32 Days

32 days since the old git passed.
People ask me how I am.
‘Fine.’ I say mechanically ‘Really I am. Fine.’
I put the telly on to watch Wimbledon.
Endless commentators talking about Serena Williams, and her age and her career and her comeback. John McEnroe said something and I caved.

I broke, after 32 days. I finally let the armour slip. I started to cry. To howl. I choked on my weeping and cried some more. I wanted the old feller to comfort me but I don’t see into the nether world so I was left alone snotting and gulping and pausing the tennis.
I cried so hard I panicked. The dawter came home and said
‘Finally. Let it go.’ So I did.

That was on Tuesday.
Today I’ve been more together except I can’t see out of my swollen eye lids.
I shopped in the supermarket and filled the trolley with fuck knows what.
I bumped into Sue then Kelly the Clown. I cried on their cool cheeks.
‘You must feel like a Zombie ‘ said the clown.
Spot on.
‘Call if there is anything we can do.’ they said.

I took myself to ‘Blossom and Bean’ a café in the outback that holds art classes round a big table and sells flowers and gewgaws.
I ordered a bacon sandwich on soft white bead and a decaffeinated cappuccino.
I sat in the sun.
‘You are now a widow’ said the clouds. White fluffy balls hiding the sun and then revealing all 25 degrees of it

Years ago we were filming in Cannock Chase. 5.15 in the morning. The mist coming off the damp grass.
Camera operaters, sound crew, electricians and makeup. The PA came back with a cardboard box of bacon sandwiches and mugs of coffee. I’d been a vegetarian for years and hadn’t touched coffee for fifteen of them.
The smell of that bacon at 5.15am in the morning and any will power that was left was lost.
This morning I ate my organic bacon butties and sipped on my decaffeinated oat milk cappuccino and drifted back to Staffordshire and the’oosbind.
My mind is littered with him.

Three old folk walked towards me holding hands.
‘You look like kids’. I said.
‘We are, geriatric kids’ said the bloke.
I paid my bill and another old geezer asked me if I was ok. Clearly I don’t look it.
I clambered into the car and drove past the grave yard,
There was Rotherfield woods.
Past a mountain of logs and through pot holes and muddy puddles.
It was not right. I had taken the path into the woods instead of the road next to it.
Two people were walking their dog.
‘You’re Jeni Barnett aren’t you?’ She was wearing a blue twin set and holding a dog lead.
‘I used to watch you on the telly.’
‘Does this get me anywhere?’
‘No.’ said the husband.
‘You’re in the centre of the woods.’
So I did a remarkable three point turn in the ferns and thought I hope I don’t get stuck in the mud.
Of course I did.
Squealing I moved forward and back and forward and back.
I called 999 who didn’t know how to help.
I asked the universe for somebody to come and free me. A man with a bad back was walking his puppy. He tied the dog to a tree and struggled onto his knees.
Jake the man said he would go back to his truck and tow me out. He didn’t need to. I called my garage. Damion is an angel disguised as a grease monkey
The car was mud splattered.
When Jake got off his knees he handed me my front bumper and took a photo to show his dad.

‘A damsel in distress.’ Said my knight in greasy armour. He drove towards me down the track. I cried on his beer belly.
‘Get in the back of the truck.
He hoisted me up holding my bum.
His young assistant tied the car onto their wagon and off we went.

Grief is a funny thing. It’s made me blind, deaf and dumb, numb, forgetful and ever so slightly doolally.
Damion dropped me off at the garage, gave me a courtesy car and told me to fuck off.
So I did.
I had flowers and wine, cherries and peaches. I had beef burgers and cheese and a head full of sadness.
The old git is safely deposited wherever the dead go, and I’m left with an empty house, a big bed and a broken heart.
‘People die of broken hearts’ said the dawter.

I had finally given in to real life/death.
My existence, up till now, has been predicated on sound tracks and camera shots.
The reality of not seeing the Northern Thespian any more has taken me into the land of feelings. And by George it’s painful.
I’ve managed to live a life without feelings since I was five.
It took the old git to pop his cogs to pinch me awake.
No shouting, not hand holding, no empty shoes around, no empty whiskey glasses, no nothing.
The house is neat and tidy and I sit in the middle of it all waiting for him to return. I heard a new band `I liked and called for him to hear it.
My diaphragm buckled.

He’s not there. ‘He’s gone home’ said a mystical friend of mine.
‘But he can hear you’
‘He can see you’ said another’.
But its not him with his wristwatch and his hat. He’s not there with his wood chopping skills and his sardonic wit.
The bastard has left me. He always said he would but I didn’t believe him.
Now its a garden full of jobs and a shed full of him. His tools will be distributed and his shirts handed out to the first lucky taker.
I will wear his jacket, and keep his best Panama hat.
I will take things to the charity shop and give the family his hand made wooden boxes . I will donate all his books to the Hospice in the Weald and I’ll give his cameras away.
Wottalot of stuff he had, accumulated over fifty years with me.
I’ve found a film of him being funny and playing the bones. Talking into camera reminding me of his lovely voice.
He’s gone but not forgotten.