47
The solitary musings of a decietful (sic) bastard
I felt better after that. Tired, but better. I’d done something selfless for a fellow human and it felt good. Even vaguely empowering. Possibly more than empowering.
Maybe even a wee epiphany of sorts.
At the beginning of my second solo week, bands of rain played an interminable three day festival across the North York Moors, a decidedly samey, repetitive affair with Enya-style drizzle setting the tone, Yanni and Tubular Bells pretty much picking it up from there. By the time they and their wet blankets fucked off north, my Hartley Castle House vista was like a sodden Glastonbury, forlorn, waterlogged sheep wading in the shallows of flooded fields, every hill and woodland as far as these magnified eyes could see wet, limp and insipid, as if the rain had washed all colour out of them. Above this, grey, low slung skies hung around waiting for an encore.
Looking down at this sad, bedraggled scene through my sitting room windows, as I’d done a lot while wan-dering the house alone in my dressing gown, basking in the glow of an open fire and the flicker of daytime television, I couldn’t find the necessary detachment to feel cosy. I just felt sad, helpless. And wrong. Of all the creatures on this semi-submerged farm, I was among the few with any comforts. And they were plentiful. I counted my lucky stars for this, but I also counted my unlucky sheep. I wanted to rush into the fields with an armful of towels and give them a good old rub down like I gave Kurt and Courtney when they came inside wet. But I just stood there in the window hoping they were okay and cursing the skeletal trees for their scant shelter.
In many ways we were kindred spirits the sheep and I. At the mercy of elements we had no control over. All I could hope was that they weren’t feeling hard done by like I was. Wallowing in it like I was. None of them appeared to have iPods, so at least they weren’t adding a soundtrack to their angst.
Speaking of which:
I was aware of the need to press on through the gloom; to at least take a few more tentative strides into my new Gabriel-free world, the rescue mission with Charlie Chabot having been something of a fillip. Now it was time to rescue Bailey. For this I again sought assistance in music, compiling a quite different array of songs to give me a ‘melodious’ kick up the ass. I called this selection my ‘Accelerate the rage’ mix, – a mix to ferment my anger and despair like a hot chilli side salad, bring simmering emotions to a premature boil, let it all out and, hopefully, break free of the inertia.
It doesn’t matter if you aren’t familiar with these tracks, let alone the artists – the titles will more than acquaint you with my intention and/or dubious frame of mind: Faith No More, The Gentle Art of Making Enemies; Marilyn Manson, Irresponsible Hate Anthem; Ministry, Stigmata; Ministry, The Land of Rape and Honey; Nine Inch Nails, The Hand That Feeds; Alice in Chains, Down in a Hole; Rage against the Machine, Killing In The Name Of; Rammstein, Los; Porno for Pyros, Pets; Pixies, Monkey’s Gone To Heaven; PJ Harvey, Who the Fuck?; Queens of the Stone Age, The Lost Art Of Keeping A Secret and Someone’s in the Wolf; Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Black Tongue; Radiohead, Creep; Tool, The Grudge and Prison Sex; and, last but far from least vindictive, The Music, Welcome To The North.
Headphones on, iPod volume on its highest setting, I burned a trail across the farm, the moors and the woodland, dogs struggling to keep up. I came out the other end of this head banging assault on my senses angrier and more mentally unstable than I’ve ever been in my life, but with a new found goal.
A steely resolve had gripped me roughly but reassuringly by the throat like a favourite drunk uncle shaking some sense into me. And there was sense. Plenty of it. I knew what I wanted to be. Or rather who I wanted to model myself upon. The new, true, honest, open and brutally frank me…
I wanted to be more like Gabriel.
Not peddling lemon zesters to old biddies. More just being blatantly transparent. Sure there was the snuff video she hadn’t told me about and the actively activist ex-boyfriend she hadn’t told me about. But apart from those minor glitches, with Gabriel you always got five foot nothing of pure candour. No hidden agendas, no bullshit. There was something to be admired in that. Something worth emulating. Gabriel might be gone, but her legacy would remain, even if Family Hogg’s didn’t.
By the next Friday I was done with brooding and cross-country walking and talking to myself. I was in serious need of a sounding board. Someone who could reassure me I was going to be okay. For this I needed a friend. There were plenty of these back in Australia and New Zealand, people I had kept in touch with in a long distance, distracted sort of way, selectively forthcoming with my news. There was family back there too, but, again, they had only a partial grasp of the facts. Baby steps to the full disclosure. First I had to relinquish my large and very colourful collection of veneers.
Truth was I wasn’t ready to announce the split to family and friends. Not after last time. Not until there was dead set proof Gabriel wasn’t coming back – explicit Polaroids or a new (unerased) video would be proof enough. Which meant I needed someone local, someone without the history. Someone I could trust with the full warts and all story; someone who would provide sound, sensible counselling and a warm, absorbent shoulder.
In other words, I needed a North Yorkshire friend.
And there weren’t any.
Not even the vaguest hint of a friend, not the faintest glimmer of potential mateship had risen from the ashes of my English disaster thus far.
Or at least it hadn’t until a week ago.
There was one person I could call. One person who had very recently put their hand up as a potential friend. A potentially very good friend. Someone I felt I could say anything to and, indeed – as recently as six days ago – had.
I made the call.
