne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil%27s_Island at the same time as Papillon and had known him quite well. At the end of the war the colony had been closed down and F’s uncle had returned to Marseilles. N did tell me what he was called but I’ve forgotten, I’ll check with F’s mum when she next calls it either began with a Fab or a Deg.

Now of course I’m older and although I’m interested in the link from the book to reality, I’m much more touched by the bonds and ties and love which compelled an elderly man with a broken leg to cycle eighty miles in order to see a new born baby.

I’ve got it. I’ve sussed their little game. Admittedly it took me nearly two weeks but I’ve finally worked it out. Oh, they’re clever these ones are. Not your normal run of the mill in-laws. Rather than concentrate on the immediate effects that downright unreasonableness can get you, they’ve decided to go for the long haul and inflict psychological damage of the lasting kind. It’s very simple once you work it out. First they get you het up and worried about the thought of 4 extra people visiting a two bedroom flat and then they lull you into a sense of false security when they arrive by being all nice and helpful and fun to be around and then whoosh! They bugger off to their own homes as if they have nothing better to do with their lives than go back to work and to school and suchlike, leaving you with an apartment that’s too quiet and peaceful and empty and big by half.

Not only that but as a final parting blow N not only stripped all the beds they’d used and put the sheets and towels into the washer, deflated the airbed and left the front room and the bathroom cleaner than it was when they’d arrived (and I’d scrubbed both rooms from top to bottom), but she’d also gone to the shop before we woke up, made fresh coffee, washed the glasses from the night before (it had been a conversation till 5am sort of night) and had the effrontery to have bought me a present (and the sort of present that shows that they actually took the time to think of something that I’d like) to thank me for all my I’d done to look after
them and giving them a lovely holiday. The grateful, well-mannered downright loving sods. Don’t they have any idea of how to behave?