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Notes:
1. Written between November 9th and November 11th, 2006
2. This was written to accompany an instrumental album by Luke Elliott
3. With one chapter for each song
4. From an outline by Luke
5. It was presumably the longest thing I’d ever written at the time
6. Although now it has been surpassed
7. On occasion
8. And was also probably my first accompaniment
9. To a concept album about space
10. But not nearly the last
There was a woman who was married away by her family to a man she had never met. Their wedding was brief, and he left as soon as the vows were complete, for he had a great many interests to attend to, few of which, if any, could be delayed or delegated away.
Once he was finally free for a while from his obligations, she travelled the great distance from her home in the city to his in the mountains, alone and unaccompanied by any except for the taciturn driver of her husband’s formal carriage. Even when she arrived at her new home there was no-one around to greet her.
She approached the house and knocked on the door and when there was no answer she knocked again. When her third knock went unanswered she opened the door herself and stepped across the threshold.
She was greeted apologetically inside by her husband, who looked resplendent in the uniform of his office. He told her much about his life and his ambitions, and showed her the many rooms and halls of the house. But there were three doors he forbade her from opening. “Enter them,” he said. “And there would be no turning back.” But of what lay beyond he would not talk.
The next day he left to attend to the important matters of his office of state, as well as to his business affairs. And his pleasures, too, no doubt, although what they might be his wife had no idea, for he had confided in her little beyond the pleasantries of everyday acquaintance. And so she was left alone in the house.
It was too cold outside to venture far, and too remote for visitors to arrive uninvited or unannounced. She wandered the halls and the corridors of the house alone, sitting occasionally in front of a fireplace or beside a window, reading perhaps a book or studying the art that hung forgotten on the walls.
Eventually to overcome her boredom she sought out the first of the forbidden doors and stood before it. She knocked and when there was no answer she knocked again. When that too went unanswered she opened the door herself and stepped across the threshold.
She was greeted brusquely inside by her husband, who looked tired in the drab grey of his business attire. He told her much of his life and achievements, as he walked with her from room to room and through the halls of his house. There were two doors he forbade her from opening. “Enter them and there would be no turning back,” he said. But of what lay beyond he would not talk.
The next day he left to attend to his interests of business. And to his pleasures, too, no doubt. Although what they might be his wife did not dare to know. And so she was left alone again in the desolate house.
There was too much snow outside to venture far, and the roads were unsuitable for all but the most important journeys. So she wandered the halls and the corridors of the house alone, sitting occasionally by a fireplace, reading perhaps a book to pass the time.
Eventually to relieve the boredom she sought out the second of the doors forbidden to her and stood before it. She knocked. There was no answer, and so she opened the door and stepped across the threshold.
She was greeted inside with fury by her husband, who looked haggard and unwell in the faded velvet of his evening wear. He told her much of his life and regrets as he pursued her from room to room. But when she came to one door he stood in front of it and forbade her to enter. “There would be no turning back,” he said, but of what lay beyond he would not talk.
The next day he left to attend to his pleasures, the details of which his wife knew more about than she cared to know. And so she was left alone in the desolate tomb of his house.
The glaciers pressed in against the walls of the house and there was no escape. She sat in her bed and stared at the walls. Before her stood the third of the doors.
She stood before it.
She opened the door.
She stepped across the threshold.
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Notes:
1. From May 2015
2. A variant of Bluebeard, by Charles Perrault (among others)
__________
Notes:
1. Written on January 27th, 2010
2. Although the first line was written two years before
3. On August 31st, 2008
4. On the cover of a notebook
5. In which I subsequently wrote this down
__________There was a woman who lived alone in the woods. She walked through the trees and built herself creatures out of metal scavenged from old coke cans, discarded shopping trolleys, lost penknives, dropped coins, abandoned motorbikes, burnt-out cars, bits of barbed wire, tent poles, gas canisters, hubcaps, forgotten farming machinery, the remnants of barbecues, bicycles fished from the river, sawblades, nails, screws, copper wiring of unknown provenance found splayed out like veins just beneath the surface of the earth.
She poured into them her blood and, when she could, her love, and she watched with delight and no small measure of love as they made their first tentative moves in the palms of her hand, in the cradle of her lap – a flutter of wings, a flexing of claws, the opening and closing of tiny beaks as if speaking unheard words.
But her blood would clot in their valves, scab up their biscuit-tin hearts, and there against her skin, as quickly and as slowly as they had started, they stopped.
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Notes:
1. From August 2014
__________My mother died last week, which was sad, I suppose. She was a hard person to love, my mother, though, so in many ways it was a relief.
Anyway, for a week or so after I sort of wandered around in a daze. Shock, I expect, and also that I wasn’t really sure what to do or how to do it. I spent so long on the phone telling everyone she was dead that for awhile it seemed like this was it now, for me, forever. Just sitting here at my desk ringing people up and going, “Do you remember [mother]? Well, she’s dead, I’m afraid. Sorry about that. Did you know her well? Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, I know. I know. Sorry. Yeah she was, she really was. But still she’s my mother, and, well… I just thought you should know.”
I’m not sure even the vicar bothered to attempt to console me, to express in any way a sense of regret.
Anyway, I thought yesterday that it was over, after the funeral was done and she was safely buried and I’d cleared away all the uneaten buffet stuff from the table I’d set up in the living room and everyone had gone home and there was no need for them to ever think about her again.
But this morning I came down stairs and there she was, sat at the kitchen table, eating some toast and marmite, biting through it toothlessly with her dry papery lips.
“I thought you were dead,” I said.
“I was,” she said. “I spent the last week in heaven,” she said. “Nice place, really, except for all the cats.”
“The cats?” I said.
My mother didn’t like cats.
“Yes, the cats. Cats everywhere there was. Every cat that ever lived. Millions of them, sitting around. Sitting on everything,” she said. “Well, every cat that ever died, I suppose.”
“And…?”
“And what?”
“Why are you here, mother? You’re supposed to be dead.”
“Well, you know how I feel about cats.”
Everyone knew how she felt about cats.
“So I left. Told God it was either the cats or me. He chose the cats.” She took another bite of her toast. “He reminded me a bit of your father, really.”
“Who did?”
“God.”
“Are you sure you were in heaven, mother?”
“Well, where else would I have fucking been?”
So, anyway, now I expect I’ll have to spend the rest of the week on the phone again, telling everyone that I told that she was dead that she’s alive again now. I’m really not looking forward to having to explain this to the council. Or the inland revenue, or whatever they’re called now.
Actually, she’s going to be bloody furious when she finds out they’ve cancelled her pension. And how few people turned up at her funeral. How no-one even ate the sandwiches I’d made and that they’d all ended up in the bin.
Maybe I should let her call everyone.
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Notes:
1. Written on June 30th, 2016
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