Friday 27 July 2007

Preparing for the best/worst!

Good morning,
Err, nothing much to report as yet as all I have done is wake up and have a shower, my nerves have started up but the sun is shining and as that is such a rare thing these days I am grateful for it. Because I am nervous I am irritated with the final preparations before we leave, I just want everything to jump into a bag like in the 'Sorcerers Apprentice'. On the other hand I don't want my guitars to grow legs and go marching out the door either. I'll have to settle with doing it myself and go easy on the frustration.

God dammit! I 've just remembered something I still need to do.

I gotta go, I'll report back as soon as I can. Brighton awaits!


1965

My mum walked forward to answer the door and for a moment I hoped the shadows were a couple of army firing range targets propped up against the door.
She open it a crack and peered out.

Mrs Drewett? Someone said,

“Yes, that’s me” she replied.

“Hello madam, we’re Police Officers, we need to talk to you about your son Steven, is he in?”

Yeah, err, yes he is, would you like to come in?

“Thank you”.

And with that and a polite offer of a cup of tea which was declined, the Police were brought into our home for the first time.

This was still a small town then and everyone used the buses. Someone who lives in my street had walked to Bush Fair shopping centre to pay their rent and had then decided to pay the four pence required to take the bus to the Town Centre to do some serious shopping. Whilst waiting for a bus to arrive they had seen me arguing with two other boys and then witnessed me jumping into the lorry after which smoke poured out of it, the windows blew out and finally it burnt to the ground.
When the Police arrived they were more than willing to tell them who one of the boys was and when he lived.

I was summoned into the living room, its shape a long narrow oblong with a fire place in the middle of one wall around which my parents sat like bookends. Opposite and not far away was the television. This made it very difficult to hold a court hearing with everyone in close proximity. I sat on a sofa to my right of them, facing my mum but a long way from my dad who was sitting glaring but silent.

Most disconcerting.

He may have tempered his normal boorish bluster because he had once been a policeman himself. Despite being handed to him another excuse to vent his anger he may have found this situation very interesting. I was once told that during the Blitz in London he was once put in charge of an unexploded bomb, keeping people away until the bomb disposal squad arrived. He must have been there a while; they were probably very busy people at this time. Now this little boy with a short fuse was blowing up lorries. Dejected, staring into my lap I had nothing else to do than become aware that my fingers still stunk of sulphur and I began to imagine that my hair smelt of smoke, It didn’t, It was just guilt pouring out of my follicles. It was obvious that saying I was nowhere near Bush Fair and I don’t know anything about it was not going to work.

A Policeman had been given a chair to pull up to the right of my mum almost opposite me whilst the other perched on the sofa next to me again to my right.

“Now Steven, (Only my dad calls me Steven, this is horrible) do you know anything about a lorry being set light to in Bush Fair this afternoon?”

I was taken aback, he’s talking to me already, I expected them to give my parents a synopsis before turning to me but now they were learning this first hand, as it unfolded.
I didn’t know what to say, I couldn’t bear the thought of the words needed to admit it, forming in my mind, the air vibrating around my vocal chords and the resonance of my mouth adding weight to the admission. It seemed such hard work, it seemed such a hill to climb, it was the very last thing I ever wanted to say in my life.

“Steven, answer the Policeman!” my dad barked, it made me jump and momentarily I was forced to look at his angry face, I returned to staring at my lap.

There was a long pause and then I mumbled something very quietly.

Can you speak up? The Policeman asked. “And look up when you are speaking” added my Dad.

I jerked up my head and after another long pause managed to finally speak.

“I was nowhere near Bush Fair, I don’t know any
thing about it.”

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