Coalman

Cop 26 is in its second week.  In Glasgow the theories are spreading, warnings rife, folk have chained themselves to things, and still, life goes on.  Roads are blocked, merry hell is risen, for a desperate need, they say.  We need to act now.  The police click their heels, roll on their toes, stay aware, watching, looking out for more than peaceful rebellion.  Greta Thunberg marches with her blah, blah, blah refrain, which I understand but don’t like.  Call me a dinosaur if you must, extinct as they are, and you’d be right.  I am on the wrong end of young.  I’m not ancient, just not young. 

I’m not as old as my mum lived to be.  She reached ninety.  A few weeks after her ninetieth birthday, she passed on.  I’m on my way to her house now, to put out her sofa and chairs to be taken away.  The house must be emptied.  The sadness of her passing and then the selling of her house and the emptying of same house have been horrible, gathered possessions, so rudely tipped.  I cry quietly, into myself, each time something else goes. 

I’ve risen early, in part to go round to my mum’s house to put out her furniture, on the drive, for everyone to see, to learn of the waste, the tragedy that is ours, my mum in heaven tut-tutting, saying, ‘my good chairs,’ as they’re carried away to their fate.  The other part a physio appointment.  A sensitive arm needs attention.    

There’s a thin layer of frost on the car windscreen that I scrape, before I can set off.  I stop the car at a bend in the road, to allow a lorry through.  What?  Is that a coal lorry?  I look in disbelief at the sacks, clearly sacks of coal.  You aren’t the daughter of a man employed by the National Coal Board, and not able to spot a sack of coal.  Here we are in the throes of Cop26 in Glasgow, and in Penicuik we have a coal lorry careering around town.  If Greta were here, she’d have something to say.  Blah, blah, blah.  There’s no time to hijack the lorry, I have a sofa to expel to the drive, so I drive on, shaking my head in confusion. 

Job done, I’m now at the physio. 

‘It’s nothing to do with my bones or my muscles or my tendons,’ I tell the professional.  ‘But then I’m not an expert.’ 

She smiles politely, asks me various questions, the word anxious spilling three times from my lips.

‘What’s making you anxious?’ she asks.

‘Me?  I’m not anxious,’ I say and swallow the awful memories continuing to track and trace themselves upon me.    

‘What would you like from this session?’ she asks.

‘To be told it’s not my heart giving up.’

‘Your symptoms aren’t in line with heart problems.  If it was your heart it wouldn’t fade after a few minutes.’

‘You’re saying I’d know all about it, if it was a heart problem?’

‘Yes.’

We go through some routines, after I’ve told her about my routines at home – sitting on the sofa lap top on my knee, feet up, shoulders slouched, neck in the same position for hours at a time, in other words, ergonomics out the window – and then she asks me to move my head left, right, backwards, ouch, forwards. 

‘There we go,’ she says.  ‘That’s the vertebrae squashing together and not liking it.’

‘SO, I’m really not having a heart attack,’ I say.

‘Considering you’ve had your heart checked three times, and each time, a perfect heart sounding, so no.  Here’s some exercises, and an appointment to discuss your anxiety,’ she says and hands me a leaflet.   

I leave her room, with thanks and tell her she’s been a great help.  Am I relieved?  Am I scared, embarrassed, feeling silly?  Probably all of the above.  I need to sort myself out.  I can’t go on being a jittering, jumpy jackdaw for the rest of my life.  But then my life may be cut short anyhow.  No, not of a heart attack.  I’ve got an appointment this afternoon for an MRI scan to check for underlying causes for my poor hearing and tinnitus.  It’s a matter of course.  I’m not anxious about it at all.      

***

The hospital greets me with vivid memories.  I had my mum here, on various occasions.  My eyes well up again, for the umpteenth time today.  I can’t bear people being nice to me, and these medical people are really nice.  I know this from my visits with my mum.  I’m told to wait in the waiting room where I listen to a load of weird noises, my head throbbing, neck muscles bunching.  It’s like a bloody space ship.  I mean so many bright lights, clean minimalism, white walls, and of course these strange noises.  Half an hour passes in this way and then it’s my turn. 

I’m taken to a room where there’s a massive tube.  I lie down on the platform as instructed, am given headphones to listen to some nice music, to spare me the noise, and a large hard plastic cover with a hole in the centre is placed over my head.  I’m then eased into the tube.  Let the magnets begin.  That’s how it works, not Xray.  Don’t wear anything with metal, I’m told so I’m in slouchy elasticated gear, my boobs hanging free under my cotton jumper.  But these earphones must contain metal.  No?

I shut my eyes, and try to relax into it, but I open my eyes and the ceiling of the tube is right there, like it’s touching my nose.  It makes me feel funny so I shut my eyes again.  There are days when I struggle to keep my eyes open, but today, in this tube, my eyes are struggling to stay shut, when I especially want them to stay shut.  There’s a buzzer in my hands for emergency exit, but I’ll be damned if I’ll press it.  Relax.  I employ every ounce of willpower.  Don’t howl.  Don’t press, press, press the buzzer.  I lie still, leaning into the knocking, the buzzing, the roaring within.  Tears slip from my eyes and run down towards my ears.  I don’t even know why.  I’m not even anxious.      

‘That’s it,’ I hear say and feel myself moving back into the room.  ‘Are you ok?’

‘Yes,’ I say, wiping a stray tear from my eye as I’m pointed in the direction of the exit, beeps and grinding breaking back into the distance.   

I walk from the institution that holds my records, my number, my bill of health, the lights dazzling me, but I’m soon nearly home, passed all the new houses built on land that was once green, bedroom lights, kitchen lights, twinkling in my path.  Life goes on around me.  A news report tells of the peaceful ructions of the COP26 Extinction Rebels, cars rush past, children play.  Penicuik, here I am.  Has the coalman topped up the all the furnaces without been driven off the road?  Would an electric coal lorry help?  The air is nippy and I hurry indoors.  That’s it.  My day this 10^th day of November, 2021.