Teobaldo
Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! WAH!
WAH!
Sun near cage! Yay! Sun near cage! Look at sun! Joy! Blink! Look at sun! Near cage. Happy. Happy sun. Rock, rock, rock. Happy!
Hup! Whassat? Eh? Ooogh! Ooogh! Oooooogh ! Urgh! Big poo! Aaah. Aaaah! Good.
Whered it go?
Eh?
Twizzle head.
Eh?
Whered poo go?
Ah!
Look! Look!
Seed bowl!
Yay!
Baldo crap in seed bowl! Baldo crap in seed bowl!
Yay!
Sun near cage. Happy! Happy sun! Crap all done. Aaaah! Happy moment. Happy moment. Crap done. In bowl.
Now what?
Wanna fly! Wanna fly! Wanna fly!
Nest. Wheres nest? Why no nest? Wanna nest. Baldo find twig. Baldo find straw. Baldo find soft, soft, soft Wanna fly! No. No. No fly. No nest. Sad. Sad moment. Sad Baldo.
Whassat?!
Itch! Urgh! Itch! Itch! ITCH!!! Gotta gotta Oooh! Yeah. Yeah
Scratch, scratch, scratch. Feather, feather, feather! Look! Soft feather down like grey snow! Good! Good for nest. Oh. No. No nest.
Poor Baldo.
Hmmn.
Room.
Cage. Chair. Lamp. Dresser. Ceiling. No sky! Ceiling. No sky! Dead sky. Gone sky. Cant cant ! No sky!
Wanna fly.
Sad moment.
Whassat? Sun! Baldo, look! See sun!
Getting closer!
Joy!
Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo!
Hmmn.
Egg.
Why no egg?
Why no nest?
Bounce! Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!
Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Wah! Wah! WAH!
Oh Uh-oh Here she comes, here she comes. Jailer! Bitch! Here she comes! Bow, deep bow. Respectful. Deep bow. Baldo, Baldo, Baldo, Baldo
Away she goes again! Gone. Gone! Lonely Baldo. Ruffle feathers. Wheres the ?
Mirror! Ring the bell! Look in mirror!
WAH!
Look! Look! Whosat? Whosat? Spirit parrot! Whosat? Eye! Evil! Beak! Sharp! Dead parrot! Ghost parrot! Whosat?
WAH!
Ruuuun!
Wanna fly! Wanna fly! Wanna fly!
Escape!
Huh?
Whassat?! Roar! Waterfall! Thunder! Its the screaming monster! YAAARGH! Shes back! Bitch is back! Shes got the metal monster! Horrible! Horrible! Waterfall! Storm! Thunder! Death! Terrible roar! Angry monster! Hungry monster! Under chair! Under little table! Bitch is riding the metal monster! Under cage! WAH!
Wanna fly! Wanna fly! Wanna fly!
Cant! Cant!
Rock, rock, rock, rock. Fear! Fear! Fear!
Where?
Where?!
Run down the perch! Jump into the bowl! Throw out the food. Sod off! Go! Scram! Take that! Take that! Hah! WAH!
Yay!
Sudden quiet! Brave Baldo! Clever Baldo! Dead monster!
Preen!
Teobaldo! **** **! *** Teobaldo! ******!
[Teobaldo! Stop it! Bad Teobaldo! Enough!]
Yes! Thats me! Teobaldo! Thats me! Happy! Happy! Dead monster! Hah! Here she comes.
Urgh. Finger. Urgh! Kill the finger! Eat the finger! Urgh! Come on! Head tip. Watch finger! Waggle finger!
Come on! Come on!
Bitch.
WAH!
Teobaldo! ***** ****** ** **** ****! ***** ***! *** ***! **** ******** ** **********!
[Teobaldo! Youve messed in your food! Silly boy! Bad boy! Stop throwing it everywhere!]
Baldo a girl. La la! Baldo a girl. La la! Baldo a girl, you bitch jailer fool.
Wheres Baldos egg? Eh? Bitch?
Wheres Baldos mate? Eh?
Wheres Baldos nest?
Just. Let. Baldo. Go!
Wanna fly! Wanna fly! Wanna fly!
Rock, rock, rock, rock.
No fly.
Cage.
Cage.
What Baldo do so bad? Eh?
Ceiling. Cage. Dead wings. Cant Cant Trapped. Panic in bones. Dead wings.
Itch! Itch! Ruffle feathers. Scratch!
Breuuugh!
Thats better!
Breuuugh!
Thats better!
Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo!
Uh-oh! Here she comes again!
**** **** Teobaldo! **** ********** ********! ***** ***** **** *** *****, eh?
Pretty boy! ***** ***** **** *** *****? Eh? ** ** *** ******? Eh? **** *** **** *** ******? **** ** ****** * **** ** *** *** ****** ** *** ******* ** ******** **** **** ** ** *** *****. Eh? Pretty boy!
[Stop that, Teobaldo! Stop scratching yourself! Whats wrong with you today, eh?
Pretty boy! Whats wrong with you today? Eh? Is it the hoover? Eh? Dont you like the hoover? Well Im afraid I have to use the hoover if you persist in throwing your food on to the floor. Eh? Pretty boy!]
Baldo! Baldo! Baldo! Baldo!
Pretty boy! Pretty boy! Pretty boy!
But Baldo a girl!
La!
Baldo a girl!
Ta-dah!
Pretty boy!
Preen!
Eh? Eh?! Where sun go?
Huh?
Where sun?
Whered it go?
WAH!
7
Mr Franklin D. Huff
I dont know why I imagined Id make it all the way around to Hastings before the tide came in. It was an ambitious scheme, at best not so much even a scheme as a blithe notion, a vague urge, a complete spur-of-the-moment thing and I was (quite frankly) unsuitably shod. Its a challenging walk, much of it demanding with the tide coming in, out of sheer necessity a measure of energetic clambering and even leaping from large rock to large rock.
An ambitious scheme, as Ive said. A foolish scheme. And then, when I finally made it back (forty-eight hours later! Barely still in possession of life and limb) On my eventual return The conquering hero (ha, ha, ha)
Urgh! How else can I describe the vileness I encountered? Just just just plain urgh!
Yes. Yes. So it was a rather silly plan, in retrospect. Irresponsible. I am currently in possession of the Tide Tables for Dungeness, Rye Bay and Hastings (courtesy of our Ms Hahn, no less; part of the cottages Welcome Pack). Pett Level doesnt actually have its own Table (too small, insignificant) it falls in the approaches of Rye Bay and Hastings, but even so, it still doesnt demand much basic common sense to puzzle the tides out. I didnt tarry to make this calculation, though, just grabbed my keys and my wallet (no. Not the keys, just the wallet) and blithely set off. It was a silly scheme. It would be fair to say that I sincerely regret it, now. I do. I really do. I regret the leaving, but gracious me! The return! When I finally dragged my way back home (no bus fare! That endless trudge from Hastings over hard road and soggy field!) On my eventual
Yes. Yes. So it was a rather silly plan, in retrospect. Irresponsible. I am currently in possession of the Tide Tables for Dungeness, Rye Bay and Hastings (courtesy of our Ms Hahn, no less; part of the cottages Welcome Pack). Pett Level doesnt actually have its own Table (too small, insignificant) it falls in the approaches of Rye Bay and Hastings, but even so, it still doesnt demand much basic common sense to puzzle the tides out. I didnt tarry to make this calculation, though, just grabbed my keys and my wallet (no. Not the keys, just the wallet) and blithely set off. It was a silly scheme. It would be fair to say that I sincerely regret it, now. I do. I really do. I regret the leaving, but gracious me! The return! When I finally dragged my way back home (no bus fare! That endless trudge from Hastings over hard road and soggy field!) On my eventual
I see it clear as day in my minds eye: that lone dustbin perched somewhat improbably atop the Look Out (visible from quite some distance off). A warning shot across my bows. An omen. But I just gazed at it, quite innocently, idly pondering the logistics of it all. How on earth did that ? I mean its a difficult enough scramble up there without
I was just way too frazzled to register that this was my bin, that this was my issue
Perhaps I was actually heading for the New Beach Club (that previous afternoon but one) although the NBC is actually in the opposite direction to Hastings, so possibly not. Or, better still, to The Smuggler (which is en route), for a stiff drink or three. I dont precisely recall. Although I was dangerously short of cash. Yes. Only had enough for a Schweppes bitter lemon or a Coke. Perhaps I was just
What was I doing?
Letting off steam?
Getting some much-needed air?
Thinking things through on the hoof?
Walking it out?
All of the above?
I dont really know why I left (its honestly just a blur now a pointless irrelevance), but then to return to I mean to come back to the cottage (my base, my home, my my lair), stagger into the bedroom exhausted, depleted and find Urgh!
The bin was definitely a warning. Then the porch light wouldnt work. The bulb was missing. Then
Urgh. Urgh. Urgh!
It now occurs to me that perhaps I hadnt taken the news of Kimberlys passing quite so well as Id initially thought. How I loathe that word: passing! It smacks of the clairvoyant: the velvet curtain, the spotlight, the odour of a cheap cigar. Its a verb that tiptoes gingerly around the ineffable absolutes of mortality: the stiffness, the coldness, the imminent putrescence. The ineluctable gone-ness.
Passing. Its an end without an end an end without a beginning, even. A cowardly avoidance.
But how else to to get through all those unbearable sentences those endless, stewing thoughts each one punctuated by the thudding, hammer-blow of dead? That savage, nail-in-the-coffin word. I used it I had used it countless times in the first short while after hearing the news (that garbled phone message), but its regular use all that relentless thud-thud-thudding had begun to bump and bruise my very core. The body was inside the coffin! Bang, bang, bang! The lid was sealed! Bang, bang, bang! But still the word kept on providing new nails, and of course they needed to be applied (demanded it), to be neatly and dispassionately embedded. But where? The wall? The door? My heart? My head? My soul? No! No, I had to get rid of that word. I had to eliminate it. It had suddenly become too real, too meaningful. How even to approach it now without without feeling the urge to emit a terrible, wolf-like howl? Without jabbering? Without flailing around? Falling to my knees and tearing at my clothes? Without an all-out collapse, in other words? Surely its better to just just use something else, something less definitive, something that evades that compresses that curtails the connected emotion. A band-aid word. Yes. A slightly vague, pointless, polite, peripheral word. To cleverly create a separate universe in language and then quietly retreat into it, to hide, like a cringing ninny, from from
From Kimberlys passing?
Yes.
Kimberly has passed Oh, look! There she goes! Hear the whistle? Kimberly! Shes a heavy-goods train thundering through the station of life (no timetabled stop) and then into the glorious bleakness the billowing clouds of dry ice beyond. Only the truly adventurous the demented hobo, the illegal, the felon would consider running after her and hitching a ride. Those trains are heavily guarded, Ive heard. No. Better just wait a little longer on the welcoming, well-lit platform and flick through the local paper (great article about piles. Wonderful small ads. Nothing really amounting to news, as such) then head over to the kiosk for a hot cup of coffee (avoid the tea. The teas dreadful, like warm iron filings. Its been stewing for days inside a giant rusty urn).
Just stand back (always respectful, mind) and let that old, heavy-goods train rumble on through
Rumble.
Rrrrrrumble?
Gracious me! A sudden outbreak of goose-bumps on my forearm. How odd!
Uh
No.
No. Lets not talk of death, eh? Death sticks between the teeth like a pesky piece of sweetcorn husk. Sweetcorns way too ambitious a vegetable for a man in my state. I need mashed potato softened with milk. Or mushy peas. Or a lightly seasoned dollop of glowing swede, shining with butter. Or porridge. I need porridge! I need custard! A soft-boiled egg!
Im too delicate!
Coddle me!
Uh
No.
It wasnt a great scheme, in other words. I wasnt genned up on the Tide Times. I just headed out flew out.
Perhaps I was more upset than I thought. Everything felt very sharp the light, the sound of the gulls, the waves the damn Channel so unapologetic, so vital, so unbearably bloody there; the texture of the pebbles on the beach, the individual grains of sand Everything sharp. Everything cruel. And then What happened?
Im struggling to uh
Ten paces after I saw Miss Hahn and her ridiculous dog that awful, fat dog; a barely perambulating canine offence, a cruel joke I suddenly stopped short and thought, God. Did I actually just say that? Did I actually just speak those words from here up here from this mouth? The exchange was there an exchange, though? fell across the beach in front of me like a shadow in bright sun. I moved, it moved. Good heavens! Did I actually just ? No. Surely not! So I promptly strode on. Had to get through it. Simple as that. Fight or flight. Fight and flight. Pure instinct. Couldnt think. Didnt want to. Continued walking.
Its possible the plan hadnt even been fully hatched at that stage the epic hike. It was barely in incubation. I was just still cant quite remember what I I think it was just just getting away from that word. The relentless hammer-blow of that word.
Good afternoon, Ms Hahn! The renovations? Uh not now, dear. Im uh My wife just died. We werent really married well we were, but in title alone. We lived on separate continents. But I still reserve the right to be intensely pissed off alternately numbed, bewildered, shattered, even by the news. All right, Miss Hahn? Okay with that, are we? Is that acceptable to you, Miss Hahn? It is? It is? Good! Great! Toodle-oo!