A Different Body Experiences
A Different Universe
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Endlessly
subject to
re-interpretation
re-formation
re-interpretation
re-formation
Makeshift
Memories
Grandfather and grandma had been with us this first holiday of realisation, of knowing that you could want something to be as it was and as it wasn't. They'd probably paid for us all to be there; staying in a hotel where a man played the piano in the restaurant every evening. Not the mix of bed and horrible bacon breakfasts, spreading tents and caravans of later. We'd had trips on boats where the sea knocked to come in; knocked your legs and you got used to it until back on land when they wobbled as the pavements tilted. My grandfather had rubbed my head, pushed it and said, I had sea legs and was a real sailor. I'd liked ‘sea legs;' filled with the sea, unused to land but not him, not his hand which pushed away and pulled.
Why had they paid? It had never seemed clear. Was it getting the early retirement, or wanting to "Enjoy time with the grandchildren. You don't live for ever?” My grandmother sometimes said this. Or because they'd not paid towards the wedding of their only daughter, my mother; nor even wanted to be there if the picture was anything to go by.
Grandma had looked not relaxed but herself, wearing a lilac suit the same as the one for the christening; my christening. Why did I say ‘christening?' It was a ‘naming' ceremony. Not in a church nor the manor house nearby, which grandma or grandpa had said was a compromise but my father had said, "No. It was as bad as any church.” Grandpa was at the edge of the picture. His head, his face only half showing, if that, blurred as it blended into the white edging. He wasn't in any of the other photos. I'd looked for him, for his grey clad leg or shoulder disappearing between, behind new dresses and awkward suits. Sometimes I wondered if it was him at all. The face wasn't clear. The bulky body was. It was his stance but not his presence. Hidden by unfamiliar clothing was so like the other men who were there. Had I asked my mother? Why did I feel my mother had wanted to put me off, deflect my attempts to straighten things out and slide them towards questions of, would I marry when I was grown up and what would I wear if I did. Not that my mother asked these questions. They weren't her kind of question but somehow elicited answers to them and I'd get lost in who I liked or didn't at the moment, and red velvet, jeans or the overwhelming pink season.
I watched and thought these thoughts as he combed my hair. Tried to recollect as strands flew away and his hand moved over my shoulder, pushing them back and the glass cracked. A circle smashed it's way through. An irregular, rectangle of jagged, flesh cliffs appeared in the bottom right-hand corner, stretched up. A new pictured wavered it's way in each fragment. I moved my finger up from between my legs covered in a sticky, blood coloured mucous. I was a bridesmaid at my uncle's wedding. The pink dress from the vanished shop, net like kaylie. My mother rushed in, swept me up into her arms yet did not touch me; held herself apart. Yes, from then she held herself apart and we could not disconnect even when the time came over and over. She cried, I didn't, and asked half questions. "Are you?” "Has?” "Don't. I” "told you never. Did, did?” "Not hurt?” "Are you?” "Hurt?” "Not hurt?” "Hurt?” "Hurt?” "Never?” My grandfather didn't answer her, persuaded but not answered. My.. Who? Who did I hear? I looked at the next fragment cutting into this one.
My grandfather didn't answer her, above the rush of sound stood dead. My ‘whoever' spoke, "Come here next to my chair.” No, he didn't speak this, just moved me with that arm, talked to me, to himself, a gentle burr of the papers on the table I was marking. His fingers, the palm of his great hand smoothing up my leg, between. Reaching up slowly, inevitably to the loose, clean, white edge, pushed up and the still tree hanging outside the window. Yes, the tree was first. As we looked — did I look, yes, even then in amazement, retaining it's cinder struck shape, seeing the lightening streak it's century repeatedly; in disbelief, scared, oh so scared. It was not possible he couldn't be, as his arm round my shoulder reached. His hand crawled, dismembered, across my late-summer dress. Impossible fingertips twisted the small stud of my nipple. Fine winding of a watch, painful, or numb, my breasts never filled with feelings again. The thin dress and thin skin remained there. A flayed dried skin, my body left without it. Next the woman swaying as the rope stretched on the clothes rack. Was it empty? Had she taken them off, folded and put in a draw or hadn't she had the heart for washing since she suspected the worst? I sat on my father's knee. I never sat on my father's knee again. i was hugged. i was outside.
My uncle Jack spoke clear words, distinctly and there was no evading. His lips opened and sealed mine. He was first but that makes it sound as if there was a start and more importantly there was a finish; there was not. i was too young, am still too young somewhere, to know anything but to feel eroded, ebbing away. The teacher was certain. The soft, putty face spilling into his voice, filling the sack of his trousers, smelling of chalk dust and musty. My fingertips smelling of rubber and bad eggs. I believed it welled from my stomach, spread through me like a voice separating what can be described from what must never be known, yet still people would think their thoughts of me. Somehow the voice told something so I was suspect; to be afraid, to be protected by this fear.
He spoke now, black rushing sounds. I was chased and held myself still.
My father, my teacher, my uncle, a man on the street, in the bushes, a friend of my family? If it was once one, was it all and the recollecting didn't matter?
I look at my daughter and wonder, am I my grandfather's daughter; am i yours?
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Bodies
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A Different Body
Experiences
A Different Universe