A Monument In Ruin

A crippled old man recalls random memories...

Ah! The sign says ‘Cream Teas’.

  “This looks all right. What do you think, Peter?” she asks.

  “Wheel me in!” I say.

  “What he say?” asks the other. I might as well just nod.

  “Wheel him in, he says,” confirms the other of the pair.

  “Dear of him.”

 

  When I think of all the things I could have been, and I end up being reduced to this! But then, I suppose, we all end up being reduced to something - in the end. And then we all end up being reduced to nothing at all. Irreducible then, isn't it, nothing? Who really means anything at all, in the end, once they've gone?

  That makes me smile to myself but I doubt that either of them can tell. They’d probably just think I’m in pain again.

  So many days over so many short years when I was sure that I must have meant something. Huh! Yes, I'm sure I liked to think that at one time or another. But then there were so many days throughout so many long years where the minutes were as long as hours or the months as short as days - and I wished I could find a reason to mean something. Oh, the time I must have wasted must easily add up to years just thinking! The amount of time some people must waste in this world just thinking! And now I'm thinking about it. But what else is there to do now, anyway? But where‘s it going to get me?

   I’d smile, if I could.

  “You all right there, Peter?” asks one of them. That makes me laugh. What a pointless question, that is. Why do people say such meaningless things? You can never answer that honestly, can you? So what's the point in asking? “Yes, I'm fine, thank you, dear,” I say, “still alive.” (For what it's worth). That makes her laugh.

  “What did he say?“ asks the other.

  “Still alive, he says.”

  That makes both of them laugh. Wouldn't have been half so funny if I was all right. Still, it's a lot easier to make them laugh than try and say anything else! There never was any real point in complaining to anyone about anything, really, was there? Who wants to know? They've all got their own problems. Unless their problems were the same as yours, then they'd listen " but all along they’d be thinking of themselves.

  “He's a card,” she says, “aren't you, Peter?!” she shouts.

  Can’t smile. Why is it women always raise their voices to old people. What a bloody cliché that is, isn't it? Why is it people always end up turning into bloody clichés? And the old were always bloody clichés - and now I'm one of them! It's never going to make much difference what I say. My old man was always exactly that - the old man. Then I watched him gradually turn into an old man, just like his old man. And now I'm probably just like him. Which is exactly what I never wanted. It's all so bloody inevitable, old man! But it couldn’t make me smile.

 

  “What do want to eat then, Peter?” she asks.

  I'm just staring at the tablecloth. How many places like this I must have been in over the years! There's never really been much variation in tablecloths, has there? The only real difference is the circumstances. God, think of all the different times I must have stared at such tablecloths! (If only I could remember one). I’ll tell you something - I know for certain that I've been in places like this before, staring at the tablecloth and thinking exactly the same thing. Made me feel old even then. And then, when I've remembered one, I know I wished I hadn't. Always made life seem somewhat tragic, I think, have memories. Bloody curse, memory! They were always there somewhere, waiting to come out and haunt you. Never remember the things you want to remember and never when you want to remember them! Bloody tragic. If only I could remember one. I can remember being able to smile!

 

  “I'll get you some menus,” says the waitress. Christ! They're not what they used to be, are they? Oh, God! - Now there's a cliché for you! Next, I'll be saying something like ‘If I was 20 years younger!’ And what was I doing 20 years ago, anyway? I thought I was old then! I never really cared much what I was doing past 60. I'll be old then, I thought, what's the point in having all that time on your hands and then being too old to do anything with it? I didn't much care if I was dead by the time I reached 60. Got to try and live your life while you're still young enough to enjoy it, that's what I always said.

  “Bugger pensions and all that rot! Live for today, man, bugger tomorrow! What are you saving it all for, Billy boy? The after-life? What are you going to do with it all when you're an old codger, eh?”

  “Something for the nippers when I'm gone,” he says. Made me laugh, that did.

  “Bill, old man, you're a living legacy,” I say. “You'll be dead and they'll all be living it up on the money! All this work's for nothing when you're not going to be around to see it spent.”

  “Don't be a chump,” he says, “you've never been married, you wouldn't understand.”

  “Bill, old boy,” I say, “I'll never understand marriage and that's a fact.”

  “That's what makes you a chump,” says old Bill.

  “Well, for all that, old boy,” I say, “it's a happier chump you see before you and no mistake.”

  “And then one day, old man, when you're old and grey,” says Puffing Billy, “you'll be an old and grey lonely old chump!”

  “And you, Sir William,” I say, “will be sitting at the fireside in your rocking chair, filling your pipe with tobacco and regaling the grand-kids with tales of the good old days!”

  “And what a damned chump, I'd seem!” says William.

  “But I wouldn't envy you, Bill, old chap,” I say, “'cos I'll be an old chump m'self!”

  “There is that,” laughs old Bill, “there is that! Well, here's to us old chumps, the pair of us!”

  “No, here's to you, old man, Billy m'boy,” I say, “for here's one old chump who with any luck will have shuffled off the coil long before the rocking-chair stage and it'll probably be due to a surfeit of something - cigar?”

  “Well, rot!” says old Billy boy.

  “Well, rot yourself, Bill!” I say. “And rot indeed! - Incidentally, the port's with you."

 

  “I dunno. What d'you say, Peter?' she interrupts.

  “Sounded like ‘1942.’ What's that, when you were born, was it?” She laughs.

Bloody women. “No! I was talking to myself, dear!” I say. I'm a senile old bugger.

  “Oh, yeah! First sign of madness, that is, you know!” she says. I can hear you, woman, keep your voice down! I try an ironic smile, but it’s all the same.

  Dear old Billy boy. Died when he was 42. Bloody marvellous! So much for his rotten old rocking chair, I end up in a bloody wheelchair! There's science for you, old man!

  “I think I'll have a vegetable curry,” she says. Bloody women. It's always diets or some tosh, healthy eating - balls! Where's that going to get you, eh?

  “I'm going to have the.. risotto, please,” she whines. “What do you want, then, Peter? Seen anything you like?”

  “Twaddle!” I say.

  “What d'you say, luv?” asks the waitress.

  “What d'you say, Peter?“ asks the other one, as if I’m deaf as well as stupid.

  “I'll have a cream tea, please,” I say. Tearooms it says outside, doesn't it? Christ, everyone in here's an old fogey, look at 'em! Not like the tearooms we used to know, is it, Bill? Not like the good old days! Huh! And there's another bloody cliché!

  “He says he'll have a cream tea,” says the interpreter.

  “One cream tea?” cross-examines the waitress.

  “Yes,” I say. The less I say, the better, I think. I don't know why they bother asking me so many bloody questions. It's all going to start coming out cliché sooner or later.

  “Is that all you want, Peter?” I’m asked again. “You're sure don't want something more substantial?”

  “They got steak and kidney pie on the menu, you know,” says the other. “I thought you liked steak and kidney pie?”

  “Not today, thanks,” I say. Too many bloody women.

  “Not today, thanks, he says,” comes the message confirmation.

  “No? One cream tea?” asks the waitress again.

  “Please,” I say.

  “Ok, m’luv,” says the waitress. And she's off, running about, like all of 'em; never happier than when they're running about after you, always rushed off their feet, always ready to complain about it afterwards. That old dame, Mary, she was right about that.

  “Never could stand opera, luvvie,” she’d say, bloody Mary would. “All those shrieking bloody women flitting about all over the place - I can't stand it, dear! Never do a play with an all-women cast, luvvie,” says bloody Mary. “Too much bloody chattering and no balance, you see. If you want my advice, dear,” says the old dame, “play the field first. I did before I met Doug. You'll know it when the right one comes along. There's always someone out there somewhere just for you,” says old Mary, swinging the car round the bends. “40 years we had together, luvvie, and I never regretted a minute of it. Oh, it was never a perfect marriage, dear-” says wise old Mary. “-all the women fancied him- but we never fell out of love.. 15 years ago now, he's been gone, dear, but I never regretted it for a minute. I know it doesn't turn out that way for everyone, luvvie, but I thank my lucky stars and bless every day we had together!”

  Funny old woman, was old bloody Mary. It was always Doug this and Doug that, she measured everyone up against her darling Doug. And afterwards we'd all sit around in the pub together in virtual silence until someone would say ‘Who's going to start the conversation off about Mary, then?’ Everyone thought she was an egocentric old trout.

 

  “There we are. Would you like me to pour it for you?” interrupts the waitress.

  “You're very kind,” I say. They smile. It's so easy to be charming when you're an old fool. So long as I'm not insulting, I'm a darling old man who's not got long to go, dear of him. It's easy to feel compassion for a dying man. Well, here's the news, sisters - I've been dying for years. Old age is just a penance for living so bloody much! “He's hung on so long, he'll outlive the lot of us,” that's what they say, I can tell. I've always just been clinging on to life, even now and even then. Well, I’ve believed for some time now that life's just been clinging on to me.

  “You comfortable, Peter?”

  I should have gone down over The Atlantic, with a ship or on a plane. I ought to have been killed in action during the war, any war. I should have died tragically young in a terrible accident. I might have been a hero and lived without a reason but died to give me one. I should have blown my own head off with a shotgun. That would have been something! ..But I didn't. Life isn't so romantic when you live to tell the tale. It's not quite such a legend when you're living it.

  And anyway, where are those proud memories when you're dead? Either way, now is now and that's all there is to it, it's all just waste in the end. In the end it's always been the same. It's just one big ruddy nightmare populated by dreams.

  “Peter?”

  “Hello,” I say. I'm all right, woman, just be quiet and leave me in peace.

  “Oh, you're there then,” she observes.

  “Yes, I haven't gone yet,” I point out. Can’t smile though. Where the hell else would I be?

  “I haven't gone yet, he says!” she translates.

  “Cheek!” says the other. “How's your tea, is it all right for you, dear? Not too hot?”

  What kind of bloody tea would it be if it wasn't? “Fine, fine,” I say.

  “Dear of him,” she says. “Happy as the day is long.”

  “Likes his tea, don't you, Peter?” she yells.

  Like my peace, too.

  “He's not allowed too much of it though, doctor says. Don't want you getting ill again, do we?”

  “Huh!” I say. Couple of clucking old clichés, the pair of them.

  “Oh, careful, Peter! Watch you don't spill it,” she interferes. “I don't know. Don't want you ruining that nice clean shirt, you only had it on today.”

  “Use your napkin,” orders the other.

  Yes, yes, God almighty! “I'm all right, don't you worry,” I say.

  “Don't you worry, he says!”

  “Yeah, you can take care of yourself all right, can't you, Peter?” says the other hen. “Proper gentleman you are, aren't you?”

 

  I wish I were on an ocean liner, sailing into the blue. I’m a young man, happy in dreams. Bill was on one of those when he was a boy, he told me once. I always had a picture in my mind of little Billy boy stood on the rail beneath the three giant red funnels as she pulled away from the harbour, waving goodbye. The SS Aquitania, what a beautiful thing! Little Billy and old Mrs Devenish, young and pretty in her bright frock coat and hat, Mr Devenish chuffing contentedly on his pipe. He couldn't help smiling when Billy cheered Hooray! The ship bellows triumphantly like a friendly whale, like a streamer-filled homecoming, a beautiful blue sky full of hope. I always had a dream in my mind when I saw the blue sky. I'm sailing off into the horizon and everywhere is blue. Travelling on The Cunard Line, it's the SS Aquitania and somewhere on board is Billy with his mum and dad. I'm happy because it's the beginning of something. But it's a beginning with no end. Sailing into the blue horizon, the future, with no destination, the infinite unknown. Hazy blue, the vitality of life, the essence of the world. Living a dream from which you never wake up. Billy doesn't know me, he's just a happy little boy and I'm a young man, happy in dreams. Billy's mum smiles at me, she is young and very beautiful. It's 1931. A beautiful day, pumping with heat, the skyline shimmers and everything is blue.

  That's what I imagined hope to be, sailing into the future. Hope is somewhere ahead, on the horizon, with love and happiness and innocence, and we're steaming straight for it. What a beautiful day! And everything I ever dreamed of is within my grasp. Every summer there'd be a day when the sky was so blue that it was just like that. And I'd get that feeling again, like I'm on an ocean liner, sailing into the blue, and I'm a young man, happy in dreams.

  And now I'm just an old man dreaming of a dream. Where's that going to get me?

 

  “There we are,” says the waitress.

  “Oh, that looks nice, Peter,”

  “Thank you, dear,” I say.

  “Is that all right like that?” asks the waitress, as if I need a straw.

  “Yes, fine. I can manage, thank you,” I say. In a manner of speaking.

  “Yes?” she says, unsure.

  “He says he can manage,” says one of the others.

  “Oh, good, that's all right then,” says the waitress. “Let me know if you need anything, luv.”

  “I'll shout,” I say, failing to smile. She hasn’t the faintest idea what I’m saying.

  “He'll shout, he says.”

  “OK,” says the waitress with a docile smile. Quaint little things, I've always thought, waitresses. Like dotty mannequins. Especially the middle-aged ones; like eternal spinsters.

  “Shall I cut them for you, Peter?” she says, already in the act of doing it anyway.

  “Oh, well, if you must,” I say. It'll be quicker if she does it, no sense in being stubborn. It's my privilege now, it'll be hers in a few years. She looks close enough to dotage already and she's helping me! Maybe that's where sympathy comes from. Worrying that you'll be like that one day and it'd be nice if there's someone to take care of you. I never really had any choice, I've been like it long enough.

  “Use your napkin, there's a dear,” she says. “Don't want crumbs all over the place, do we? There.”

  “Thank you, dear,” I say. No smile though. Am I smiling? It's probably just that crooked old sneer. I've seen it once, that was enough, I assume it's still there. Crooked like my back and crooked like my hands. Always thought I'd crack someday, ended up being my body instead. Crooked and cracked, you dear old soul.

  “Don't make that face,” mum used to say, “if the wind changes you'll stay like it!” Well, something changed, my lovely old mum, but it wasn't the bloody wind. The walls all cracked and I'm stuck inside. I was up too long and I crumbled away. It all went crack! and it stayed like it. A monument in ruin. I said I never wanted to live past 60, didn't I, Bill? Well, now I can’t even smile ironically. I've been exiled, old boy. And where are you? Where is everyone? Old Bill used to say he'd be happy in his old age. Happy in his memories. Christ! You were right, old chap! I've got all the time in the world for memories and they come and go like litter in the wind, blowing up a deserted street.

  And where's that going to get me? I can't even think of one! I don't choose a thing for myself, can't shut them out, can't shut them in - what a rotten bloody mess it all is in the end! They're all just ghosts to me, old boy! And you're there amongst them, oh yes! Here's to us, Billy boy! Salutations! All that time gone by in the blink of an eye, it's like a ruddy eternity and still it won't stand still. And where do I figure in all this, eh? Like I always bloody was, a man on a desert island in the middle of a swamp.

 

  “You enjoying that, Peter?”

  “Lovely, thank you,” I say.

  “Lovely, he says,”

  Lovely, I say, yes. They gave me a sleeping draught one day, that was lovely. It was 1984. I remember thinking how funny it was at the time. I smiled ironically. Orwell's Prophecy they called it. Well, it was just beginning and I was going to sleep. Couldn't help thinking that he knew a thing or two did old George Orwell, eh? Oh, yes. Produced a work of art and then he was dead within a year. You could see it all coming by then. You could always see it coming but it still came. What was anyone ever going to do about it but watch? And by 1984 it was all there and more was coming. You know, I never thought that human beings were ever really properly awake and they were putting me to sleep. I thought it prudent not to look but I could feel the drugs being pumped into my arm.

  I thought “This must be what it's like for an animal to be put down.” It would be just like this. Like being swamped. One minute you're thinking “I don't think I'm going to go out, I'll be awake through the whole damned thing and I won't be able to tell them!” Then the next minute I'm awake again and I can't feel a thing and I can't tell them.

  And the sunshine was streaming through the hospital window and I remember thinking it might have been sad for me to have gone with all those who cared for me hoping I'd be all right. It would've been sad for them, but then I remember how it felt when the drugs pumped up my arm like I was about to be sunk. It was all like a dream. And then I was out. I couldn't see it coming and I couldn't feel a thing. I can't help thinking, old boy, that it would have been nice to have gone out like that. For me. Like my prophecy had come true; like a dream. But I woke up and saw the sunshine streaming in, and for a moment it was like I was on an ocean liner, sailing into the blue. And for a moment I was a young man, happy in dreams.

 

  “Dave's taking us on a cruise next year for our holidays,” she says.

  “Oh, yeah. Lovely. Where you going?” whines the other.

  “He won't tell me. I think it's the Mediterranean,” she says.

  “It's nice down there. We went there on holiday back in the 60s,” says the other. “It’s a surprise, is it?”

  “Yeah. He decided a good while ago. To celebrate our anniversary,” she says.

  More tea, I think. So much tea I must have had in so many different places, it's fascinating. And I can't remember one. Wonderful old tea, the elixir of life. More tea and administer that sleeping draught.

  “Would you like me to pour you some more tea, Peter, or are you all right?” she wails.

  “Thank you, dear, I'll manage,” I say.

  “Careful you don't spill it, it's hot, you know,” she says.

  “Then you should take care, too, madam,” I say.

  “What's that, luv?”

  I can’t smile with irony any more. It’s a shame.

  “What did he say? Is he being cheeky again?” inquires the other.

  “I expect so. He's always being cheeky, isn't he? Comes with being an old charmer, doesn't it, Peter?”

 

  Staring at the tablecloth. It's always been the same tablecloth, I'm certain, you know. They're a breed, I reckon, no matter how much you change them they always remind you of something. I think maybe I have been here before, you know, but it wasn't like this. Now I'm here every Sunday, it's my special treat. Full of old charmers and darling old dears and every now and again they'll play Glenn Miller tunes in the background to soften it up like it's the 40s all over. Like it'll make them feel at home 'cos they're all living in the past, all of 'em! Well, they're not the only ones; doesn't make you an old timer, you can't live in the future anymore than you can live anywhere. Everything's a ruddy memory, but they don't want to think that, it makes 'em feel old. Well, we're all old, then, eternity doesn't stand still! It's all tablecloths and tea and background music, past, present and future! All bloody cliché and that's all there is to it, old girl! Moments in time to stop and stare at the tablecloth and think “Tablecloths I have known!“ All the different things I’ve thought and felt, staring at the tablecloth, and stirring the tea.

  I can just picture that young beauty Jessie saying “That’s old Mrs McKenzie, she's a friend of mother's, she's always in here - Hello, Mrs McKenzie!” she calls. “She's a dear, mother says she's the eternal widow, I hope I don't end up like that! Mrs McKenzie, what a chortle she is. And little Mrs Foulton, she used to be a waitress here when she was a girl, funny, isn't it? - Hope we find you well, Mrs F!” she hollers. “The deadly duo, I call them, ‘oh, you mustn’t!’ mother laughs. I think they're knitting for the war effort.”

  “Ssh! Careless talk costs lives,” I say.

  “Oh, Peter, you rotter!” she says, she's such a beauty. “

  “So what are you doing for the war effort, anyway,” I say, “Apart from looking devastating?”

  “Oh, don't be such a rotten charmer!” she says. “Well, darling, I'm here with you, that's my bit, I'm keeping the troops happy, aren't I? Apart from the rotten old typing pool!”

  “Oh, yes,” I say, “how I wouldn't want to be stuck in an office full of young ladies all day surrounded by all those legs.” I smile. “Ow! That was my marching leg!”

  “You wouldn't think it such fun if I were the one marching off with all my troubles in an old kit bag,” says Jessie, “and you were stuck in a room full of silly men writing letters all day while your sweetheart was off fighting the war!”

  “Careful, darling,” I say, “Mrs McKenzie's listening! Anyway, you're quite wrong. I can think of several chaps who would quite willingly swap their old kit bags for a typewriter if the choice were theirs. And a good deal more who would love a girl in uniform! -Ow! Stop that!”

  “You don't have to take orders from that old bag Mrs Plimsoll,” she says.

  “Mrs Plimsoll?”

  “Yes, rotten, isn't it? I'm sure she's a Communist ...-Darling...?”

  “Yes?” I say.

  “You do look dashing in khaki.”

  “Why, shucks!”

  “Do you think they'd let you keep it afterwards?”

  “I don't know, you know, I think perhaps they might. If I can patch-up the bullet-holes and wash out the bloodstains. -Ow! Must you kick so often?”

  “Must you be such a rotter? she says.

  “Yes, I know, Jessie, I'm sorry, I am rotten. I'm rotten to the core. I think that's why they're sending me but don't worry,” I say, “I'm just a kid, they keep telling me so maybe it helps. More fun to die young, don't you think? -Ow!”

  “Maybe you'll get a medal,” she says.

  “I should get a rotten medal for taking tea with you!”

  “It's all right, Mrs F, Mrs M! Just a lovers' tiff! -That is, you do love me, don't you, Peter?"

  “Yes, I love you, Jess, of course I do,” I say.

  “Good boy,” she says.

  “I might as well,” I say, “I'll be dead in a couple of weeks. -Ow!- Who couldn't love a girl who kicks as well as you do?”

  “You heard that, didn't you, Mrs M? He loves me after all! -Rotter. Anyway, by the time you get over there the rotten war'll be over! They're in Germany already, what more do you want?”

  “Nothing,” I say, “I'm perfectly happy about getting shot. So long as I'm not stuck over here freezing to death on some Clyde shipyard or something, it suits me!”

  “You're spoilt, you are,” she says. “I would like to go to Scotland when you get back, Peter, don't you think we should run away to Gretna Green or something?”

  “So it's marriage, now, is it?” I say. “What happened to romance?”

  “You rotter!” she says.

  “Yes,” I say, “we will - but when we do we stay there forever on an island somewhere and never come back, right?”

  “Yes!” she says. “Yes, let's! Let's go away forever, like an ocean liner sailing into the blue! -Oh, sorry, erm.. Two cream teas, please.”

 

  '"Yes, 30 years it'll be. We're going away for two weeks, he's paying for the kids, too."

  "Lovely. It's all right for some, isn't it?"

 

  Yes, we'll sail away one day and never come back, that's what we all like to think, isn't it? Whether we go or not. But we always come back. The feeling comes and goes, old girl, just comes and goes. There's nothing you can do about it. Everything changes, always bloody changes, there's no end to it, just changes. That's what makes time: changes; like the four seasons, always changes.

  4 o'clock. That old clock on the wall with its slow brass pendulum, looks familiar to me, just like it's always been there and I've always been here. Different people, different feelings, different times, different clocks. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could stop and look around? Pick a year, a time, a place, and stop and look around.

  November 1944. Was that clock here then? I sincerely doubt it but perhaps it was. How did it seem to the ladies on the opposite table? What was the picture on the wall? And the music? There were some kind of flowers on the table but all I can remember is Jess and the way she used to talk. Who was walking past and looking in the window? Where were you, Billy boy? How many people must have sat at that table, in all their different moments? All now dead.

  I did what I thought was best and where does that get me? A frozen carcass and a memory. I always did what I thought I had to, what I thought was right, always only what I wanted to do but what's done is done and never changes, however much you do. Like a monument in ruin is a memory and that's all there is to it.

  “What would you do if you could go back and do it all again?” asked old Bill.

  “I'd do it all again, Puffing Billy,” I say, “'cos it would all be exactly the same.”

  “Chump!” he says. “You'd do it all again? Make the same mistakes, and be a living tragedy?”

  “Who'd be the chump who disagrees with himself?” I say.

  “You'd stay out there in the wilderness all those years? Never come back? Leave that lovely girl in the lurch?” asks Bill. “Didn't you love her, old man?”

  “I paid for it, old friend, I paid for it,” I say. “And if I'd come back and married her, I'd have paid for that, too.”

  “Well, I'm sorry, Peter. I'm sorry for it,” he says. “It's a tragedy.”

  “William,” I say, “what might have been's not half so much a tragedy as what was. What's done is done and everything that happens is always over whatever you do. The tragedy is that you remember.”

 

 

  “Ready to go back now then, Peter?”

  “He's gone to sleep, hasn't he?”

  “Peter?”

  “It's no use falling asleep, we're going now.”

  “Yes,” I say. But I can’t smile. Not anymore.

 

 

 

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Reviews

[TreeStar]

This was really kind of sad... I'd like to think that I'll reflect on the good times as I get old. Hell, I'll probably wind up wishing for death as soon as I lose the ability to control my bladder (if I make it to that stage in life). Very poignant subject, really makes you think. Another fantastic read ;)

[Truly Ross-Wisehart]

This story is masterfully written. I am just awed by your talent. The whole time, I had my Papa in my head. Very similar scenes played out for him over the years before he passed. He often referred to the women as 'cackling old hens'. I can vividly remember my Nana speaking to him like he was a small child. He would pretend not to hear her half the time, then wink at us kids.

Well done does not even come close here!

~True