Gathering Evidence

The Parish church room smelled of old people’s skin. Fleshy crevices, never exposed to sun or flannel. It smelled of mince cooked too hard and too early and sweet lemony floor polish.

If you only had a few friends, you had your party at the Parish. If you were more popular, you had it at the Social Club which was down a very steep hill, or up a very steep hill, depending on which way you chose to approach it. It was smack on the middle of the hill, so you couldn’t avoid it, the slope.

Badgers was held at the Social club. At Badgers, you wore a pinafore and trained in First Aid so you could go with the St John’s Ambulance to St Albans Cathedral and be on guard in case anyone in the choir passed out from holding a note for too long or someone watching died of boredom (including members of the Badgers).

I don’t know why it was called Badgers. They have nothing to do with first aid. Badger from Wind In The Willows gave Mole and Ratty succour from the snow, but he wasn’t a doctor. Badgers are not known for being first aiders. I think it was because of the black and white uniform.

Brownies was held at the Parish. It had a kitchen with a serving hatch which was not for playing with. They had those green cups and saucers that all Parish rooms have and massive ladles with melted handles. I am not sure why. I never saw vats of mashed potato being made but I liked to imagine it.

Tins lived on the Formica sides, and had names like 'Gladys' or 'Flo'. Maybe they were the names of the people who owned the tins. I never got to the bottom of it. Inside them were rock cakes and tea loaf crumbs and curled up baking sheets.

I didn’t do well at Brownies or at following the Brownie guide law. I didn’t want to dance round a toadstool and when we went to look at the camp - which you could go on if you did well and tried hard and followed God, and got badges, and ironed your uniform - it smelled of damp linen and the bunk beds were metal framed, and nothing seemed fun about it.

I didn’t get any badges in Brownies, but I did find some at a car boot sale years later for a pound. I can do most of the stuff now as it turns out, except orienteering.

I wanted to go to Scouts because my brother went to Scouts and got to say Dib Dab. Brown Owl had one leg but was still very commanding. My brother went to Scout camp. He bought me back sweets from the tuck shop. I can’t remember very important world events or dates or medical appointments, but I remember going to pick him up and him handing me this bag of sweets and me realising how he must have spent his money, for him, on me. Of the metal bunkbeds and the damp and the wet logs and the feeling was this happy sadness the colour of pink shrimps and flying saucers.

I called him yesterday and asked him what he remembered from Scout camp. He said "a massive pot of baked beans, pot holing and running across a field which had a washing line across it that no one saw in the dark. Edward was the fastest so he got there first and got a bit garrotted. My brother didn't because he saw it happen to Edward and slowed down.

I didn’t like him being there because it was in the middle of the woods and my grandmother used to sing the Teddy Bears Picnic song but in a sinister way. I found the music to that at a car boot sale as well. It is pinned to my fridge. I can’t play or read music and there are scary bears on the cover, and I don’t know what that says about me. Possibly that I like to be frightened or maybe that it is my resting state. Maybe I am trying to gather evidence of my childhood in solid parts, so it makes sense to me. Edward had to go to hospital, because of the garrotting, so I was right to not want my brother there. Bad things happen in woods.

My therapist says we are all born into the second act of a tragedy and spend the rest of our lives trying to work out what went wrong in Act One. Maybe I’m gathering evidence. Sheet music and penny sweets and stolen badge valour.

I am still frightened a lot. Recently, of twisting my ankle when walking on the pebbly beach – the tide sweeping me away and me just letting it happen. I know I don’t really want to be swept out to sea because when I stand too close and a wave comes, I step back fast so I don’t get my feet wet. That doesn’t seem like the kind of conscious thought Virginia Woolf had before she filled her pockets with stones and went bombing down the River Ouse.

It is near where I live, the Ouse. I take the dog. The current is faster than you'd think, and I think of her, Virginia, banging into the sides. Sometimes there are swans. I wonder what they made of her. If they stuck their necks out to help her. My dog likes to go down the slope slowly. I wonder if Virginia got swept up on it, the slope, and lay, like a fish out of water for a while. Until it rained, or someone discovered her.

I get Virginia mixed up with that painting of Ophelia. The model was called Elizabeth Eleanor Siddall and had to spend hours and hours in a bathtub full of freezing water while Millais worked. She caught pneumonia and Millais only paid her medical bill under the threat of legal action by Elizabeth’s father. Then she married the poet, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and became his muse. She was also a painter, but no one had to bathe in freezing water for her art.

She became unwell and melancholic and died of a laudanum overdose in 1862 during her second year of marriage to Rossetti. Not many people know this when they look at the painting Ophelia. I wouldn’t like to lie in a cold bath in a heavy dress for hours on end, being painted to look as if I were dead by a man who didn’t want to pay my medical bill, but no one has ever asked me to, so it doesn’t really matter I suppose.

Lots of stories end up with women dying. I think HRT changed this. I hope so anyway. I don’t like the thought of just getting too tired to carry on anymore. I have spent my life running away from myself. What if I twist my ankle on the beach and can’t do it anymore? What if I accidentally fill my wellies with pebbles and go galumphing into the sea like a Jumbly with no boat?

Maybe little me from the St John’s Ambulance days will come and bandage me up and give me a strong orange cordial and a sesame seed biscuit.

I don’t remember learning to do bandaging though. I know we did bark rubbing and spelling competitions, and I got caught out by February (the month not a person) and I’ve never forgotten it. Every time I have to write February out, I think of the sneaky R and what could have been, had it not been placed in February for no reason.

I am gathering February for evidence.

My husband dropped a catch in cricket in Seaford and mentions it each time we drive past. They stick with you, small losses.

My point is, I don’t know if I could have saved myself. I had the pinafore and long socks but didn’t really have a clue. There is a photo of me and this girl called Elanor, who came round my house once for tea and my mum got Mr Kipling French Fancies in and I wanted the pink one, but she had it, (Elanor, not my mum). I had the yellow one which was not as good. I ate it in three parts. The cake was dry. Things often look better than they are.

In the photo, we are wearing nurses caps and frilly socks and if you look really closely, you can see that I’m not even there. I am Ophelia in the bathtub, so cold I’m numb.

The Parish room bookings were managed by Barbara, and she was high on the power of it. Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Give an old woman without much to do a clipboard and a fake title and she'll be pain the prayer hole for life.

There was a piano you were never allowed to use and the Bell Ringers waltzed in like they owned the place. Long haired and pointy booted, but maybe only in my mind. I get them confused with Creedence Clearwater Revival.

There was a really long broom, but dust lived in the corners of the herringbone floor and when you got home, your hair smelled exactly the same as the Parish church rooms, it was as if you’d stolen a slice of it. There were long orange curtains that I longed to hide behind but was never allowed. It looked like a wonderful place to read a book and not be found.