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Jackie Leven · Archive date
THE DEEP POOL
On the train from Heuston/Dublin to Cork in Ireland, through the beautiful empty badlands between Dublin and Charleville. Nothing happens here outside the train window besides scruffy little dark ponies nuzzling each other in poor grey afternoon light, or magnificent thoroughbred racing horses exchanging knowing asides in paddocks to the side of alarming newly built shining greystone mansions encircled by black range rovers and sauntering men in tweed caps and grey-green country uniforms.
All of this takes me back to thirty years ago when I spent time in the lowlands of Scotland, close to the town of Kelso, in the castle-keep of Fairnington with my second wife Gillian. Fairnington was a castle/mansion with a hamlet attached to it that was almost entirely occupied by fabulous old lads who were originally from Ukraine. I grew up in the Polish/Ukrainian working men’s clubs of the coal fields of Fife and so had an in-built affinity with these old timers. Some like Sid did little more than rake the leaves of Autumn off the swimming pool surface, and they shared a love of spending what little money they had on constantly repainting the front rooms of their but and bens. The colours didn’t seem to vary much, but their joy in the results was the point of their endeavour, and Bill, my father in law would be invited to inspect the new hues, nod affirmatively and congratulate them on their colour decisions and the efficacy of the paint job.
On grey Saturday mornings Bill and me would drive in his Range Rover to nearby Kelso for early drinks in the bar of Klenham House Hotel on the banks of the river Tweed. This bar was a thoroughbred huntin’ fishin’ shootin’ bar and as such was not muckin’ about. It attracted members of the local landed gentry , a considerable and regular bunch, with the palace of the Duke of Roxbrough visible from the river window and members of clans such as the Douglas Homes popping in for a snifter. Bill would open the drinking by getting me a Glen Grant, introduce me to some tweedy types, then leave me to my own devices as he pursued his own line of inquiry – usually horse buying and selling stuff. On one such occasion I ended up talking at length to Henry Douglas Home, brother of ex British prime minister Sir Alex Douglas Home. Henry’s speciality, as he explained it to me. was painting portraits of birds on stone s in the wild, and he had three different bird-painted stones which he showed me at a table near the window, with swans uproaring on the riverbank outside. The stone birds – woodcock, pheasant and curlew were beautifully observed and I said so to Henry. A lovely old silver haired fellow, he was pleased by my careful praise – careful because my sense was that he’d heard a lot of disinterested ‘oh DARLING, that’s MARVELLOUS!’ when in fact it WAS marvellous and he needed to hear that properly. Henry gave me the stone with the woodcock painted on it and pressed it into my palm whilst looking into my eyes with the intensity of an elder passing on a fleeting secret of dark exchange. To my shame, a week later on the concourse of Newcastle Upon Tyne train station, while in the grinding grip of a severe LSD trip I threw this stone at a Newcastle United football supporter. He was one of a thirty strong gang of geezers in black and white supporters shirts – they were returning from beating Spurs forty three nil and chanting ‘shit shit shit’...something in my stoned being told me that if I threw the stone AT THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT it would hit the bloke on the bridge of his nose, breaking it and causing blood to flow copiously and the guy to sink to his knees groaning ‘aw fuck, fuck’ – never knowing from whence the projectile flew. This all turned out to be true, and I saw the flinted woodcock wing across the grey flagstones, colours flashing and turning on its certain trajectory to the fat lad’s pale beak. These are the great moments life, comparable with efficiently sorting out the funerals of your parents, speaking well at their interment and ignoring teenagers when they say doltish things about politicians.
Meanwhile, in Hebden Bridge, an interesting town in the Yorkshire Dales, said to be the lesbian capital of the UK, and the place-of-grave of the poet Sylvia Plath, I discover that there is not a hotel room to be had on a freezing afternoon of driving rain on the day I’m due to play Hebden Trades Club, one of the UK’s top five swooningly wonderful venues. I’m in the Tourist Information Office where they’re being really helpful trying to find me somewhere to stay at short notice as I’ve foolishly failed to book anywhere earlier. I’ve worked my way through the places that they vouchsafe to no avail, and I’m now on the ‘under the counter’ places that they know exist but cannot recommend. I’m in the grip of a fantastic cold which has me coughing and spluttering like a Tory politician caught wanking on a Russian yacht, and I ask the charming elderly lady at Tourist Information if I can leave my bag and guitar with her while I trudge through the town in the downpour trying to find somewhere off their radar. She says no – security and all that – I might be a terrorist pretending to be a ‘artiste’ playing at the Trades Club that night to disguise my real mission of blowing half the town to smithereens – I love that word – smithereens – reminds me of a song of mine – ‘As We Went Down To Smithereens’ – no, Skibbereen, that’s right – I wrote the song as if Skibbereen, on the south east coast
of Eire had a harbour to which I’d been, hence the song, a nd was terminally embarrassed to meet a smiling young couple at a show who asked me, with faked curiosity, exactly where was the harbour at Skibbereen? My friend, the Belfast singer Andy White laughed when I recounted this, and told me how, during the war, the local paper there, had issued a warning to Hitler on its front page, saying ‘The Skibbereen Eagle is Watching you’! The whole immense project fucked up because an Irish eagle was on the lookout.
So I have to drag my huge duffle trolley (fuckin big bag on wheels) and guitar through the downpour up and down the town, knocking on doors and asking for room at the inn. Blokes standing outside pubs smoking give me quaintly hostile looks as I scuff past without luck. I end up at one end of the town without having found anywhere to stay and have to trudge back to the other end of the town, past the same groups of bastards blocking the way and exchanging ciggies.
‘Miss the train did tha’?’ asks one, to the merriment of the others. Yes, I was up by the station, but they know I wasn’t trying to get the train. I smile feebly to indicate how pleased I am to be the object of their derision.
‘Hast tha tried ‘Effing Purple Hovel?’ one of them asks, indicating a Hitchcockian style shithole up fifty nine steps of grey slimy misery. I haul my stuff up this mountain of bleak and bang politely on the door, setting off a large amount of howling big dogs who I can tell never have ‘walkies’. A terrifying woman who could be forty or seventy creaks the door open and says she has a room for £27. I say I’ll take it and follow her up another seventy steps to a room of sepulchral gloom – bare floorboards, but not of the groovy kind, a single bed, and a mirror with the word ‘Biba’ written on it in felt tip pen. I look at it and say thanks, I’ll pay you now.
Now she decides that the room is ‘normally £50’ as opposed to the £27 she quoted downstairs.
‘I was sure you said £27 downstairs’ I say, fiddling with my notes.
‘Yes – normally, but that’s without breakfast, which you’ve got to have’ she says looking out the window at forlorn traffic struggling up the hill. I just don’t have the strength to argue, which she’s worked out. What am I going to do – go back out into the rain and start again? No – I hand over the money. As a small revenge I give her £50 in brand new Bank Of Scotland notes. These look totally weird, post modern at best, like euro notes designed by Sarah Palin in the hideous depths of an amphetamine sulphate binge. The creepy long haired troll looks at them for a while then shakes her head in disgust.
‘No, I’m sorry, we only accept sterling’.
‘They ARE sterling’ I say, taking off my jacket to signal that as I’m concerned the conversation is over. ‘If you look in the corner at the bottom of the depiction of the Forth Rail Bridge you’ll see it says sterling’ – I say this without looking at her, pulling my fake crocodile brogues off. My use of the word ‘depiction’ has done her in, and she mopes off down the stairs still studying the notes for a miraculous sign that will allow her to swoop back and counter my assertion. I’m suddenly very very tired, and spend the next two hours writhing on the creaky bed with a hacking cough and half a toilet roll.
A couple of days later I’m checking into a hotel in the Scottish city of Perth. It’s costing me £90, a rip off price but once again the city is full and I have no choice.
‘I’d be grateful if I could have a room that doesn’t involve walking up lots of stairs as I have a really sore big toe’ I say politely to the young geezer checking me in.
He looks at me , nods his head and looks at his computer screen for about ten minutes, clicking away furiously. As he’s doing this a very old woman comes to re c eption and asks a smarmy older hotel guy if he knows where there is a chemist.
‘What is it you need Mrs Forbes?’ he asks distractedly.
She shows him a horrific bruise which runs from her wrist to her elbow. He’s rightly shocked and says she needs to go to the hospital in a taxi , that as she’s a good and regular customer the the hotel will pay for it and he’ll call it right away.
‘What about my dinner?’ she asks – ‘I’ve paid for it and I want to eat it’.
‘Don’t worry Mrs Forbes – we’ll keep your dinner for you until you get back, but you must go and have this attended to’.
‘What if they want to keep me in overnight? – I’ll get hungry!’.
‘Mrs Forbes – if they want to keep you in, it’ll be in your best interests and they’ll give you some food up there if you ask for it, I’m sure of that’.
I can see how the receptionist is thinking that if this bruise turns out to have happened at his hotel he has to be seen to have acted in the very best interests of Mrs Forbes, but he’s not really selling her on the idea of going to hospital. At her advanced age there’s always a chance that you won’t be coming back out – one minute you’re having a winter break in a lovely Scottish city, the next you’re being called ‘Moira’ and talked to as if you’re a particularly stupid child and being asked who your next of kin are. Being told that the taxi is ‘on his way’ is just increasing her anxiety and she turns to me as if I were an independent witness.
‘What should I do?’ she asks: ‘I don’t want to miss my dinner – they can keep you at the hospital for a long time – I think I just need to get to a chemist – when I worked I used to carry lots of plates all the time, so I’ve got strong arms’ she reveals, showing me the livid bruise. It looks to me like the sort of bruise that can come from a relatively nothing kind of encounter, possibly indicating a breakdown of vitamin K which can come from prolonged use of over-the-counter painkillers.
It’s about 7pm in the evening and, as the receptionist has already pointed out, she is only going to find a chemist at one of the big out-of-town supermarkets.
‘If you could find a chemist, what is it that you would get from it?’ I ask politely but with relaxed warmth. The receptionist is furious that I’m getting involved, but I can hardly ignore Mrs Forbes’ appeal for advice.
‘I don’t know - I suppose I would ask the chemist what was best’.
‘Are you in pain?’ I ask.
‘No, but it’s a big bruise’.
I move over and have a closer look. ‘If you just did this recently, like today?’ – Mrs Forbes nods – ‘then if you keep dabbing it with witch hazel liquid, it would bring the bruising out and also make you feel better – I happen to have some that I’ve been using for a sore toe – I’ll give you mine’. Now I’m rummaging in my toiletries bag, the one with the gay dog smirking on the front. The receptionists look at my gay dog toiletries bag in disbelief as I give the bottle to Mrs Forbes.
‘Do you think this will do the trick?’ she asks.
‘Well, you seem pretty clear in the head to me, and if you’re really not in any appreciable pain, then, if I were you, I’d go and have a good dab of witch hazel before dinner, have your dinner and then have another think about whether or not you want to go through the rigmarole of going up to the hospital – that’s the best I can say, not being a doctor’.
The receptionist interjects: ‘In the meantime Mrs Forbes, here’s your taxi – you could just take it and sort this out once and for all’.
An amiable kid with very short blond hair in a Celtic football club shirt is now standing in the foyer twirling his taxi car keys as Mrs Forbes makes up her mind what she’s going to do.
‘I’ll see how I feel after dinner’ she decides, ‘then I’ll come back and discuss it with you’ she says to the receptionist who gives her a frosty smile and okeydokey nod.
The taxi driver shrugs and departs the scene. Mrs Forbes wanders off to the charming and inviting bar, and I return to watching my young bloke receptionist looking at his computer screen for my room.
‘Room 213’ he says, producing a big old fashioned key – ‘Take the lift to the first floor, turn left and it’s up three flights of stairs’.
I give him a look. ‘Isn’t there a room on the first floor, or one that doesn’t require me to walk up lots of stairs, because, as I said earlier, I’ve got a really sore toe and I’m trying not to make it worse’.
Without looking at me he says ‘The rooms on the first floor are all single rooms and you said you wanted a double room’.
‘I only wanted a double room because you said there were no single rooms left’.
‘That’s right’ he replies, as if the conversation has come to a perfectly normal conclusion in which we’re all equally happy with the information shared. He gets up and goes through to a back room where I can see him looking in an empty coffee mug.