Story L

[LaurieAK]

STORY L


Living next door to Leonard Cohen

My father was never asked to join the Masons; he was never asked to join his hand in marriage to my mother either!

You see, he had no hands. He lost them serving king and country. His official duties required deft dexterity, infinite patience, perfect timing, a keen eye (two was better) and the balance of a tight rope walker. (A generous rope walker wouldn’t do)

Arriving late on that fateful morn, hurling himself (ice was in short supply) aboard the train, all thoughts were expunged by blind panic in his keen eye. His hands were smashed between the carriage doors of the royal coach, taking King George across country to Bath from Welshpool.

Despite the best efforts of the ‘on-call’ hand stitchist, his hands were doomed to travel for ever, between Welshpool and Bath, stopping at all stations in between.

Did this tragedy divert father’s sense of duty in the hour of his country’s need? Too bloody true it did. He was a waiter, third class, acting-up, and temporary-tea-stirrer to the Crown.

The effect upon his on-line managers at this terrible time, was immediate. They took him to one side, and gently holding the stump of his left hand, bollocked him for dribbling blood on the new Axedminister carpet in the carriage. Shocked to the core of his being, (a tricky manoeuvre for a man with no philosophical training) he remonstrated vigorously with the stump of his right hand and pointing with fingerless precision (a tricky manoeuvre for a man sans digits) at the carriage door, howled in agony at the thought (it had arrived eventually after a respunging session) of never being able to hold his fiance’s hand in holy marriage. Holy just about covered his predicament. There was a hole or two were his hands should have been.

“What am I to do?” he shrieked at his on-line managers.
“Jump!” they replied in unison. So he did.

Years later, as he bounced me on his knee (he’d lost the other one in a strangely similar accident) he regaled me with his tale of loss and new found ability to survive numerous train evacuations, and shoving both stumps into my face, cured my chronic constipation.

The post war years were empty ones for father. Wandering aimlessly around local archery clubs and darts teams, but never giving up hope of one day being able to stand tall, proud, erect, and in receipt of his rightful dues. (a tricky manoeuvre for a short, depressive, bow-legged waster)

Suddenly, over a period of weeks and months, he discovered he could keep time to the steady beat of the drumming, which came from the house next door. Bump, bump, bump, etc., shuddered the walls and floors of his post-war, prefabricated home. At last father had a ‘calling’ and his life was no longer as empty as the Queen’s purse.

Fame, stardom, celebrity, all awaited him in that order. “Shut that bloody racket up,” “It’s two o’clock in the freakin’ morning,” “Give it a rest,” also showered down on him from other neighbours, in that order. Being without daunts, he persevered in perfecting temporal machinations, sans hands. Slamming the battered, withered, deformed, and yet, strangely beautiful stumps, down onto the kitchen table, mastering the arts of time-keeping, obliterating kitchen tables and upsetting mother.

Our neighbour was a night-owl, who was something to do with the ‘music, writing, reading, talking, wooing’, but not mathematics, ‘industry’. He’d heard father’s stumping over a period of weeks and months, luckily, these being the same weeks and months that foresaw my father’s great ‘bumping’ discovery. Alas, it was not to be the ‘bumping’ mother ached for. She was the sixth of a family of four and it was her parents’ similar lack of mathematical expertise, which saved her from early starvation. She was a shy woman who didn’t suffer fools gladly. She just cringed in their presence. However, she took readily to our neighbour, often taking him sandwiches of tripe and mayonnaise in the wee small hours, “to help his creative juices.”

The opportunity to prepare succulent, exotic sandwiches was a godsend for mother, who could never persuade father to eat them properly. She developed a psychosis about father’s failure to eat sandwiches, leaving her with no alternative but to give him spaghetti instead. She wasn’t the quickest ‘fly-on-the-wall’.

Time passed (unusually for that era) and father was asked to provide the bumps, for our neighbour’s emerging, musical, canon. (A sight not seen since Errol Flynn, apparently)

Practice took place during daylight hours, to allow for the full benefit of using father’s keen eye. (The other one couldn’t give a shit) Singing hearsals were held late into the night, as mother plied our neighbour with massive doses of vitamins to improve his memory. She said he needed all the ‘bottle’ she could give him. Eventually, her ‘unorthodox’ treatment succeeded (she’d always been a non-conformist) and at long last they could move on to reheasals.

A European tour was mooted (v.tr.) and our neighbour was desperate to appear in Greece again. (Insisting he was bigger in greece than anywhere, but his case had been dropped by the prosecution) Plans were drawn up, but A4 sized pictorial representations of Hampton Court Palace, were of no use at all. So we set to, or even three, no, I tell a lie, it was definitely four, and venues were booked late into the night with much excitement, according to mother.

The first night arrived and father strode, proud, tall (and nothing else!) onto the massive stage. “Friends, and good people of Hydra, may I present to you……..bugger, I don’t know his bloody name.”

It’s true, father had been living next door to Leonard Cohen for years and didn’t know who he was. Mother sat in the wings, cringing again, and left my father that night. He never knew why. He was useless as ‘flies-on-the-wall’ go, and as ‘flies-on-the-wall’ go, he went.

[Fljotsdale]

This has to be Byron, surely!

[mickey_one]

This has to be Byron, surely!

beyond reasonable doubt this is Byron, (as he would have said back in his old lawyer days.) Case proved. Guilty. Byron you have 7 days to pay the fine for writing this.

michael

ps well done!

[Byron]

Ok, I hold my hands up. Yes, I've still got them.



Bugger...........


too bloody predictable......

[Diane]

Byron, your style is inimitable. (I do so like that word, 'inimitable'. One doesn't often get to slip it into conversation.)

[Byron]

Thank you. I had to get me dictionary to check its proper meaning. A jar of honey for Diane.

At least Nellie King gave me a bit of practice to be too obvious.

[Byron]

Just too, too, obvious.

See A, D, F, H, for more.

And don't forget Nellie.

I got a real buzz writing these. It was good therapy for me. It kept me out of trouble as well.

[Byron]

The finished 'articles' arrived after some very intense input from my best friend.
"Explain that to me!! "
"Why have you done that there!!? "
"What's the point of leaving that in?"

Alas, all queries concerned the stories.

But my loose ends and fraid edges were tailored by the boss.

Take a bow marg.

Thanks. XXX