Calling Time

OK - before you deluge me with sympathy - I wrote this November 2nd 2005. I'm trawling my archives at the moment to re-publish some old things you might have missed, while I get well, and I found this, written when I was sick, and never published. Not like me to be shy...

---

I am very sad. I have pepper throat. My body is complaining again about living in the foul virus soup of London, my feet tired of stepping over pigeon shit, vomit and phlegm. However I feel sad not for myself but for my close neighbours. Their daughter died on Halloween night, killed by inoperable brain cancer at the age of twelve.

Her dad, told me yesterday as I cursed my way back from the café, where we had taken the business meeting in the interests of fuel. I passed him tottering slowly up the stairs, and said hello, knowing he was under a lot of strain, no censure from me, certainly, if he was drunk. He said my name as I passed, and I turned, and then he said his daughter's name, and paused; then two words - "... she died..."

He spoke so quietly. I felt the awful blow of this man losing his only child. "When?" I asked. "Last night," he replied in a whisper, his face no longer masking his grief, his tired eyes desperate in pain, searching my frowning face. I said, "I am so sorry," and hugged him. He hugged me back tightly like a kid, stayed there for a long minute. He was shaking. We climbed the next few stairs and hugged again before parting, grown-up children in leather jackets, lost for words but not actions.

I was with a colleague last night, so I didn't have time to myself. I got stoned, and crashed early, awoke with the virus attacking me. It can attack all it likes, it won't kill me. I sat up in bed and after ten minutes realised I was crying. I am finding this difficult to write for tears. I've taken my laptop out of the shared room that I was in so that nobody is embarassed by my emotion. I am wiping the keyboard with a cloth, and blowing my nose. I am writing this just because I have to, not because I want to. She was a nice kid, intelligent, quirky, smart; they were a great family. I suppose I had better drink tea and get myself together. I guess I had better write a card and buy flowers.

Nothing lasts for long
Nothing lasts for long
Nothing lasts for long
Down at the Chinese Café
We'd be dreaming on our dimes
We'd be playing
"Oh my love, my darling"
One more time...

Joni Mitchell, Chinese Café / Unchained Melody