Tag Archives: death

Taboo

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“The only part of conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part, which merely concerns himself, his

independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.” (J S Mill in his essay “On Liberty”).

 

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I still can’t believe that my 2 oldest friends, John and Fiona are gone, there lives snuffed out in an instant. It made the local news on the BBC. The police are still questioning the lorry driver but it seems that he fell asleep at the wheel and hit my friend’s car. Only yesterday we where enjoying dinner in our favourite restaurant and now they are gone.

“You don’t need to start straight away. Why not leave it a few days before going through John and Fiona’s things darling” my wife said putting her arms around my neck.

“No sweetheart I need to feel that I’m doing something. I can’t just sit here. It will have to be done and I’d rather get it over with”.

I ought to explain that besides being their oldest friend I was appointed as one of John and Fiona’s executors along with Bob Marshal. I haven’t been able to get hold of Bob so I may as well get things moving.

Is this what we are reduced to in death? A myriad personal effects, two wardrobes bulging with clothes and one small filing cabinet which looks as though it was purchased from a catalogue shop. Oh god the bed sheets are all tangled up as though from love making. My old friends I hope your last night was spent in blissful passion. I must get out of the bedroom. I can’t deal with this right now. The living room I’ll start there.

I took that photograph, the one on the mantelpiece. Fiona pushing my daughter, Matilda on the swing while Matilda smiles that smile that could melt the coldest of hearts. John is looking on with a huge grin on his face. To think we’ll never be together again, no more laughter. I haven’t had the heart to call Matilda at university. Its almost exam time and the news will devastate her. She was so fond of Fiona and John, I’ll wait until the examinations are over and tell her then.

How alike John and Fiona seem in that picture. Brown hair, those hazel eyes, even the same delicate little nose. People always commented on their similarity. They must have got sick of all the comments but neither of them ever showed any outward sign of irritation with the nosy parkers who felt that they had the right to interfere in their lives.

“Its just one of life’s little coincidences” John and Fiona would reply smilingly in response to comments about how alike they looked.

Poor Matilda she will be heart broken when I tell her. John and Fiona treated her as though she was their own daughter. Fiona’s face is alight with joy as she pushes Matilda on that swing. I can’t understand why they never had children of their own. John and Fiona would have made wonderful parents, you can see how Matilda adores them, just look at her face in the photograph. I once asked Fiona whether she and John had considered having children.

“I love children Martin but bringing a life into the world is such a massive responsibility”.

“But Fiona there are lots of parents who don’t care about their children. You and John would make much better parents than many of the people who treat their children like possessions. You both have a real feeling for children. Matilda adores you both. She is always asking when she can go and visit uncle John and auntie Fiona”.

“There are genetic reasons Martin. I don’t want to talk about them. I don’t mean to be rude but as my oldest friend I’m sure that you will respect our reasons for not wishing to discuss having children”.

I was a little taken back by Fiona’s somewhat brusque response, however not wishing to sour a friendship which meant so much I agreed never to raise the subject again.

Looking back at our friendship Fiona and John adroitly changed the subject whenever the topic of their families was raised.

“We where both born under gooseberry bushes” they would say laughing uproariously whenever anyone asked about their parents.

“But seriously, Fiona/John I’ve known you both for 15 years but I know nothing about your families. I’ve never met any of your relations”.

“The stalk left us both under the gooseberry bush” they would both answer in unison their bodies convulsing with laughter.

Well looking at photographs won’t achieve anything. Lets take a look in that filing cabinet. Typical sloppy John and Fiona, the key is in the lock. Now what is the point of having a lockable filing cabinet if you leave the key in the lock?!

Not much here. A few bills, two passports and a photograph album. Martin you are here to go through papers not to look through old photos. But a quick flip through won’t take up much time will it? No of course it won’t, I’ll just have a brief look and then get on with sorting through that folder of papers that I found lying under the album.

That lady looks just like John. Hold on she looks like both of them. The same features, the self-same brown hair and hazel eyes. I don’t understand, who is she? Another sibling?

Looking at pictures isn’t getting me anywhere. Lets have a look at whats in this folder. Birth certificates for Fiona and John Hamilton. Christ no wonder they shyed away from discussing their families, they are/where brother and sister.

That’s disgusting, how could they do that. Its not natural, I feel sick to the stomach when I think about it. But Martin they weren’t harming anyone. They where just two adults in a loving relationship who happened to be brother and sister. But if they had brought children into the world the kids would have had a high probability of suffering from serious disabilities, quite possibly severe mental disability. The taboo against incest is there for a very good reason. Incestuous relationships are unnatural, even animal breeders avoid breeding brother with sister because it is neither healthy nor natural to do so. They didn’t have children though. Fiona and John hinted at the reason for not having children but you like a fool where to blind to comprehend. So does the fact that they took a decision not to have children make it all OK then? I don’t know. My gut reaction is one of revulsion, its not normal, they must have been sick to do what they did. But they where good to you and Matilda. They genuinely loved your daughter and Matilda loved them to bits. What will Matilda say when I tell her? I can’t tell her or anyone else, why drag the reputation of a sweet harmless couple through the dirt when they are dead? But they weren’t sweet and harmless, John and Fiona broke not only the law of the land, they breeched that most ancient of taboos, the prohibition against sleeping with your closest relatives. Would you have reported them if you had discovered their secret while John and Fiona where still both living? Yes. No. I don’t know. They where my dear, dear friends. John and Fiona never hurt anyone. What they did turns my stomach but they did no harm to anyone. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Ah that’s what I’m looking for, the electric shredder. In go the photographs and the birth certificates. That’s it all over now.

 

The end

A Forsaken Garden By A C Swinburne

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I first came across Swinburne’s “A Forsaken Garden” while listening to BBC Radio 4’s Poetry Please! It is one of those poems to which I return frequently and lines from which pop unbidden into my head

 

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In a coign of the cliff between lowland and highland,

At the sea-down’s edge between windward and lee,

Walled round with rocks as an inland island,

The ghost of a garden fronts the sea.

A girdle of brushwood and thorn encloses

The steep square slope of the blossomless bed

Where the weeds that grew green from the graves of its roses

Now lie dead.

 

The fields fall southward, abrupt and broken,

To the low last edge of the long lone land.

If a step should sound or a word be spoken,

Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest’s hand ?

So long have the grey bare walks lain guestless,

Through branches and briars if a man make way,

He shall find no life but the sea-wind’s restless

Night and day.

 

The dense hard passage is blind and stifled

That crawls by a track none turn to climb

To the strait waste place that the years have rifled

Of all but the thorns that are touched not of time.

The thorns he spares when the rose is taken ;

The rocks are left when he wastes the plain.

The wind that wanders, the weeds wind-shaken,

These remain.

 

Not a flower to be pressed of the foot that falls not ;

As the heart of a dead man the seed-plots are dry ;

From the thicket of thorns whence the nightingale calls not,

Could she call, there were never a rose to reply.

Over the meadows that blossom and wither

Rings but the note of a sea-bird’s song ;

Only the sun and the rain come hither

All year long.

 

The sun burns sere and the rain dishevels

One gaunt bleak blossom of scentless breath.

Only the wind here hovers and revels

In a round where life seems barren as death.

Here there was laughing of old, there was weeping,

Haply, of lovers none ever will know,

Whose eyes went seaward a hundred sleeping

Years ago.

 

Heart handfast in heart as they stood, ‘Look thither,’

Did he whisper ? ‘look forth from the flowers to the sea ;

For the foam-flowers endure when the rose-blossoms wither,

And men that love lightly may die―but we ?’

And the same wind sang and the same waves whitened,

And or ever the garden’s last petals were shed,

In the lips that had whispered, the eyes that had lightened,

Love was dead.

 

Or they loved their life through, and then went whither ?

And were one to the end―but what end who knows ?

Love deep as the sea as a rose must wither,

As the rose-red seaweed that mocks the rose.

Shall the dead take thought for the dead to love them ?

What love was ever as deep as a grave ?

They are loveless now as the grass above them

Or the wave.

 

All are at one now, roses and lovers.

Not known of the cliffs and the fields and the sea.

Not a breath of the time that has been hovers

In the air now soft with a summer to be.

Not a breath shall there sweeten the seasons hereafter

Of the flowers or the lovers that laugh now or weep,

When as they that are free now of weeping and laughter

We shall sleep.

 

Here death may deal not again for ever ;

Here change may come not till all change end.

From the graves they have made they shall rise up never,

Who have left nought living to ravage and rend.

Earth, stones, and thorns of the wild ground growing,

While the sun and the rain live, these shall be ;

Till a last wind’s breath upon all these blowing

Roll the sea.

 

Till the slow sea rise and the sheer cliff crumble,

Till terrace and meadow the deep gulfs drink,

Till the strength of the waves of the high tides humble

The fields that lessen, the rocks that shrink,

Here now in his triumph where all things falter,

Stretched out on the spoils that his own hand spread,

As a god self-slain on his own strange altar,

Death lies dead.

The Sea

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The sound of the surf, swish, swish as the great waves come and go fills my head. The tide sweeps all before it, the great waves flattening sand castles and all our human works. At first the moat fills with water but the castle still stands grand and tall against the tide’s mighty roar. Slowly walls subside the whole being taken back by the great ocean, returning to whence it came.

Standing on the cliff edge the roar fills my ears. The hypnotic sound of waves breaking and receeding is all that can be heard. The world is drowning being taken back by the great atlantic. All will eventually pass but not quite yet for slowly the tide receeds but tomorrow he will return in all his mighty glory and anger reminding us that we are mere men. Time and tide wait for no man, both keep rolling, humans attempt to run and hide but, eventually all will be brought low like the puny sand castles we built as children.

Slowly I replace the conch shell on the shelf in my living room. The sound of the clock reasserts itself and distant twittering of birds is heard.

Autumn Leaves by Charles Dickens

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Yesterday evening, lying in bed, browsing Youtube on my Ipad I came across Charles Dicken’s poem, Autumn Leaves on Youtube. I must confess to not having been aware that in addition to his novels, short stories and travel writings Dickens had, in addition written poetry. This one is well worth a listen. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ESlzcQqEFY

Epitaph On A Seeker Of Pleasure

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He lived his life like a feather, blown hither and thither forever, by the cold winds of change. Young ladies of pleasure filled his leisure with bliss and pain. He held nothing dear, no one came near, life passed him by, until with a sithe, death came and called his name.