Once we were in a café and Mum waved to say hello to someone. And you snapped and said, Hello cunt! You cunty person from the cunting past. And suddenly you got very cross and shouted Cunts! You spat and threw your cup and smashed it into a thousand pieces. You tipped the table over in the middle of the café, plates went flying as egg and chips and tea splattered the floors and walls. All the café all staring with judging and hateful eyes and you were seething and screaming for the whole café to hear:
Cunts! Don’t you know they are cunts? They are all cunts! Cunts!!
I remember being hungry as a kid. How Mum shared out a tin of beans on toast for tea. No money for the meter. You and Mum smoking roll-ups made out of fag butts. Sometimes we had no heat, no hot water. Nothing. We had this big cold city and what little we did have was ours and our own invention. But I look back now and love us. You were too young to cope, too young to be parents, too young to fend for yourselves. We three were lost cunts, my mum and dad and me. I look at a photo of us, you and Mum were teenagers. Too young to have a baby. You did not know how beautiful you were. You apologised constantly – Sorry – but you kept drinking. Sorry, you’d say, and then you let the Devil in to spoil things and then you said Sorry again and apologised to those cunts for being cunts to you. I remember the vultures and the predators, the dealers and the cunts. I remember the smell. Stale smoke and cheap lager and whisky. I don’t remember everything, I was too young, but I remember flashes: the noise and the smoke and the tinny music and how things felt dirty and ashy, chewed up and eaten up, swallowed down and pushed under. All used up. Used like cunts.
This is my message in a bottle to you now: stick some of this time in your pocket, just for us. Keep something just for yourself, Dad. Don’t give it all away. Don’t give everything to the Devil and the cunts because they are actually cunts and they cannot help themselves but use people like cunts.
Dad, as I write this, I daydream that you’re alive out there somewhere. You swam away. You vanished and disappeared. I grieve for you as though you have died, I cry, you just stopped being my dad, stopped living in your version of here and then. You are free now. You are alive in another universe. I suppose you stopped living a lie. I like to imagine you started anew, you threw the old you away and you changed your name.
They found your clothes on the beach.
The world was such hard work for you, fighting your demons, your unwanted thoughts, unwanted chaos, unwanted child, unwanted wife, unwanted everything. Constantly fighting and holding grudges and burning bridges and keeping a list of cunts. I think we’re all cunts. All of us. Me included. I kinda miss you, I miss you telling me what a cunt I am. If I could, I would tell you how I am a big and grown-up cunt now. Look at me now, I’d say, I’m a big cunt.
You are not dead – you are just far away and elsewhere, changing and ageing and growing old. How is that for you, are you a fat cunt in glasses now? Are you a grey cunt or a bald cunt?
I live alone and I look after myself now. I will be twenty-one soon. I want to be a real writer one day. I practise and write every day. Books are my friends. Dreams are my real life. Sometimes I dream of us and we are together again, me and my mum and you, Dad. We are all in that tiny flat on the 17th floor, and I wake up crying, with a pain in my chest and weight on me. I cry. As I write this, I cry. This is a letter for you, Dad, a message in a bottle that I will throw into the green sea. Wherever you are, if you read this, I am sorry and I am not sorry. I just hope you found peace and love and the best of the cunts.
With love, Wolf xx
Mrs Death: Sun Kill Son
Australia, 1978
Three people have died
and a teenage boy is missing
after their vehicle broke down
in the outback, Australia
police say the bodies of two adults
and their four-year-old son
were found south of Darwin
a search is now under way
for the thirteen-year-old boy
the bodies were found
sun-fried and torn open
police say the bodies
looked like
torn open
barbecued
bloody
sun-dried
steak tomatoes
the teenager appears
to have wandered off
in extreme weather
police suspect
the thirteen-year-old boy
murdered
and then tore
them open
and ate the
internal organs
of everyone in the car
then left the vehicle
like a fucking mental case
police are right
to be fucking concerned
because temperatures
in that region
have exceeded
fucking 45°C
in recent fucking days
fucking hell
that is fucking hot
according to Australia’s
fucking Bureau of
fucking Meteorology
that is as fucking hot
as a fucking freshly fucked fox
in a fucking bush fucking fire
confirmed fucking
Northern fucking Territory
fucking Police
fuck
Mrs Death: Mother’s Milk
Mrs Death’s recurring dream
I dream
I lie on my side
my belly is round
the baby is still in my arms
I kiss each tiny perfect finger
I feel love for the child
I want to feel it latch
on to my breast
I feel a rush of love
waves and waves of love
real and absolute love
A love I have heard
other women speak of
a love mothers boast about
a love that death will never end
I feel it
As if it is real
I understand the bond
Of mother and child
I recall the heat of life in my arms
the weight, the smell of the baby
the quiet milky light
And because
this is just a dream
the baby is laughing
and then talking
and then walking
towards me
and my time
It’s a lovely thing
alive and beautiful
curly hair
big grey eyes
just like yours
my love
forever
like Time
We name the child
breath and heart
and Wolf
and it is
Wolf
Running towards us
with outstretched arms
I see Wolf now
running towards us
alive and spirit and free
I jolt upright and
wake up to see the sun rising
the morning bright and vivid
as the love I felt in my dream
the love I still feel now as I write this
In my dream I felt love
a love that Death
could never break
a love for you
my love, my love
my love for you and
this world, this day and this
Time, this short time we share
The love I felt
in my dream
was so true
this morning
I forgive my mistake
my accidents and losses
the things that could never be
this morning for once
all is quiet inside me
There is love
as I write this
it is banging in my heart
and hurting in my chest
this l
ife is love, Life is love
Time misses Death
Time Mrs Death
calling Time, Mrs Death
Time misses
Mrs Death
Time.
Mrs Death: The Moors
the undercover policeman / had Sunblest written on his chest / as he knocked on doors / you made the tea / with grave dirt / under your nails / from the moors / you said no / try next door instead / as the copper stepped inside / again you said no / you said no no no / we don’t take Sunblest bread / we take Mothers Pride / Myra you lied and / you tore at mother’s pride / and you said Ian Brady turned your peroxide head / and after that first kill / you told us Ian made you scrub the spade / scrub that grave dirt / from the moors / then you two watched TV / and cuddled in bed / he said / young children are more likely to go with a lady for a ride in a car / you said Ian needed you / and you said you needed to be needed / so you stayed with him / and together you tore at mother’s pride / you tore / and you tear and / grab excuses / grab at straws / blame the media blame Ian Brady / for what you both did on the moors / Pauline Reade sixteen years old / vanished on her way to a disco / July 12 1963 / her body was found in 1987 / on Saddleworth Moor / John Kilbride / lured up on to the moor / sexually assaulted and murdered / by you two / you took a photograph / your lover Ian Brady posing on the edge of John’s shallow grave / holding your pet dog / Keith Bennett / just twelve years old / body never discovered / he vanished June 16 1964 / Myra and Ian told nobody / this child’s remains are hidden / so his family can never know / and lay their son to rest / Lesley Ann Downey / ten years old / murdered Boxing Day 1964 / the youngest victim / abducted from a fairground / taken to the house Myra shared with her grandmother / in Hattersley / and up in Myra’s bedroom / Lesley was sexually abused / and tortured and / forced to pose for pornographic photographs / this ordeal was recorded on audio tape / by Myra and by Ian / by you Myra / that’s you on the audio tape / it lasted sixteen minutes twenty-one seconds / for some reason I remember this one detail / the morning of your capture / you told the police / no / you said we take Mothers Pride / I remember that / cheap / white / bread.
Mrs Death and The Doctor
Nightingale Hospital, Marylebone, London
Mrs Death:
I’m feeling fine.
No, that’s not strictly true . . .
Doctor Delano:
How are you feeling?
Mrs Death:
I’ve been feeling anxious . . .
Doctor Delano:
OK, do you want to explore this?
Mrs Death:
I want to . . . but I am worrying . . . I feel anxious.
This. It isn’t normal and it isn’t safe.
Doctor Delano:
OK, take a deep breath and exhale and inhale and that’s it . . . breathe . . . breathe . . . Now let’s unpack this slowly.
Mrs Death:
Look, I don’t know why I am here. I am normal. I mean fine. The other doctor told me I am developing bipolar disorder, but I just have mood swings. I think bipolar means much more than just mood swings. I am not bipolar. My mood swings are probably just exhaustion, a hormone imbalance, anxiety, low energy, low iron, I mean, no wonder I have some depression, I admit I am Death and I am depressed and exhausted . . . After all I have seen, it is insanity that I am the sane and normal voice in here.
Doctor Delano:
You sound agitated today. Please remember, we try not to use the term normal in these sessions. I mean, what is normal? I am not normal, you are not normal, nobody is normal, not really, and as for safe, well, what harm can come from talking? Talk to me. Can you tell me more about Mrs Death, can you talk about these voices . . .
Mrs Death:
It’s not voices, Doctor, it’s real, real, real conversations, real and vivid conversations, enlightening conversations, inspirational and lengthy conversations, poems, stories, songs, connections. I really haven’t talked to anyone like this ever before.
Doctor Delano:
Of course. Conversations. OK. So tell me about these conversations you’ve been having? Who are you talking to, are you able to ask questions?
Mrs Death:
I have made friends with a human called Wolf. I’ve crossed a line . . . I speak with a mortal. Am I able to ask questions? Yes. I can ask Wolf anything, I don’t always get a straight answer but I can ask anything and . . .
Doctor Delano:
And . . . go on . . . How do these conversations make you feel? Does Wolf respond? How does Wolf respond?
Mrs Death:
Wolf listens. I know it sounds strange, I know it does, but I . . . I don’t know . . .
I don’t know where to begin . . .
Doctor Delano:
Begin at the beginning. Take a deep breath. When did this start?
Mrs Death:
At the beginning? Seriously?
Doctor Delano:
Yes, start at the beginning, the very beginning.
Mrs Death:
Well, you should know . . .
Doctor Delano:
Take your time and tell me your version of events, tell me how this began . . .
Mrs Death:
From the beginning . . .
For thousands of years I listened. A huge part of the work of being Mrs Death is all the listening that I do. Since this world began, I have heard it all: I listen to the ending, I am there for their last words and last prayers. As they let go they tell me their life stories, regrets and fears and loves. My head is filled constantly with stories of great sacrifice and great stupidity, stories of great courage and great evil, stories of bravery and kindness, greed and fury, grief and tragedy, joy and love. I alone hear all of this and I process it and keep it locked inside me and I continue my work. I am Death. In a way I am just a glorified rubbish collector. I am a cleaner. I clean. I collect the spirits up and carry all those burdens away. And lately I’ve been feeling like it is never-ending and all-consuming and all too much. I feel like we are spilling over. I’m exhausted. I’ve been feeling emotional. I know it’s just life, or rather death, but I’ve been . . . crying?
Doctor Delano:
There is nothing wrong with crying and no such thing as just life. Life can be all those things: exhausting and emotional. You are allowed to feel that strain. You really are too hard on yourself. You put yourself under so much pressure. Can you give me any examples, is there something that triggers these thoughts, is there something making you cry?
Mrs Death:
The other day – just one example – the other day, there I am sweeping through a town in Syria and I find I am in floods of tears. I stop and stand there in the rubble and debris and I wonder why, why? What the fuck am I doing here again, so soon, again? Twice in one week? And that same day I am in America, in a school for yet another mass shooting, and I am there, roaring my eyes out, clearing through, collecting all these souls of terrified dead teenagers. Then I am out in the channel, off the coast of France, collecting the murdered souls of another sunk dinghy, a make-do refugee raft filled with desperate people escaping war but being left to drown on purpose. My work has been overwhelming. So much death and war and destruction, famine and murder.
And suicide is on the rise. And deaths caused by malnutrition, poverty and austerity, poor housing and poor healthcare. We thought things would change! I remember Time and Life, the sun and moon and all the universe, well, we all laughed and thought that the twenty-first century would be an easier century. The human has evolved at an alarming rate. Can you all just stop laying eggs for five fucking minutes? Stop consuming everything? Just stop it, stop it, Life, can Life give us all some rest? Can we hit the pause button and take a piss and have a cup of tea and a nap, please?
Humans have found ways to access world communication and share intelligence, they can send medicine and ideas and solutions, they can share art and beauty, they can communicate their resolutions and solutions all with the click of a button. Yet I am as busy now
as I was in 1066. I am as busy as I was with Attila the Hun. There was once a time of language barriers and the unknown: the size of the planet was a mystery, it was tribal; the humans didn’t know how small the earth was and how connected and similar the human condition. Human tribes fought for territories, for land grabs and gold and power. And now it is the same thing, but there is the internet and Google Translate. Why aren’t they looking up the millions of words for peace and love and using this phenomenal intelligence to find cures and share solutions? I’m joking a little, and maybe I am not joking at all . . . It seems the more information and communication humans have, the more stupid they are, the more facts and tools they have, the more they get distrustful, spreading fake facts and lies and ignorance and fear until they become stupefied and closed off from their hearts. When did caring become so unfashionable?
Believe me, I love my job, don’t get me wrong: Death is the greatest honour. I am here to work with you, I am there for rebirth and for the ritual of soul and spirit crossing into my realm of Death, but I am ploughing through a flood of untimely and unnecessary and sudden and violent deaths, genocide, natural disasters, all caused by greed and destruction. And that’s just the human souls. Do you know how many miles and miles of ocean life are being killed by plastic and pollution every second? The ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising. The depleting ozone. The climate crisis. Flood and fire! I mean, I am Death but this isn’t what I signed up for! I am not here for this . . .
I am not here to destroy myself. I am not going to support the death of Death.
And don’t get me started on the idiot people accidentally dying by taking selfies. Do you know how many people die because of selfies? People are dying taking photos of their own faces and falling off the Great Wall of China or tripping over into the Grand Canyon. I am doing the work of a dozen women here . . . Sorry.
Doctor Delano:
Never apologise, I am here for this, thank you for sharing. So tell me, how does Wolf fit into all of this?
Mrs Death:
When I am with Wolf we explore and dream. Wolf sits at my desk and I tell my secrets. I have grown to trust Wolf. I have made a human friend. Wolf has been talking to me every day this winter. Wolf and me write together, we write stories and poems together. Wolf says, Hey Mrs Death, how are you today, are you alright? Who died today, do you want to talk about it? Do you want to get these feelings down on paper? Wolf says, Hey Mrs Death, do you want to talk about your experiences? Shall we write about the cigarette industry? Or the arms trade? Or fracking? Or the pharmaceutical companies? Or the oil companies? Or the manufacturers of guns? Wanna have a chat about the real monsters, the toxic greed and big corporate industries that are killing us all?
Mrs Death Misses Death Page 9
