2019

Old Photograph The photograph is from the winter of 1963. Two young people standing in the snow. That winter was one of the coldest on record; the snow came and the snow stayed. The photo shows the two of them, smiling, holding hands, with snowflakes in their hair and icicles dripping on the railings behind them. It’s interesting and rather dramatic; the couple are in dark coats - creating a sharp contrast to the absorbing white everywhere else. They have a strong presence - you cannot stop looking at them. So what happened? The snow eventually stopped. The ice thawed. The two young people no longer held hands and smiled at each other ... everything melted away ... back in 1963.

A Fall in Winter A fabulous winter day; all things bright and beautiful - the muffled crunch of snow under your feet and a low sun shining right into your eyes. Very cold indeed - the road still frozen and would remain frozen. He was walking too fast - worse than that he hadn’t adapted his way of walking to the new conditions - he wasn’t using the slow flat-footed, lumbering walk - instead he was striding quickly along the pavement as if the ice didn’t exist. So he fell. Quite a balletic fall - not at all slapstick or silent-movie funny. He landed with thud and lay still, looking at the ground with an immediate self-consciousness of having done something silly, and yet staring down as if blaming the pavement itself. At the same time he was cautiously testing his injuries - you cannot fall like that, with such a thud, and get away with it - despite the pain there appeared to be no fractures. So he lay in the snow - feeling very odd, trying to get over onto his side, wincing. Several people had rushed over - total strangers who had seen the old man fall. They crouched down around him - so many of them that it felt like in a tiny room opened up to the sky. So many questions! He tried to reassure them that he was fine - he wasn’t hurt. And then he started to apologise; he wanted them to know that he was sorry for having fallen and taken up their time. And then he felt a choking gratitude at their kindness - these total strangers who had been going about their own business but had put that aside - like the woman who pressed her gloves over his hands as if he belonged to her family.

Russell and Caroline Russell and Caroline: Caroline and Russell. Impossible for me to think of them separately. They were the golden templates of a breathtaking anticipation of what life had to offer. The cheerful light-heartedness of Russell and the electrifying, wordless wonder of being near to Caroline became as fixed and permanent as day and night. Everything is so different now. A few ‘wrong words’ and friendships disintegrate - what we imagined was strong is washed away - what we thought was permanent evaporates in the heat of disagreement. Russell was incomparably good-natured and generous - in the way you sometimes see in children, before they are distorted by pressures from home and school. Caroline appeared to be more complex. I wanted absolutely nothing from her. I didn’t want to be her ‘boyfriend’ (I didn’t understand what that word meant) - I didn’t want anything except that she should like me. But even without this - without even a flicker of appreciation (and believe me, I would have spotted it!) - even with nothing at all - and even at a distance of so many years - I would have liked to tell her how grateful I am.

A Lasting Impression There was only one untidy (incredibly untidy!) room in Russell’s house. The parents must have thought it a good idea for the children to have their own place where they could make as much mess as they liked. I think they had given it a twee name - which I cannot remember. It was on the ground floor, round the back, overlooking the garden. Perhaps when they were very young, Russell and Caroline may have peacefully played together in the room and their parents would have fondly watched the arrangement - but during the time of my friendship with Russell (and my dogged, faithful, panting adoration of Caroline) they no longer shared the facility - if one of them went in; the other went out. And this is what happened on that sunny afternoon in nineteen-fifty-something-or-other. Russell scowled and mumbled something about the house being ‘invaded’. The gardener was in the kitchen, and we couldn’t go near because of his unsettling, but no doubt harmless, habit of winking at us. Russell’s mother was in the main downstairs room, having tea with visitors; his father was in the other room, involved in a complicated telephone conversation. So Russell steered me to the ‘children’s room’ or whatever it was called. Caroline was already there, sitting at a small table next to the window. She immediately got up and flounced out; Russell didn’t even look at her, but as I felt the ripple of disturbed air as she walked past, I succeeded in gulping in a massive, high-octane impression of who she was and what she was. I was in a mist of semi-reality and wasn’t listening to Russell’s voice - instead my eyes were fixed on the items of Caroline’s table. There was a clutter of items, unmistakably feminine - little gold and pink tubes, probably lipstick; little palate trays like artist’s equipment; and other, unidentifiable, secret items to enhance beauty. And then I noticed the mirror on a swivel - chromium frame, circular, about twelve inches in diameter. Set at the angle of Caroline’s preference - the angle that would flatter; that would show her at her best - at her dazzling best. I could see fingermarks and small greasy smears yet the mirror was a pool of silver light - the pool of Narcissus. Caroline had leaned over this pool and fallen in. In the centre of the mirror was the unmistakable imprint of her lips. “Are you listening to me, or not?” Russell said.

Night Rain. ... 1964 The beer tasted like rusty iron and the more you drank the thirstier you felt. And you both smoked - she smoked tipped but you were a purist - nothing but the best - Senior Service! All those people packed together in such a small room; it wouldn’t be allowed today - all that jostling and pushing - the heat of bodies, the randy laughter, the drinks cheerfully spilled. And there was a man staring at her - a stranger - and she told you - she was frightened by the rage in his eyes - she told you about his eyes - wide, yellow as nicotine, raked with veins. So you turned your back to block him out. You put your face close to hers - so close that her face was distorted; like looking at your reflection in the back of a spoon. And you both laughed and she was so lovely and you were squashed together with her hair in your face and you sucked in the smell of her wet coat.

Manchester History untold in this spot - and most of it will be pretty horrible. The bit I know is that this small strip of land, next to the Cathedral, was once cobbled and then it was tarmacked, then laid out as a lawn, then cobbled again and finally covered in large slabs of attractive York stone. Back in the day I used to cross behind the buildings to spend my wages in a second-hand booksellers. I think it was the bookseller himself who told me that the site was once used for public hangings and then, when the venue for this moved to the prison up the road, the site was used for ‘public speakers’. Anyone who so wished could turn up on a Sunday afternoon, stand on a box, and shout out whatever he wanted. In later times the area was ripped up and a vast underground car park was created. For some reason this was not a commercial success and the ‘hole’ was filled up and grass was laid, giving the impression that nothing had happened. About that time - when Manchester felt the first stirrings of guilt at the atrocities of previous planners - I used the spot as a meeting place. So today I can stop and stand and ponder how the ground is saturated with various miseries. Behind me is the shake, rattle and roll of traffic and somewhere in the middle of it all there are voices - voices from way, way back ... voices of the doomed and the angry .... and some of mine too.

Only Once Countless others have looked at this same beautiful coastline and said, in many languages, roughly the same things; as in the future so will countless others - running endlessly through time. But we both know, even as we say these same things, that we have had our share and are grateful and accept the words from the hills, the sky and the sea - all saying ... “For you, never again.”

Brief Encounter It is very cold outside but in here it is warm and the windows run with condensation. Clatter of metal teapot lids and noisy coffee machines. She faces me flooded in sharp sunshine and I say ‘Tea for one, please’ and she does a slow blink. She says that she will …‘Bring it over.’ So I sit and settle. It’s nice to wait for some things. And then she’s coming towards me with a steel tray. I didn’t notice, when the sun was behind her, how much jewellery she is wearing - chains and pendants, earrings swinging, bangles clicking together. In fact she’s rather like a mobile wind-chime. She’s Polish and lovely. I hope she has a nice boyfriend - or girlfriend - someone who will nuzzle the warmth of her twenty summers.

Edward Heinz. ... 1965 Edward was coming up to retirement age when I started in the firm. He was short and round (Pickwickian!), pink faced and white-haired; always wearing the same (three piece) suit and military tie - the same shiny Oxford shoes - the same gold-framed glasses through which he peered in bewilderment at my noisy arrival. The first thing I did was buy myself a buttoned leather arm-chair worthy of the reading room in a Pall Mall club. I gave the furniture store a head-office order number and Edward cackled at my audacity. He said that he had been sitting on his hard stool for forty-one years and it had never occurred to him to order a proper chair. I don’t remember much detail of how we spent our days. I would be sprawled back in my chair - feet up on the desk, admiring my Chelsea boots - he would be at his desk - calling the client ‘Sir’ - quick to reassure, to soothe, to placate. I knew he was into his third marriage and he didn’t like his current wife. I learned that he had fought at Gallipoli and that he attended reunions. I learned that his favourite authors were William Makepeace Thackeray and Henry Fielding. I also knew that at weekends he was quite a piss-artist. But he was a gentleman; God knows what he thought of me - the smile on his face hardly ever slipped - even when I was sharp with him or showed impatience at his deafness - and the kindness never left his small, shy eyes.

Uncles and Grandfathers ... #3 I gave him a very old and battered silver dollar - it wasn’t a birthday present or anything like that, I just wanted him to have it. A dealer had told me that it was from the mid 1840s. I remember how his eyes widened as he turned it over and over. He was imagining all the battles the dollar had seen - perhaps the Alamo - the Civil War. Later his father said - ‘Why did you give it him? I don’t want him to have old stuff.’

Uncles and Grandfathers ... #2 An uncle or grandfather should always have two white, ironed handkerchiefs in his pockets. These are to be swiftly produced (with a flourish!) at all sorts of domestic emergencies - or, if the children's electronic gadgets fail, can be a source of entertainment. He should be skilled in basic tricks - folding a handkerchief into a white rat, which runs up his arm, is always a favourite.

Pharaoh was dictating, and his scribe was busy chipping away at the stone tablet. 'I am Emperor of the Upper and Lower Nile and I surround myself with a personal bodyguard of fearless, strong, virile young men.' The chips of stone were flying through the air and the perspiring chiseller looked up enquiringly. 'Excuse me, Your Majesty, but is 'virile' spelled with one or two testicles.'