My dad takes me to a huge window to look at the planes on the tarmac. I’m finding waiting difficult. My body won’t let me wait. Each movement is a chance to challenge my body. Why walk when you can RUN, when you can JUMP!  My legs feel fast. Fastest ever.  It is the second time we have visited the window. 

One of those planes will take us to Barbados.

The noses of the planes are painted black like dog noses.

We are at Heathrow Airport.

Our plane is being delayed by 8 hours because of engine problems. British Airways only has four 747s in 1978. We are getting on one of them. These days, they wheel another 747 in front of you like a dessert trolly.

In 1978 they have to fix planes on the spot. I’ve spoken to BA pilots and in the late ’70s, the planes were unreliable. On trips to Barbados, they strapped extra engines under the wing, as a spare. Imagine that, seeing a 747 in the sky with 5 engines. You’d think you were hallucinating and had drunk too much hot cheese.

To me, eight hours in an airport is like eight days. Gloria and Dad have already let me open the presents that they saved for my birthday later in the week.

Can I open it now?

Yes!

They have presents for my sister too. We were never short of presents growing up.

8 hours. 8 Months, 8 Years.

I unwrap the biggest present. It is a coffee table book. It is a book about Hollywood horror films.  I had read and loved Fungus the Bogeyman, this must be the next book up in the series. It has hundreds of pages.

I open the book and a hand comes out and grabs my throat. The book is full of gruesome black and white photographs, burning waxwork figures with faces dripping off, severed hands that crawl along the ground, lizard monsters that walk into swamps carrying unconscious victims. Each page is a delight to me. Cat people! A cyclops! Monstrous mouths! People are being chased, eaten, kissed and killed! Werewolves! Men in capes with their hands round throats. I LOVE IT.

Ten minutes pass and I am done with it. They hand me the next present.

I unwrap an Etcha Sketch (442/9382) that lets me write on it and then erase everything I wrote. Thea gets one too. I kneel and begin to draw, and I transfer the energy in me to the slate. I draw a whirlwind. A figure of 8 that gets smaller and smaller and smaller. I erase it and draw the whole thing all over again. Then again, and again.  I takes hours.

I wonder now what I was trying to say.

It’s like a tornado, Thea says.

I don’t know what one is.

It’s a huge wind that picks people up and puts them down somewhere else.

It’s a good answer.

I draw more tornadoes. I am obsessed. I am trying to express something.

Now it seems obvious what I was doing. I was teaching myself to write. I was getting ready for the next paragraph.

Pig in Pig Sauce

Can't think words forward slap ink on ink, pig slap paste and sauce
words twister to work shimmer up the escalator
past the clerk learning his boss's language

to quirk and shimmer to the office door
shintery knot wood
the boss is tricking in his tar car
nice on leather, black and slinky
shower moves through traffic
heavy consuming highway
stones in his spine
from the towel to the drawer
from the tie to the case
to the kiss on the face
his hair is dropping out
indigestion from the speed

coffee from the cup
his ever-lasting meat sandwiches

belch fumes
neurotic flared nostril and a

bulging brain vein.

mathematically cared for plants

with well-polished leaves.
case slapped on desk
red power leather like pork
pig in pig Sauce
tar in the car park.

secretary saw

an eyeful of leg

the busted hair

the snare, the butane

the look man

mr corax

is in business

whose hair is rotting

slaps his name on a page

slaps his wife in the face

slaps his arse to go faster

first client, deprecating-self

a buffoon and paranoid as a fly

licking pig in pig sauce

will the smell of rotting fruit ever go

Or the snow on his shoulders

report

report

plan for new total control

roll on roll ferries

slap this

at the cranberry arms

pig in pig sauce

time for divorce

That is what my brain does. It mashes all things up into its own language. Here is a direct translation of those 53 lines in simple prose.

my mother is screaming

she is on the living room floor

my father is on top of her

he is pulling at her handbag

round her neck

trying to take it from her

 head pulls up forward like a horse

being yanked back at the end

of a race.

I scream when I see her.

I see myself

running out of the living room

into the hall.

I am looking for someone

I don’t know who

my sister

the au pair?

anyone.

my mother leaves the house

my mother leaves my life

my father changes the locks

I never see her in

the house

again.

The four engines of the 747 build an unstoppable force. The fifth hangs there. We thunder along the runway. I lift in my seat. I look at Gloria and Dad and Thea in absolute wonder. We’re all smiling.

We’re flying!

My dad is sitting next to me.

I look down at the ground falling away and pass out with tiredness.

When I wake, we are already halfway there. There is a sea of milk when I look out the window. A hostess comes round and hands me a pair of headphones. I have never seen headphones before, and my Dad shows me how they fit into the armrest, next to the ashtray. The ashtray is about the size of a matchbox. It opens and closes with a metal lid. By the time we land my ashtray is as full of cigarettes as my father’s as he leans over and crunches them out.

A hostess in a white blouse walks past. She has crystal blue eyes like my French grandmother. She stops.  She smiles at me and my heart lights up. She hands Thea and me large pencil cases. Close inspection reveals that we are now members of the Junior Jet Club!  There is a blue passport that says something on the front that I can't read, and there is a cool metal winged badge!

Whaaa!!

You can both go and visit the captain if you like, so he can sign your logbook.

I don’t want the plane ever to land. The wingtips bounce up and down on the sea of milk. Our hostess delivers our food in neat boxes - Roast Beef or Roast Fish! We eat. It gets taken away. The lights go down and a project comes down and the plane has turned into a cinema. Thrilling.

I kneel on my seat to catch the film over the other people’s heads. I am at the limit of the headphone cable.

The film on the projector is the ‘Bermuda Triangle’. Ships appear and ships disappear. Atlantean ruins fall on divers. Thrilling. A strange doll from a ship that disappeared 100 years ago floats on the water. Thrilling. A plane crashes.

They shouldn’t show that says, Gloria.

We’re going to fly through the Bermuda triangle, my dad says.

Whaaaa!!!

I look at Gloria.  She is as beautiful as the hostess. She has the same blond hair. The same white shirt being pulled apart at the top because of her bosom.

The hostess comes back and takes us by the hand and leads us into the dark. We can feel the vibration of the engines through the soles of our feet. My eyes explore. Never have I seen this many people sleeping. The door of the cabin opens and ushered into full daylight. We’ve walked out of the night and straight into the next day. Our eyes adjust. We’re surrounded by beautiful lines and numbers and dials and buttons and levers in every conceivable inch that one can be fitted.  Above all these intricate workings, through the cockpit window are mountains of cloud. Tingles. I can’t stop staring. So as not to break the spell. The captain speaks quietly.

Hello young lady. Hello young man.

We smash through a cloud.

Whaaa!!!!

I fidget in myself. It is all a bit too much.

What’s that I ask?

An instrument with Orange LED numbers has caught my eye. The numbers change every few seconds. I point to it.

That’s an odometer. Those numbers are miles. Every six seconds we pass another mile.

The numbers have become dazzling to me.

Do you want me to sign those?

He points at our Logbooks.

They would captain. Says the Hostess. They are the newest members of the Junior Jet club.

Well, why didn’t you tell me?

The captain salutes us and signs.

He hands us the books.

You haven’t asked if we are nearly there yet.

Are we nearly there, asks Thea?

When that number reaches 4,188 you will be there.

Are we going through the Bermuda triangle?

He looks at me.

Want us to make a detour? We can if you like.

You’re the captain now.

He then takes the controls and nudges them and the plane tilts.

Waaaa!

The Navigator laughs. The captain laughs. The hostess laughs. The co-pilot laughs.

I am unable to speak.

We land at night. I can feel bumps on the runway. The tarmac is lit by bright orange phosphorous lights. We walk towards the terminal like rich ants following a pheromone trail, antennae swishing backwards and forwards, tasting the air. Other than the heat that hits you like you are entering a department store, there is an overpowering smell of wet foliage.

The hotel we stay in has adjoining rooms. The carpet is olive green. The rest of the room is white. Thea and I have our own room. Gloria and Dad, the next one.

The next morning, we explore.

Our rooms open onto the beach. You all know this beach. It is pristine. The opposite of a tyre warehouse.

I see a flying fish. My mouth drops open. A fish with wings! Whaaaaa!

We walk as a family along the beach and we see a crowd around a man. He is lying on his back with his foot in the air.  I wonder if he is having trouble getting up after having fallen over. Two black spines are poking out of his heel. He has stood on a Sea Urchin. A waiter from the hotel in uniform is removing them with swift and expert tugs. Vinegar is used to clean the wounds and melted wax used to fill the puncture holes.

I investigate the sea, and notice there are urchins everywhere! I squint to see them better. The spines are taller than an action man. I am relieved when I see the hotel pool has no sea urchins.

A flying fish lands on my plate at lunchtime covered in breadcrumbs. It isn’t a fish finger. I look at it. It is weird to have a fish finger shaped like a fish. It feels wrong. I try it.

It tastes like Fish fingers!

Gloria lets out a huge breath.

When my mother left and Gloria arrived, I refused to eat.

What food do you like? I can cook you anything.

I liked eating Spanish Tortilla. My mum made the most delicious Tortilla. She would chip the potatoes into tiny squares and then fry them until golden. I can hear the clack of the fork as she whisks the eggs. Then she would mix them up together and fry them all in a black frying pan and then flip it over.  I asked Gloria for an omelette.

An omelette arrives, and it isn’t the same Omelette at all. It is a plain omelette. The eggs are over-cooked and have a blue tinge. I hate her for the omelette with all the hate I have. I tell her it isn’t the same. I don’t eat more than a mouthful.

I get thinner and thinner. Gloria begins begging me to eat, but I can’t eat because I feel soul sick. My father doesn’t get involved.

No one mentions my mother at all. No one sits down and explains anything at all. She is blanked out. I blank her out. At some point, something inside realises she isn’t coming back, but it never becomes a conscious thought.

Over the next weeks, Gloria finds a chink in my armour.

I will eat a soft-boiled egg with soldiers. Each day, she encourages me to eat two, with thickly buttered bread, even though I am not hungry I eat them. The link between hunger and food is broken.

Trying new foods is a tiny act of optimism. Things might be okay.

Gloria might be okay.

At my heaviest, I have weighed 21 stone.

Food and people. People and food. Did you know that the word ‘Company’, comes from the Latin COM PANI – Literally With-Bread! People and food. Food and People. Together. One. Makes me think of the last supper, remembering someone with bread. Maybe it comes from breastfeeding.

Sometimes, the number of stones you are overweight is a measure of your loneliness.

After lunch, Thea and I walk around the hotel and explore. She holds my hand. I love my sister. We end up sitting at a bar on red stools. A black waiter asks if we want Shirley Temples. We look at each other.

It is a cocktail!

Like Dad!

We nod together.

Yes, we do want Shirley Temples. Shirley Temples. He hands them over. The waiter goes to the back of the bar, puts on a record and twists a dial. There is a crackle in the air.

Now Dis Momen will beh perfeck!

Now you both are Shirley Temple!

Shirley Temple begins to sing Good Ship Lollypop. My sister does a kind of hand jive that she learnt from Grease.

We sip our drinks. They are the most delicious things we have ever tasted.

It is about as different to having small bits of chicken pushed into your mouth as you can get.

On the second day, we get taken on a Pirate Ship. It is a gigantic pirate galleon with huge red sails with a cross on it and a propeller engine. The ship is called the Jolly Roger. It sails around the bay. It stops. A plank gets pushed over the edge. The crew makes the passengers walk the plank. I am too frightened to jump. I stay sitting on Gloria’s lap. She also refuses to walk the plank. The person who took our tickets told her that Barracudas are attracted to silver bikinis. Gloria is wearing a silver bikini. It is like she is covered in a few coins.  She does not wish to be attacked by a school of sharp-tooth barracudas. She hangs out with me drinking Rum Punch and holding my father’s Rothmans.

My father walks the plank holding my sister’s hand and a huge cheer goes up from the crew and passengers.

More Rum Punch. Drunk Legs. Sea Legs. As we go down the galley plank to leave the boat, Gloria stumbles but is caught by a crew member just in time.  His bandana falls into the water. I look down to see children swimming in the water. Passengers are throwing coins into the water, and they dive to collect them. They are the happiest beggars I have ever seen.

When we get back to our hotel room, Gloria has a shower. She comes out of the shower in a huge white robe. She lies on the bed.

I can still feel the sea. Make it stop.

Gloria crashes out.

My Dad goes to the bar, and Thea goes with him to get us Shirley Temples.

It is me and Gloria.

I close the outside shutters as best I can. I close the glass patio doors and pull the inner curtains shut. I need darkness for what I am about to do next. I go to my adjoining room and get one of the toys that was given to me the day before. It is a large plastic gun which emits a burst of light. It comes with an electronic target range. (445/2830). Hit the target with the beam and the whole target lights up and makes a simple electronic melody. It takes six huge batteries to make it work. The gun takes two big batteries too, and I can feel the weight of it on my wrists as I tilt it and in my small hand it behaves like a real Magnum 45.

The game works best in the dark.

I go around the room and place the target in various places. I must have got tired of that for the next thing I remember is staring at Gloria asleep on the bed. She is on her side, with one leg raised up on the other. Her toes are painted red. I follow the line of her leg. It is long and it shines in its own smoothness, her thigh which disappears into the white terry towelling robe. The top of her robe has spilt open revealing her large breasts. These I am not interested in. What interests me is in between her legs. I see a dark patch of hair. I climb onto the bed and tilt my head to see what is there. I move so that my eyes are only a few inches away. I have to SEE!

Suddenly, the room flooded with Caribbean sunset light. My father is back in the room.

CHRISTOPHER! What the Hell are you doing?!!!

Thea is back in the room watching.

Gloria is now awake. She pulls her robe together and bunches her legs to her chest.

Mike!!! What was he doing?

I drop my chin to my chest and look at the ground.

I have done something appalling. Inside I crumple. I run into the other room.

CHRISTOPHER.  Get to your ROOM.

Too late. I’m already there.

They all know what I was doing.

I go to my room. I go to bed. I fall asleep.

When I wake up, they forget what I have done.

Yet inside there is a seed of shame.

We went on the Jolly Roger again, but this time it ended in tears as Gloria said a member of the crew had tried to kiss her. We drank more Shirley Temples and watched Limbo Dancing after dinner. Gloria and Dad made friends. With one couple they were inseparable. They were the managers of someone called Acker Bilk. I can remember them both standing by the side of the pool. The man had red shorts and his hands are on his hips. I run up to him and push him with all my might. He falls,  and because it was the shallow end he breaks his ankle.

That afternoon my father went to the hotel shop and bought the most gigantic piece of coral, the size of a fireplace. He had it delivered to their friend’s room with a note apologising for ruining their holiday.

The next day I saw the man with his leg in a thick plaster of Paris cast, and his foot resting on a chair like a pipe. His pink toes were poking out the top.

I am sorry.

He was kind to me and smiled and said he would be better very soon.

I have brittle bones he said.

Getting old, said his wife.

Did you like the coral my father asked?

We love it.

But.

We can’t fit it into our flat.

My father is understanding, but it is annoying to him.

My father organised for it to be shipped to our house in Richmond instead.

It arrives four months later, and when we opened the packing case, the whole thing had shattered into pieces none bigger than three inches.

Did it sail back through the Bermuda Triangle I ask Gloria?

Must have done.

They dump all of it in the bin outside. The bin now has the Bermuda triangle in it.