Sunday 14th March 2010
Dear Diary,
I’m sorry to have neglected you of late. It’s nothing personal it’s just that I haven’t been feeling too chipper and chatty.
The men folk have gone sailing today. They were up and away early leaving me to my own devices. With it being Mother’s Day I decided to take out a mortgage on a bunch of flowers to put on my Mum’s grave. It’s disgusting the way flower prices are hiked up at this time of year, but then again I suppose such events are the jam on the bread and butter of flower producers lives.
In the event I didn’t put them on her grave. I stayed on the train and travelled past my usual stop. I just couldn’t bring myself to visit the cemetery. To my shame I’ve been there but rarely, first when she was actually buried and the last time before Christmas, which caused me much strife. I just don’t like to think of her mouldering in the grave. It brings me no comfort.
I ended up at a place called Marske by the sea. It isn’t one of earth’s bustling places. My mother used to take me there to play on summer days when I was small enough to be content with just sand and sea and a bucket and spade. I walked along the deserted beach and listened to the waves quietly lapping the shore. As I walked I was visited by memories of a skinny kid carefully carrying buckets of seawater to slop into the moats that mum had helped me dig around my sandcastles. It’s weird how sometimes you can be in two time zones at once. I was in simultaneous existence as a child and a man. I could see and hear myself shouting and laughing as I jumped the frothy sea breakers. If time is circular then perhaps I will always be a small boy jumping over waves, caught forever in a time loop continuum with my mother watching over me, smiling and alive and not rotting in the ground.
I sat for a while among the rough grassed sand dunes, rolling other memories around my mind, including the time that Shane made alfresco love to me as the sun came up over the ocean. It was just after Eileen’s mum had died and I was struggling to come to terms with the notion of death. I’m still no closer to coming to terms with it.
I didn’t sit for long. It was freezing cold and I wasn’t warmly dressed. I removed the cellophane wrapping from the bunch of flowers that I’d bought and left them lying on the beach near the water line, ready for the sea to carry away on an outgoing tide. On the train coming home I couldn’t get the tune of ‘O Come, O, Come Emmanuel’ out of my head. It was my mother’s favourite hymn and I sang it at the end of her funeral service. Thankfully there weren’t too many fellow travellers on the train and I don’t think anyone noticed my tears.
Shane has not long since phoned to say they’re on the way home so I’d best go prepare some supper.
Saturday 20th March 2010
I hate fucking beef burgers, not that I have ever have, fucked one I mean. I’m just not into pounding that kind of meat especially when it’s frozen, the risk of frostbite would be just too great. I prefer my meat fresh and warm if you get my drift. So, Gilli, I hear you ask, why do you hate beef burgers? Well, seeing as you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you. I hate them because they got me into trouble last Wednesday night. Thanks to the spiteful action of a pack of frozen beef burgers I got my backside turned into the equivalent of a barbecue. By the time Shane was done my arse was giving off enough heat to flame grill the burgers and fry a side order of onions into the bargain. To be fair the beef burgers weren’t solely responsible for the fate that befell my poor bottom that evening, marmalade played a part and so did tuna pasta bake, a hoover belt and the window cleaner. I must have somehow offended the Gods of Mount Olympus and they got together and conspired to put me out of favour with the domestic gods of hearth and home, i.e. Dick and Shane. I started to divvy up the details in a very short autobiog chapter titled, Wednesday’s Houseboy Is Full Of Woe, but I’m not running on all cylinders at the moment and am struggling to find the mental energy. I sit down at the computer and my mind does the equivalent of a car engine that has had sugar poured into it…it just stalls.
The weather hasn’t helped matters. It’s been dull and overcast for the most part (a bit like me) and it’s done nothing but rain today. It wasn’t too bad this morning when I set off for a run, but then the heavens opened. By the time I returned to the quasi mansion I was soaked to the skin. I’d also managed to tread in some dog shit and didn’t notice until I took my trainers off. The smell made me gag. It took me ages to clean it off.
Anyway this is just a short visit. I’ll have to getting on with getting ready to go out for dinner. You know Shane, he doesn’t like to be kept waiting. We’ve all got our watches synchronised. If Dick and I don’t rendezvous in the hall at the appointed time he’ll have us put on a charge.
Monday 22nd March 2010
It’s nice to see a bit of colour brightening the garden at long last. The spring bulbs have flowered a bit later than normal this year on account of the cold winter. Mind you, the wind is picking up here and my poor little daffs and crocuses are getting blown about.
The Bears were in crabby mode this morning, with each other and with me. I was glad to get them out of the house. I pity their colleagues today having to contend with grumpy and grumpier. Dick’s face was tripping him this morning. He moaned on and on because I’d grilled bacon for Shane’s breakfast. He said the smell of it was clinging to his hair and clothes and he had a meeting to go to and why couldn’t Shane just have fucking cornflakes like normal people. My offer to spray him over with a bit of Febreze wasn’t appreciated. I hope they’re in a better mood when they get home tonight, because if they aren’t I’m buggering off up to the den after dinner and they can chew each other’s nuts off.
I got a bit of hassle when we went out for dinner last Saturday night, and not from my own dear Statler and Waldorf.
We were eating at a place called McCoys, it’s not one of my favourite places, the atmosphere is a bit stuffy and formal for my tastes, but the food is very good. Shane likes it. It was busy, but we had a nice table near the window so I didn’t feel too crowded. We’d eaten our starters and were waiting for our main courses to arrive. Dick and Shane were relaxed and I was enjoying listening to them banter with each other. Anyway, I suddenly became aware of being scrutinised. Have you ever experienced that? You just get a sense of someone watching you. I glanced round and my eyes fell on a table where there were two couples dining, a classic het mix of two men and two women. One of the men was staring at me. Usually if you catch someone staring they quickly look away, but he didn’t. I felt my stomach contract slightly because there was a look of real hostility on his face and to be honest it unnerved me. I tried to convince myself that I was imagining it, but I wasn’t. He said something to his companions and they all looked over and one of the women sniggered.
Neither the men folk or myself are what you might call particularly “gay” looking and we don’t sit holding hands or being openly affectionate unless of course we’re in officially recognised gay friendly surroundings. On the whole we get very little trouble. I suppose most folk assume we’re friends or workmates or even that I’m Shane’s son. Anyway the man in the restaurant had perhaps latched onto some look or nuance that revealed a hint of our relationship? I don’t really know. I didn’t say anything to the men folk. I didn’t want to spoil their evening and besides I knew they’d just tell me to ignore it and that’s what I tried to do. I got on with eating my dinner.
In due course I had to avail myself of the facilities. I’d availed and was in process of washing my hands when the bloke who’d been staring at me came into the toilets. Now granted the facilities aren’t the most spacious I’ve ever been in, but there was ample room for him to walk past me in order to get to the loo. He barged into me so hard that I almost nutted the wall above the sink. If it had been an accident one might suppose an apology would follow, but it clearly wasn’t an accident and all that followed was an insult: ‘fudge packer.’ Charming eh! For once I kept my lip buttoned and resisted an urge to retaliate in kind. The ignorant bastard was obviously looking for trouble. I left as quickly as possible and without drying my hands. He was bigger than me and I wasn’t going to stick around. He was older than me as well, maybe in his mid-forties. You’d think a man that age would have grown out of such behaviour, but then again prejudice of that type tends to be ingrained and lifelong.
I suppose it wasn’t that big a deal, but it shook me up and thoroughly spoiled my evening. You just don’t expect to meet that kind of antagonism from a smartly dressed middle aged man in a respectable restaurant. I’d had my eye on a divine chocolate concoction for dessert, but that incident robbed me of all appetite. Shane took one look at me when I got back to the table and quietly asked what had happened to upset me. I told them. They were outraged, but there wasn’t much they could do without a scene being caused. They would have preferred to stay and finish what had started off as a pleasant dinner, but yielded when I said I would rather go home. I maybe should have stayed just to show that idiot that he hadn’t driven us out, but I was no longer relaxed and I just wanted to get away. Shane told me that he was proud of me for not responding to the provocation in my usual mindless juvenile fashion. It was a compliment...I think.
To make up for missing a dessert the men folk fed me ice cream when we got home. It was lovely, but it didn’t completely take away the bad taste in my mouth.
Well, I must be off. I’ve got a glut of bananas and I’m going to make banana nut loaf before they turn black and I have to chuck them out.
