She was comforted by the lives he had touched, by the people he brought joy to. She was glad of the chance he got to live that his baby sister did not have. She was comforted that he would live on in the lives he had touched, in the music he had made. He would live on.
His baby blue sister was erased the moment she emerged from the womb. Erased and forgotten. She touched no one. No lives were touched, except with grief, which David healed and they forgot, baby born blue, six feet deep.
London, 1939
She told everyone I’d likely died and they all said what a shame it was. Shame, shame, shame.
London, 1930s/1940s
Goblin and Devil, Mac and Stevie. We played in our street, we made up stories, we made up plays. Da died in the war. Ma died in our home, bombed out. David and I went to the sea.
London, 1930s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s…
The Crazy Pigeon Woman of Amen Court flew home to her family, held by the pigeons’ beaks clamped shut on her clothes. She flew and flew and flew until she was gone.
Goblin-runt moved in and became the Crazy Pigeon Girl of Amen Court. She learned taxidermy, she fed the baby pigeons and they followed her here and there and they slept in her hair. The local kids spat at her but she didn’t care because she knew they’d get eaten by the lizard people down below. The Crazy Pigeon Girl of Amen Court lived out her days happy and content.
Prison, 1967
My legs buckled and I fell. He had me by the throat. He squeezed. I looked directly into his eyes, glad that someone was finally pushing me down that rabbit hole. Soon I’d be six feet under. Soon the mistake would be erased. But not my mistakes. There was nothing I could do about that now. I couldn’t rewrite the story.
I let go, my breath gone.
The In-Between Realm
Goblin: a mischievous ugly dwarf-like creature of folklore.
Doesn’t exist. A fairy tale.
Venice, 1972
I took the boat out to the Bone Island. I had several bottles of wine. I was knocking one back, rowing, knocking it back, rowing… drinking, drinking, drinking… the sun was high in the sky and my cheeks burned with booze and heat. Chattering and laughing and greeting the dead I leapt from the boat, hoisted out my bottles of wine and clambered ignominiously over the wall, falling, scrabbling, smashing a bottle of wine, saving the others and spraining an ankle. I licked the sweet red wine that dripped from the wall, spattered like blood. I surveyed the land, disappointed to see bushes sprouting up here and there and there and here and where are the bones? I left my treasures by the wall, holding one bottle by the neck, staggering across the uneven ground, pushing at the bushes, peering between the branches and leaves. I found bones; the bleached, the forgotten, the poor, the nobodies. ‘You didn’t count,’ I said. ‘You meant nothing, you are nothing, and I join you and I toast to that!’ I took up a bone, wielding it like a weapon, knocking back the wine, dizzy with booze and sun and suicidal elation. ‘My weary bones,’ I laughed. ‘My weary bones shall rest with the dispossessed. Will you drink to that?’ I sprinkled the wine across this bleached bulbous land. ‘Drink this, my blood,’ I said, and fell back, burrowing into the bones, marking my space amongst the dead, baking in the sun. ‘Drink this, my blood,’ I mumbled. I had a blade with me, hanging around my neck on a silver chain, but I was tired, I was worn out. All I wanted was sleep and I slept, for surely I would die in this heat. Surely these bones would pull me down and down and down. My rotten flesh would feed these plants and I would be gone, disappeared, swallowed up. ‘I am well,’ I said, sinking into sleep. ‘And I hope you are too.’
I swayed, gently. I woke and I puked. Someone tried to guide me, guide me to the edge, but I was still sick on myself and in the boat, the rest spewing out into the lagoon. I leaned over the edge watching the little fish hoover up my vomit. I swayed and swayed and I was sick and sick.
Hollowed out, I fell back into the boat, lying on the bottom, laughing.
‘Feeding the fish,’ I said. ‘Feeding the fish.’
A hand gripped my face, clasped around my jaw.
‘Get up. Sit up.’
I sat up, trying to focus.
‘Drink,’ they said. ‘You’re dehydrated. Drink.’
I took the bottle of water from them and knocked it back like it was wine.
The night after the Bone Island and feeding the fishes, I went out drinking with Juliana and her friends, laughing and dancing, ignoring my throbbing ankle. I passed out in the bar and woke up in my flat. I woke to the smell of burning. I pulled myself up, blinking into the smoke. I would rather drown, but this would do. I leaned back, waiting.
‘You’re not Catholic.’
‘Who’s there?’
Was this murder? Did someone want me dead?
‘It’s me, you idiot. It’s always me, picking up the pieces.’
I looked over and saw Juliana, rummaging through papers, burning my things. She’d found my scraps, my fantasies, my what-ifs. I watched as her anger sent everything up in flames, dropping them into one of my cooking pots. Monty was whining, the cats scratched at the door.
‘What are you doing? They don’t like the smoke, you’re upsetting them.’
‘You’re not fucking Catholic,’ she said. ‘You’re not a martyr.’
I was weak, but I struggled up, opened the door for Monty and the cats to get into the sitting room. I lurched back and fell into bed.
‘What are you burning?’
‘You’re not a slave to this pathetic self-hate. You need help.’
‘You need help,’ I said, curling up into a foetal position, pulling the covers up to my chin. ‘You’re burning my things.’
‘What does it all mean to you? Tell me.’
‘Fuck you.’
‘Don’t be a victim of your mother’s hate,’ she said, waving a sheet of my writing at me. ‘She’s gone and you’re here with me in Venice. This is our life. You’re an adult, not a Goblin-runt baby blue.’
‘I tried to kill myself.’
‘I know,’ said Juliana, setting the paper alight. ‘I know.’
‘You know?’
‘Giorgio told me he pulled you out of the canal. I’ve never seen him so angry.’
‘Gio? I didn’t recognise him.’
‘He wouldn’t let up on it. Every time I saw him.’
‘You knew?’
‘I knew.’
‘Okay.’
‘I assured him I was taking care of you,’ she said, her face lost in a haze of smoke. ‘That you were coming out of it.’
‘It explains why he’s been such a sullen bastard recently,’ I said.
‘Do you know how many people have died in those canals? Too many. And who wants to die there? In all that silt and dirt and tourist garbage?’
‘No one,’ I said.
‘No one,’ she said, holding her hand up to the flames, feeling the warmth.
‘Me,’ I said.
‘No one,’ she said, putting more paper into the pot.
‘There’s nothing wrong with suicide.’
‘Are we getting philosophical now?’
‘No. Maybe… If I lost you I would happily drown in the silt and the dirt and the tourist garbage.’
‘That’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me,’ she said, her lips curling into a half-smile.