At times I need a glass of schnapps; the bloodstream which viscously descends along my throat and acts as an analgesic; the tether which precludes me from looking into the very depths of the abyss.
It's out-of-character for me to want alcohol, let alone allow myself to be seduced by it. For the moment I shall hold off and see how I feel in a little while.
A chance conversation earlier reminded me that there are some things from which a person does not recover. This is a thesis of my existence: the memories of events fade sufficiently for them to become manageable, but their complete oblation is impossible.
We speak colloquially about the shock of an occurrence needing to be given sufficient time before it 'sinks in.' I speak now of one event, though, which 'sank in' with immediacy despite the dizziness of its deliverance. Any subsequent delay only served to lodge it fast in my brain, like a bullet.
It was my father who pulled the trigger on the day when he decided to leave my mother. He didn't die, but from that point he has been more-or-less dead to me.
In this way of speaking, then, my father came to be defined - is - a series of events that I did not witness and can only imagine. I only saw, and dealt with, their aftermath. _____________________________________________________________________
Saturday night.
I left the alcohol alone in the end and eventually went into an uneasy, twitching sleep. I dreamt of falling through a cat's cradle of electrical cables, dark and fizzing. There was no end to the falling, no bottom.
The day after my father went - I say 'went' because the euphemism prevents me having to crack open the surface of the unspeakable and bear witness to the wounds beneath - he dropped me off in town ahead of one of the football matches. It's still the only occasion I have ever seen him cry, his head bowed and the shell of his battered blue car surrounding him.
It was January 17, 1998, and Barnsley were about halfway through their only season in the top division in England. We were playing Crystal Palace who, amazingly, were even worse than us. When a crisis of life-changing proportions happens, it is in my nature to seek solace in the trivial and the disposable. So the day after my father confessed his love for another woman, my attention was focused on sending Palace back home with nothing.
What sort of a person does this make me? A person who, when real life is whirling all around me, immerses himself in banality. I wanted the volume of the crowd to diminutise the screaming in my head. If you can't switch it off then overwhelm it.
Oh, Barnsley. How many times have I invoked you like a religion and asked you to deliver a result so that some epidemic or other might be tempered, at least for the moment? You haven't always succeeded, but I'd like to think that you've always tried. On this occasion, I note, you did deliver - without cheating and checking the archive websites, I think it was an Ashley Ward penalty in the 34th minute.
I probably balled my fists together and screamed at the sky when the final whistle went, a shout of triumph pushing back the day-old clouds which had gathered. Then it was back to check on the mental state of my mother. She had swept the glassy pieces of herself into the corner of the room and was looking at me through a bottle of wine. At least she'd survived the afternoon, though.
