End of the week

Friday. What does it matter ? At home nothing is different to any other day. It’s only outside that things go on. People get excited at the thought of staying later in the pub, of browsing through the shopping centres, of going for a walk with the family… At home it’s inside that things happen. Inside Mum’s silence, inside her look that goes right to her soul. She chose. Silence. Solitude.I know that she chose that cruel life, that her muteness is nothing but a screen onto which each person projects his or her pity and compassion. She doesn’t suffer from suffering, she doesn’t suffer any more at all. She has walked a longer path than me, a longer path than those outside.As for me, I suffer still, over and above sublimation. Despite sublimation.

Little Sparta

Ian Hamilton Finlay died last Monday. He was a sacred figure for us, a touch of creativity mixed with disorder: poet, philosopher, artist… I visited his garden in Stonypath, up there where he lived in the Pentlands.
I personally have a deep enjoyment of land art, and find in it a certain intimacy, an organic relationship with nature, both tender and nostalgic, coming from an intense emotional dimension. Certain works remind us of Eden, others of the magic mirror that changes our captive images, the opening of new knowledge… In this means of expression I see a true rite of passage between the cultural state and the natural state, and any further intellectual step is no less sensitive to it.
I had the experience of this a long time ago, when a French friend invited me to accompany him to create a piece that would bring together the mineral and the radiant : he had chosen, then precisely aligned, smooth, round white stones in an exact pattern, like sleeping bodies lying over one another. We waited for the sunset to bathe them in a pink light, then for nightfall, that left us blind. Finally, the moonlight came and, one by one along its night-time track, lit up those stones, giving them a legendary touch, a fugitive colour fallen from the sky. At its height the full moon revealed the integral nature of this path of light.
We stayed just like that for hours, silently watching the apparition. My friend took photos while the phenomenon was occurring, but his emotion stayed as fervent as ever.
At dawn we went home. He made some coffee to heat us up, and we spoke about this and that. Life took on its normal route as the day went on.
I thanked him for letting me be present at this miracle, and I admired him for being able to create it.

A little more about me

I’m looking back over the first few messages of this blog. It must seem a bit strange, a bit abstract. I’m not – or maybe am no longer – used to talking about myself. However, it’s probably because I need to talk that I write online. I realised that I distilled a few pieces of unlinked information, contents of a past and present life where a lambda reader would have difficulty finding a footing. What’s missing are links, facts, dates, a sequence. I have to solve these mysteries. Just like the mystery of Alasdair, for example.
Alasdair. I say his name in my mind so many times that I don’t ever realise I’m doing it any more. It’s a mantra, painful and magnificent, that times the rhythm of my thoughts with the beating of my heart. It’s for Alasdair that I get up each morning and go about my tasks, from the most material to the most intimate.
It’s the memory of Alasdair that lights up my heart and makes my eyes cloud over with sadness. He is the instrument for what I become inside, he is my soul itself and, at the same time, my guiding light. Is that enough for you to understand? I’m sure you want to hear me tell a story – you need an anecdote, specific details, that’s normal…so I’m going to try, even though it’s hard for me, and even if my purpose here isn’t to satisfy your curiosity. So bring on the violins…
Alasdair and Claire met at Edinburgh University, right at first year matriculation. They looked at each other in surprise : it was full-blown love at first sight, a love that confused them. After this initial, brutal emotion, they realised that the bond they had just formed in just a few seconds was unbreakable. They were sworn to intensity for eternity, that was clear. They were never apart, and followed a five-year law course together with the same determination. They prepared to join the same business law office, where they had sat the tests and undergone the interviews together.
They were given names of mythical couples, because it seemed like nothing could separate them: Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Dante and Beatrice... They fairly – or maybe unfairly, yes, so unfairly – inherited the destiny whereby one is practically the other, with little difference. Death prematurely separated these legendary lovers, amputating the female element from the body of the relationship, leaving the man in a state of mourning, vengeance or sublimation.
As for the story I’m telling you, the roles were reversed, with the male counterpart dying. Claire lost Alasdair. The end of the violins…now comes a more serious moment, better suited to the old viola or the almost broken voice of an old blues singer…
I mourned, I didn’t look for vengeance, I shouted at the injustice, I spat in the face of heaven.
I gave up everything and went home to T. I had another reason for this: Mum had just had her attack, and couldn’t be left alone.
I locked myself up with my pain. I carried on with little outings, little jobs. I looked after Mum. I did the cleaning at the graves in her place. My heart didn’t stop beating.
Alasdair.

Open window

I felt like I couldn’t breathe yesterday, when I closed the blog. My head was buzzing, just like silence and death, and I remembered Alasdair… I needed some air, and headed off to the pub. Mum was lying down, reading. I gave her a cuddle and she gave me that far-away smile, not really looking at me. I’m used to it now, but it does give me cause for regret.
I put on a jacket and opened the door. It was raining, and there was a nip in the air. I took a deep breath, just like you do sometimes when you open the window to Mother Nature, with her cleansing air purifying your body and mind.
It was warm in the pub, and it had already started to get busy. Further along I saw Connie, leaning on the bar and half-facing the door. She waved at me. It looked like she was alone, and it wasn’t difficult for me to make my way over to her. It was almost as if she had been waiting for me.
Ewan pulled me my usual ale, no questions asked. He knows my tastes, and when I’m not around. It’s been a while now since he gave up the meaningless bar banter with me. We have our own codes. He likes to play the dumb servant with me: he serves me in silence, throwing me a smile, a look, a knowing blink of the eyes. Sometimes he gets down on his knees, giving me my pint like a vassal making his offering to a laird, then walks away, doffing an imaginary cap. He looks out for me. He protects me from those chancers who see me as something to pull on a Saturday night, just as if he were my older brother (even though we’re around the same age). We’ve known each other for ages, right back to when we were at school together. Over the years we’ve ignored each other, fought with each other, and then observed each other. Our friendship came about from old daily routines, recurring conversations, dinners that were eventually shared, nearby or far away.
We kind of lost touch when I went to university in Edinburgh. He stayed in the countryside, went down the obligatory ‘bad boy’ path, but luckily came out of it without too may cuts and bruises.
I met him again when I came back to T., in the pub that I used to go to. It had been three or four years since we had seen each other, but it really was just like old times again. The only difference was that he was now on the other side of the bar. He gave me a warm smile and took me by the shoulders in an act of compassion that went straight to my heart. He knew, of course, about Alasdair…
As for Connie, it’s more or less the same story: the school benches, with the girls…notes handed to each other behind the teacher’s back, secrets, fighting then making up again…the scrapes we got into and the daft teenage laughter. She was already a working girl when I left to study, but we kept in touch. When I came back she helped me to find little jobs here and there.
That evening, with Connie, I drank while listening to the conversations around me. We discovered the recurring themes, and made bets on the direction the conversation would take. As for sport, after February’s match against France, there was a euphoric harmony that had a calming influence. There was a lively debate in the wake of the anti-smoking law, which had just come into force with us in Scotland. Pub owners were whingeing about it, and I heard more than one customer complain that it was a joke that, and I quote, “you can’t light up without having to go and freeze your balls off on the street”, and that, as far as women were concerned, “you would think that they were on the game, the way they walk up and down the street with a fag in their gub”.
Connie nudged my shoulder and I laughed with her.
It was funny to open this window. A window where I could hear the noise of the beer taps that never rest, the pints being knocked together, the loud voices, the red faces with their musky breath. Yet, this evening, this was what I was breathing.

The silent voices

I miss not hearing their voices any more. Alasdair’s voice, and Dad’s too.At home I live in a world in which their presences have been ripped out, and only in my memories can I hear the distant echo of their voices. Thankfully, Mum is still here. She knows me well and knows how to give me those words that I so miss. I envy her strength and her ability to listen. I envy her blonde hair, bright yet not in a brassy way. The photo gives an idea of this mix of vigour and generosity.
She always looks you right in the eye, with her own eyes shining with an intimidating fire. She is worshipped by people from around here, just like the statue she has almost become…she has done so much, and knows so much about our village. She was the guardian of the holy areas, and continues to be so through me.Sometimes I think that I’m following in her tracks, taking care of the cemetery in her place. At the beginning, all I did was carry out a task that goes above and beyond a purely material aspect. I would visit the Templar graves, pulling out the few weeds that would spring up here and there, carefully moving a stone where you could see a cross, a sword, a lying, faceless statue…I still repeat the same gestures, with the same care and the same rituals, but now I’ve changed. Understand that this is a subtle, spiritual change. By taking over from my mother with these discreet, prestigious dead people, by carrying out the ritual homage day after day, month after month, I wasn’t just moving the earth and mad weeds around them. I was working my own land, modelling the clay of my own inner being. In silence. Silent voices : continuation.Always in silence. Back to the silent voices.My father’s voice comes from the distance, as if muffled behind a veil. I was so young when he died. He would sing old Gaelic airs to me – laments and lively jigs – with his friends and brothers joining in some evenings… I loved it, and let myself be carried away by the powerful force of this melodious yet serious body, with its incredible energy.The voice of Deidre as well, her name only too fitting, who had killed herself in the dark waters of Loch Awe, and who still whispers her last sobs in my ear.Alasdair’s voice, at last. So close, so clear. I don’t need to close my eyes to hear it again. When did I lose him ? Yesterday, it seemed like he was at my side. Time doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anymore. Alasdair...

It starts today

Spring. This morning, I didn’t notice the difference. The light coming through the curtains was still dull and choking, buried under the oppressive clouds. You would almost think that up there, way beyond where the human eye can see, there is a deaf battle going on. That said, some days the sun and the winter were good bedfellows. It is true that this issued right of passage only lasted a few hours.
As everyone, I wait for the banality of the Spring, the secret thrill of the earth and the slow awakening of the land. In that moment I couldn’t find a piece of poetry that would be able to describe it better than I could. The subject has been dealt with on numerous occasions, and still represents the initial emotions weakly written by novice poets…but no, nothing came to mind. I’ll look in the library today.
Mum calls me. She’s made the dinner. We’ll talk, or maybe just stay silent. We’ll smile too, and she’ll rub my shoulders while hugging me, before going up the stairs to her bed. Sometimes, at times like this, I melt in her arms, burying my forehead in the warmth of her neck, and our hugs last even longer. She’s good for me.