My Dinosaur Era Chapter 7 *Rewrite*

 

my mother has left me a voicemail

I haven’t listened to it yet

I know her voice is lingering inside my phone

it’ll likely be her usual rambling

 

news of someone I used to know

several decades ago

they had a stroke, died peacefully at home 

maybe something about my sister

 

michelle has bought a house

somewhere else

maybe she’ll be happy there

instead of that other place she lived

with that other husband

she was never happy there

 

perhaps it’ll be something else from her house she thinks I should have

a spare kettle that has been dormant for fifteen years below the stairs

some old coins that her father kept from the war in india

some other connection with another time

crumbs of nostalgia that lie dormant in the dust

 

dad died a year ago

so suddenly

as if he fell into an abyss with one false step

heart attack, down and out in seconds

gone before the ambulance had even squealed

michelle called me, I didn’t pick up

I thought it would be her telling me about her life

that she had bought some new curtains perhaps

 

until she rang again

and again

then I knew before I answered that someone had died

I sat on the train to haywards heath

murdered half a bottle of neat vodka

on the twenty minute journey

 

we went through the tunnel at clayton

I closed my eyes

imagined being under the ground

the grass above

the two old windmills

looking out over the downs

there’s a photo of me from years ago

inside one of those windmills

turning a hand mill

my face bright

the happiest I have ever looked

in a photo

usually you can see the sadness seeping out

 

by the time I got there

mum had been sedated

so had I

the vodka running fast under my skin

michelle sat silently in the corner 

I found some port in the cupboard 

made her drink a glass

 

but I’m driving

 

our dad died

 

I didn’t think mum would last this long without dad

it seemed likely that she would follow him swiftly

her being so utterly reliant on him

him being her connection to reality

making the tea, filling out all the forms

the driving

the shopping

the cooking

even though she was always the one in charge

now she had no one to do these things

that’s what I thought would end her

 

I look at my phone screen

scroll up and down the names,

petula is sat there

ginny put her number in

I still haven’t called her

ginny said not to text

it’ll seem weak and weird, she told me

I am weak and weird, I thought

just call, she told me

 

I stand in the kitchen

I wonder what she will be doing right now

I don’t even know if she has a job

I know nothing of her

 

it’s just her face and

an admiration for jurassic park 

that is holding us together so far

I’ve navigated relationships on far less than that

 

I push the button

 

hey, it’s tim

I hope ginny has only called me tim to her

timmy is not for all to utter

 

hey

 

she sounds close, as if she is stood next to me

 

ginny gave me your number, hope that’s cool

 

yeah, yeah, it’s fine

 

sorry about the other night, I was really tired

 

it’s ok, I was tired too

 

thanks for doing the washing up

 

I do have a bit of an obsession for tidying

 

oh yeah, you should come over more often then, my place is a hole

 

I’ve seen worse

 

sorry, am I interrupting you? are you at work?

 

I am meant to be doing some work but I can’t get into it today

 

yeah, same

 

what do you do?

 

I write for a travel company

 

oh yeah, I write for a music website

 

I’m sure that’s way cooler than what I do

 

I dunno, it’s pretty boring most of the time, I do the listings and now and then they let me do a review or feature

 

cool

my well has run dry

there’s a silence, I sputter into it

 

so do you wanna meet up sometime?

 

I hear my voice waver slightly, my mouth dry

I can hear my lips grating against each other

 

yeah, sure

 

how about tonight?

 

hmm, ok, what shall we do?

 

drinks at the hole?

 

sure, about 8?

 

yeah, cool

 

see you then

 

I stare at my phone screen some more

I scroll up from petula to 

mum

hit call

I’m on a roll

 

hello mum

 

oh, hello love

 

how are you?

 

our conversations are painful

staccato, distant, ruptured

like strangers in the dark

it was the same with petula

at least she is an actual stranger

 

I suppose you listened to my message then

 

no, not yet

 

oh, I thought that was why you were calling

 

why, what happened?

 

suddenly there is a slight panic in me

should have listened to the message first

 

do you remember george stewart, he used to live across the road from us in london

 

no, I don’t think so

 

oh you do, lovely man, had a golden retriever

 

oh yeah, george, right

 

I am lying, I have no idea who he is, I just want to be free of this

 

well, he’s in hospital, had a nasty fall

 

and so I switch off

as she describes how poor george lay stricken in his hallway

how his children both live abroad

his wife died when he was twenty seven

never remarried

such a shame

the details swirl past me

punctuated with the occasional aha, yeah

I think my sister moved house again

 

I message ginny, tell her that I called petula

brave boy, she replies

if anyone else patronised me like that I’d go nuts

ginny gets a pass

it is her way

our way

how we connect somehow

 

the cooker says it’s one thirty four in the afternoon

I pour a vodka and orange

down it in one

need to shower later

make myself shiny

 

I sit at the laptop

I search for the hotel I am meant to be writing about today

keywords tim, don’t forget the search terms, we need to be found

the echoes of emails

telling me how to do this heinous task

my shitty prose disfigured further to pay the bills

I close the laptop again

not today, it’s not happening

 

I drag the vacuum out

haphazardly drag it around the little floorspace I possess

I crash it into corners 

make dents in the architrave

scrape along the skirting boards

I pick up books, cups, other debris, as I go

fold the bed back into itself to form the sofa

 

I need to decorate this place

the walls are still jaundiced

someone else’s history still staring back at me

 

I bought some paint when I moved in

fleetingly enthusiastic about making this my space

until I realised that there’s no such thing

that colours and cushions are not real

that the space inside me follows me wherever I go

 

I find the tin in a cupboard

a dark green, good stuff, expensive

I envisage the room freshly painted

the stains of the years

banished to lie below

a fresh new start

that’s what they say, isn’t it?