Robert's 18th
23 January
My son, Robert, is 18 today.
I can easily recall the moment eighteen years ago when I received a phone call from one of the Percy Street crowd, Jacinta, to tell me that Gill had gone into labour. It was late afternoon on Thursday 22 January 1981. I was working in Burnley and it had been a bright, cold day. I rang her the following morning to be told that Robert had been born and was here in the world.
I came back to Liverpool that night and went straight to the maternity hospital. I remember that there was snow piled up outside the entrance. Inside there was quite a crowd around Gill's bed. I think Jacinta was there; I remember Richard Jarman was there; I think Barbara Jones was there. Gill was obviously there and so was Robert.
Robert was given to me to hold and he was so small and puckered and vulnerable. I remember that there was a plastic name tag around his wrist (or maybe it was his ankle) and it looked so big around his tiny limb. Grace told me long ago that one of the miracles of a baby is their tiny finger nails and I remember his were perfect and pink and almost buffed in their shininess.
It has been a long haul since then but a very quick one.
Robert sensibly elected to have a night out with his mates tonight, Saturday, and to confine the main family celebrations to a meal in Nottingham so that Gill's parents could be there.
The meal went very well. I felt under-dressed but who cares really. I contributed and everything went well. Gill's mum, Valerie, was kind enough to say that it was good to have me there as it made it into a complete family event. I met Gill's brother, Pete, and his two offspring, Ben and Sally. I've not seen them for many years. Ben in now 20 and phwarr. But, as I said to Colin later, though I may observe from a distance and take a liking, I really don't want to burden myself with young men's energies any more than I really have to.
Colin is still feeling the pain of his back by the way. He keeps over-doing it. I've not heard anything from the other Colin since he posted me his photies. I was expecting at least a BITCH!! for publishing them. I've also heard from Phil who appears to be in good form.
I did healing with Margaret before I set off. We covered an enormous amount of ground. My dislike of painting when aged 6. Not because it wasn't good but because the colours always went to mud rather than being the bright colours I wanted. Margaret reminded me of the tins of powder paint and very quickly I had strong memories of the smell of those powdered paints and their big tins which were kept in the store room and the fact that it was cheap paper that we used which always buckled with the watery paint.
My ordered desire for a single memory that will form a pattern of cause and effect which I know can never exist. Because underneath every humanly imposed pattern there is a perfect chaos - which may in itself be a larger, greater pattern too subtle ever to be completely known. And yet all humans whether through science or the humanities want order and pattern. We just have to acknowledge that it is always an imperfect approximation and is the best we can do.
I also experienced how Grace was totally unaware how quick I was to read and write and count. She just thought all children were like that. Maybe because she was quick herself but overlooked because she was the fourth of four and she lived through the Great Depression and the ensuing War. I think that I was lucky because I never had the sort of pressure that more middle class parents sometimes put their children under. Some of Albert and Grace's later plans were, I am sure, conscious as they became more aware as to how clever and sensitive I am but, to begin with, I know that they just operated under gut feeling and intuition. And how right they were. Maybe I could have gone on to produce something really brilliant if I had been pushed. But at a terrible personal cost to myself and one that would have been intensely damaging.
Anyhow, I'm writing this late on Saturday evening. I've been trying not to do my NVQ portfolio and the project plan for work. The first one has been on the go for two years and must be finished by Monday; the second has been pending for six weeks and has to be in by then also. And I'm really pulling out all of those procrastinatory stops. I wish I could be mediocre and produce things rather than wanting to be brilliant all the time.
Still, I have America to look forward to.
And I know that I won't be spending lots of money when the Bolshoi opera and ballet
visit London in the summer. What a dull season but a tremendous saving in the cost
of tickets. 