Jimjan’s Journal

I’m only quite wee
just a slip of a thing
but there’s crowds galore
come hear me sing
my crown is gold
it shines very bright
oh there’s my dad
walking into my light
my gran is there too
waving over at me
she’s smiling so wide
her joy breaking free
sing very loud
she told me today
and I am singing about
Jesus asleep on the hay
the people are clapping
they’re looking at me
my robes are a hit
I’m a king, don’t you see
I sing, and I move
like the teacher said
then when it’s all over
I bow my head
thank you for coming
to see our show
hope you enjoyed it
I did, you know

This last year or three has brought nothing but division, building up into derision, insults, blackmail, threats even. Once upon a time voting was a simple thing. You thought it out, went to the polling station and ticked the box. Now, before you vote, you get hours of televised temptations. “You want a better NHS vote for us.” “WASPI women, follow us and we’ll promise to give you money which isn’t there.” “We’ll do away with Brexit.” “I’ll bring about Scottish Independence whether you like it or not.” Then you have the oodles of social media insults.
Why could I not vote for who I wanted without being told, not directly, but by a huge number of media posts, that I was an idiot.
The United Kingdom is my home. It’s where I’ve lived for years and its where I am happy living. There is too much negativity out there right now, too many bullies. Politicians are always out to get each other, but why should we turn against our fellow countrymen?
That is my genteel thought for the day.

 

 

Major scale 

c – In the playground of my mind I see myself. Just thirteen. I’m sitting beside my new friend.

d – Ann and I are in the first year of secondary school, drawn together from the start. We love school, life outdoors, and music. Mr Cook is recruiting for the school brass band and we join his team, soon spitting and blowing ‘Abide with Me’ and ‘Born Free.’

We’re taken to the nursing home where we play for the elderly, their eyes hiding the suffering of war, of pain and grief, for the brief spell that we’re there, our souls empathising, but only until the school disco. Then the pop music brightens us, dresses short, faces bare. Laughter bubbles along with ‘Heart of Gold’ while we dance with two boys from our class.

e – The sun glistens in the sky and we’re walking now, the country air putting colour in our cheeks. We wander by a reservoir, daffodils nodding their yellow heads as we pass, then sit by the glimmering water and twirl the long grasses through our fingers. We speak about our past, and about our future, a peewee flying above us, adding his point of view. He listens to our childish chat about music, our would-be wedding dresses and babies, while watching as the words float above us into a cloud, waiting to fall as rain.

There was a bridge separating our homes. I see that bridge many times in my waking dreams. In them I’m walking to Ann’s home over it, under a canopy of trees, along a country road. Ann’s brother and sister come to play with us and we make friends with a pony in a nearby field. I get on his back. Not for long, I’m soon flying off into a soft mound of manure.

We play hide and seek, boil rhubarb in the kitchen and eat it on bread. We listen to Ann play the piano, her photo in pride of place on the mahogany top, her rosy cheeks, the gap in her teeth, the waves in her hair portraying her well.

f – Back at school there’s sewing class where we make cotton nighties, in cookery class, lentil soup, physics, electric shocks. Laughter follows us everywhere as we follow the fun. Netball, hockey, playing in the band. Life is ours to live.

g – Then school finishes for the holidays.

I don’t see Ann again.

I’m told she’s dead.

Meningitis took her, quickly, warning signs too late. The pain is agonising. I want to sleep for a hundred years to shut it out. How can my friend be dead? Where has she gone? She’ll be alone and scared. Tears fall, floods of grief spilling from my heart, Ann’s face constantly there, in my mind. The face is her but it isn’t her. It’s quiet, vacant, a stranger in death.

a – The holidays are over now and I have to return to school without Ann. The orchestra beckons but I don’t want to go. The playground is my shelter, my other friends close by, all grieving as we play netball and hockey, running, jumping, burning energy, keeping our minds busy.

b – A few weeks pass before Mr Cook calls me into his room. His glasses glint, his lips are tight as he asks me why I haven’t been to music practices. I can’t talk, I don’t know how to make meaning of the words that play within me, hidden under my tongue, lost notes slipping from the scale.

He’s annoyed, his voice is raised in his demand for me to return to the band. I don’t recognise this man. Where is his gentle manner, his soft voice? I run from the room to cry alone. I want to cry alone. My tears are for me alone.

And Ann.

c – After a few more ball games and a lot of reflecting I realise Mr Cook isn’t angry at me, he’s angry at a life cut short. I know now that I must return to the band and blow my horn again, but when I do, I’ll hold Ann close, and together we’ll embrace the harmony.

 

The eatery in Waterloo Place is busy, many faces to search, and they’re searching me back. Ladies laugh, men too, waiters weave a weighty waltz, children squeal, cutlery colludes with plates and bowls, tinkling, clattering, a juxtaposition of noise. I’m here for a reunion, to reminisce with old colleagues, women I worked with forty-five years ago.

Back then I’d have died of shyness coming in here alone, not one of your more common causes of death of course. Anyhow, in those days, walking unaccompanied into a room of peering eyes would’ve given me palpitations, like the ‘Exorcist’ did on first viewing. As it is, adrenaline from a busy day continues to thrive in my innards, as I wander in. It’s not easy keeping up with news updates, email adverts, Parliamentary Party reports, Facebook posts.

I pass neat rows, tables and chairs in solid cherry wood, bold against the white wood-panelling, the light grey walls illuminated by large Victorian windows, sitting high. Gilded frames, candle holders a fine mantlepiece decorate, mounted deer skulls commemorate, and the restful period features bring images to my mind, goosepimples to my arms. I imagine delicate ladies, soft flowing gowns, dainty purses with drawstring ties, gloved hands, hair loosely bound, curling strands falling upon fair cheeks, men in waist hugging jackets, calf gripping pantaloons, tipping heads, thick mops of hair.

“Oops, sorry.” I’ve just colliding with a waiter.

I’m cool, nobody’s looking at me, not really, all too busy with their own lives. Then again, they may look but they won’t really see me. No one can see me. I’ve worked hard over the years to hide me. But the ones that do see me will all see a different being. Some a wee granny trying hard to salvage her youth, some a middle-aged professional, a teacher maybe, some may look through me, seeing only the curvy young waitress easing past while some may look and think…’Do I know that woman?’

“Hi,” I say on reaching the table, set up on a pedestal where in one swoop of the eye I take in my old colleagues, my breath short, puffing slightly after the short climb up the steps. “It’s Jan,” I add, as they stare at me, a cross between confusion and pain veiling their eyes. Should I run now, while the going’s good?

“Jan, hi, great to see you,” they chorus, smiles painted on.

“You haven’t changed,” Jean says and I tease my hair, then stretch my dress down over my knees, wondering what response I should give. I search the grey cells, but they’ve clammed up. What! Where is my sophistication?

“Well, none of you have changed,” I say, stunned at my originality. “Eh?” screeched Ann, “You saying I looked like this at twenty?” I laughed. “Well similar.” “Backtracking now.” Ann smiles, Isobel frowns, whispery lines scrunching around her lips. Let someone else talk, I’m now doing sums in my head. Was Ann twenty forty-five years ago?

“Hey do you remember Lizzie two backs?” asks Christine. “Haven’t laid eyes on her since she used to file those register cards,” the other Ann answers. “I saw her in Waitrose, she never saw me. Still as flat chested as your eight-year old grandson.” “What about Pixie Pearson? Any sight of her?” “Nah she moved in mysterious circles.” They all laugh.

My head moves from side to side, like at a tennis match, listening, watching, a few more years tiring my colleague’s skin but tongues as sharp as ever. I smile, but feel fake. This bridge is too wide, the river too deep, these women perched together on the opposite bank, chirping gaily, shared ballads from the past.

“Ah Pixie was pretty,” says Jean. “Duggie liked her.”

The waitress breaks the chat as she appears with her note pad, my eyes flitting across the menu, but my mind’s pinned back to 1974. My boss, the illusive Duggie, in the pub selling football coupons while Christine and Ann pull a well-thumbed porn magazine from his drawer. I’d gone over to his desk when called upon, not knowing what they were laughing at. I nearly died from another unlikely cause of death – embarrassment.

“You remember Jackie?” Jean asked, I nod. “Do you remember her telling us about girls going with girls and boys with boys?” “I don’t remember that conversation,” I reply, eyes wide. “Perhaps it wasn’t news to you of course.” I shrug.

“Cullen skink’s nice,” Ann says. “What you having Jan?” “Casserole… no salmon… no pigeon, och, I dunno.” I can’t think straight with all the murmuring voices, stories of old. The waitress smiles politely. “Leave me till last,” I plead, going back to my memories.

There I am, walking under the ten virgins, five wise and five foolish, clopping across the large tiled hall towards the lift. At my desk I smoke a cigarette or two adding to the fug of the other smokers, oblivious to the mounds of flammable material around and I write poetry in between calculating university staff and nurse’s pensions manually, all noted down on A5 cards then slipped into green folders, or buff, or blue for the death claims.

No self-appraisals to do back then, no time management, the boss, or his deputy in our case knowing our skills and inadequacies. She decided whether or not you deserved a rise. Apart from the cheap loan for house purchase, there was no other incentive, no bonuses, just personal pride.

Internet wasn’t invented, no online angst, I never owned a mobile, or an I-pod. A tomboy in nature clasping a girlish romance. I loved the movies, ‘Gone With The Wind’ my favourite. I read books on the bus to work, shopped in Etams; a black dress, an afghan coat, shiny boots, all the way. Drinks after work and home by eleven, a little bit giggly, no worse. My hair was shiny, no henna, no straighteners, my face natural, eyebrows plucked neat. I was slim, not from dieting fads, ate like a hound, burned it off with my nervous energy.

Did some exams back then, a cheque the prize for passing. What a great way to get an all-round knowledge of the place I worked. I passed all six, celebrated with ham sandwiches and a bottle of Bull’s Blood. Brainy huh? Ehm, not exactly. When you can think a cannonball fires out of Mons Meg at one o’clock, skiffing The Balmoral, flying up to Calton Hill to knock down the time ball on Nelson’s Monument, you’re not too bright. Ah well, I was young and I did amuse my team with that one. But that young dreamy girl is long gone.

Here’s the waitress back. That was quick. Are they on time management here? Disciplinary if they fail to take orders in three minutes flat? I know times are different but give me a moment to puzzle over the menu. It can be disastrous if you choose the wrong thing, bloat you, choke you, spoil your night. Besides, the menu’s quite posh, needing serious scrutiny.

“Earth to Jellybean,” I hear Ann say, her eyes on me.

I point to myself, my lips in a pout and a childish pleasure fills me.

“Ok, ok, I’m ready, not very hungry though.” I throw a coy smile, relief sighs. “The whipped burrata to start with, then the baked Shetland salmon, followed by the bramble ripple meringue, oh and if I can have a bowl of French fries and some olives on the side please.”

Jan Finlayson 29/11/19

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mount Vesuvius, a somma-stratovolcano in The Bay of Naples, a giant form shadowing the towns of Pompeii, Herculaneum, and other settlements. Towns destroyed after the deadliest eruption in European history, happening in AD 79. Around 2000 people were killed, burned and suffocated, buried under hot ash and pumice blown in the wind. Hard to imagine when one looks upon a scene as serene as a candle lit evening mass.

I did try to visualise it while sitting on the balcony of my clifftop hotel in Seiano, looking across at the mount, but the tranquillity of the view congested the process. I couldn’t see past the cobalt sky, the buttermilk buildings laddered down towards the sparkling bay, pine trees and lemon trees carpeting the slope, the craggy cliffs beyond, church bells pealing completing the peace of my inner mind.

But wait. What’s that? A mountain goat local, trotted up the steps from the beach, jiggling my composure. How fit are these people? I bristled as I remembered the previous day, practically having to be resuscitated at the top of those steps, my sweaty brow glistening, my neatly coiffed hair as limp as a length of boiled spaghetti, all now pointing a laughing finger at my envisaged athleticism.

“Are you ok?” asked the Jet2 rep passing my way. “I’m fantastic, loving your precipices,” I’d replied, lying, hoping that my clammy look worked for me, like Jessica Lange in The Postman Always rings Twice. “You must do a tour of Vesuvius then.” Perfect white teeth gleamed at me. I nodded, which was as much as my airless lungs could manage. “You need sturdy footwear and a jacket; it can be cold at the summit. A train ticket to Pompeii is 2 euros.”

The next day I set off for Mount Vesuvius, the trip beginning in the Tobacconist. That would have been ok but the day before I’d upset him trying to barter for a bottle of wine which he’d told me was ten euros. Mio dio. I mean the wine was Italian for pity’s sake, Italian grapes from an Italian vineyard. Its half that price in Tesco, one thousand six hundred and twenty-three miles away.

“A return train ticket to Pompeii please,” I asked, not sure what body language to use. Should it be my charming sexy granny facade or my prim schoolmarm persona. In the end he got both together which was probably why his clipped eyebrows wiggled weirdly. “No return tickets, only one way and that eez 2.40 euros,” he said. I paused. I thought the tickets were two euros. However, a glance at his demon glower forced my hand.

I paid up, put my best foot forward and headed towards the station, a train every half hour I was told. An hour later the train appeared, a shifting graffiti wall. The doors opened, splitting the painted mural, inside a seething mass of heads, arms and legs. I stepped on, my own arms fastened to my side, manoeuvring passed the mob, a girl catching my attention, aloof, holding a cute little chihuahua. I grabbed the central pole next to her, my fair hands sliding around it. Yuch, it was oily. “It’s alright for you bug eyes,” I said to the pointy eared dog who licked me in response.

Slow, quick, quick slow, the train progressed, not sure where I was for most of the journey, too busy concentrating on my pole dance while trying not to breathe in the strong smell of BO. Then I saw the sign for Pompeii. Thank the Lord. I got off the train along with the crowd and was no sooner on the platform than someone was shouting “Vesuvius that way, Pompei across there.” Between that and the roaring Italian tourists, the bustling bodies, the raging heat, I floundered.

“Tickets for Vesuvius please,” I asked on reaching a kiosk.

“Ten Euros, wait on bus, thirty minutes.”

I handed over the money and then lumbered over to a shrub covered trellis for shade from the blistering heat. Fifty minutes later a bus appeared. I moved across and got on, surprised at how well things were going, expecting the normal pandemic tourist charge when British politeness is stamped upon. I took my seat and waited some more, entertained for a spell by two warring men at the station entrance. If only I was Robert De Niro and spoke Italian.

Then an order, in broken English, reached my ears. “Off bus. Get on other bus.”

Did I hear correct? Confirmation came when I saw everyone getting up from their seats and making for the door. Ok, now we had the stampede. Civility circled my cranium for all of one second before puffing from my lips and evaporating in the blue air around. No way was I waiting for the next bus. My head was down, shoulders squared, arms out, the smell of irritation strong in my nasal passages.

“Cazzo di inferno,” I mumbled as the bus circled the station three times. That’s Italian for f****** hell, the only Italian words I knew, learning it from my half Italian, half Ukrainian friend. She spoke neither language other than Italian oaths, her aptitude for this second to none. When you have parents that can’t speak the others language then what better chance does one have to swear at them and it not be known? Anyhow, I feel the Italian version is much more dramatic, operatic almost. Aida meets Goodfellas.

A survey carried out by the Scottish Centre for Social Research between July 2015 and January 2016 indicated that 70% of people in Scotland said they spoke a second language, even if just the odd word. When asked ‘How important, if at all, would you say it is that all children in Scotland from the age of five learn a language other than English in school?’ most people (89%) said that learning a language from the age of five is ‘very’ or ‘quite important’. Western European, namely French and Spanish were the most popular languages chosen, Italian only getting 3% popularity.

Me, well I like the Italian language, even if I just know the profanities.

So, with the fire of a born Italian, another swear word strummed up my oesophagus, easing only when we began climbing at last, the spattered voice of a guide grumbling above the engine. Nearly there now, the escort informed us, pointing out if we wanted to walk for ninety minutes to the crater, the tickets were ten euros. Another ten euros? What robbing trickery. What the hell is there to do at the parking bay for an hour and a half?

Exactly. Nothing. I marched on, barging passed a group of Japanese photographers, a man selling sticks, a refreshing orange bar, hoping to keep up with the guide, but he was off already, always one thousand and one steps in front of me.

Such was the grievance inside me, I was catapulted onto the path by my ire alone to soon realise it was like walking on a gravelly beach, my sandals filling up with grains of ancient lava, the soles of my feet jagged incessantly. I huffed and puffed, the annoyance of the whole thing bubbling up, my eyes downward cursing the little grey stones to infinity. Why did I agree to this? I spotted a woman, around the age of seventy, with sturdy walking boots and walking poles. She strode past me. Ah, those would have helped, I thought, suddenly remembering the guy back at base shouting ‘get your walking poles here’, but I was on a mission, chasing the guide, no time for pole sellers.

The Jet2 rep did say put on sturdy footwear. I thought my sturdy sandals would be good. Could he not have been more specific? Could he not have spelt it out for me? The path is steeply gritted, he could have said. Then I’d have worn my sneakers.

The sun blazed in the azure sky. “You might need to take a jacket, it can get quite cold up at the top,” the Jet2 rep had said. Aye right. My eyes stung, my legs ached, my feet nipped, I was pumping out sweat along with oaths. F***, f***, f***. Tut tut went the seventy-year old’s tongue as she rested on her poles. Head down, I tried a more respectable mantra. “This is not a hill. This is not a hill.” Soon afterwards I reached the summit alive.

Here was the elusive guide, well out of my way. He must have felt my urge to push him into the flaming crater. Luckily, he was guarded by a group of tourists, all looking into the pit. I jumped this way, that way, easing myself forward, looking for a small break in bodies to allow me to see what all the fuss was about. At last, I leaned forward to view a massive lava filled basin, the odd weed nodding to the sun. Was that it? Sweat dripped into my eyes, my lips pursed just as a bounding tourist stepped on my toe, not a word of regret.

“Ah guardare. Vesuvius is erupting.”

 

 

Welcome to Jimjan’s Journal. Half man half woman I hear you ask.  Indeed not.  I am the girl child of Jim and the son of Jan…….only kidding….about the latter anyhow.  I am the daughter of Jim Currie who part created me, my mother Elizabeth Currie nee Johnston doing the rest.  Together they made me…Jan.

But enough of this Jim and Elizabeth begat Jan business and move onto another type of introduction.  My journal.

This is my page, my reflections on life, what makes me laugh and what makes me tick, beginning with some lyrics from a song, the title of which sums up my psyche setting up this blog.

“Then she opened up a book of poems and handed it to me Written by an Italian poet from the thirteenth century And everyone of them words rang true And glowed like burnin’ coal, Pourin’ off every page Like it was written in my soul.”  Tangled up in Blue – Bob Dylan