Hallmarks of Helen
“Johnny! Can I have a roll up Johnny!”
Her voice echoed down the hall, the sincere syllables ricocheting across the walls, tap dancing down the stairs through his eardrums seamlessly, because the speech was from a ghost. The allure of her persuasive percussion trickled through his memories fleeting and diminished, forever fading like fleeting wisps of smoke folding and fading with intricacy.
“Johnny! Can I have a roll up Johnny!”
Her voice echoed down the hall, the sincere syllables ricocheting across the walls, tap dancing down the stairs through his eardrums seamlessly, because the speech was from a ghost. The allure of her persuasive percussion trickled through his memories fleeting and diminished, forever fading like fleeting wisps of smoke folding and fading with intricacy.
John Bowlingbroke lived at 19 Bentley Drive, not that the cars were special or he had a license. The ginger wandering of little feet had long since flown from his home and learned to stand and love of their own accord.
Johnny was past retirement age just, but he had barely worked for years regardless. His fatherly duties were finished and he was shell-less now, a soft vulnerable man subject to reminiscing and trying to kiss ghosts. Business was his leisure, he spent his hours whittling away at night talking to the telly and writing letters to himself, but is only ever embittered by the lack of reply. Yes Johnny spends his hours on leisure, but he always feels shortchanged.
Her. Her, Helen his wife and the mother of his children is gone now, along with his namesake and brightest and grandest achievement; his son. If he should wish to he can recall Helen’s hallmarks in an instant; her voice he has kept for company, a recording that coughs into life dripping with crippling kindness. A grandson’s bedtime storyteller, little boy blue drifted off in delight at his loving narrator as she lulled him with her lullaby, soothed into sleep as she chased the words off the page.
She to Johnny and all of whom that her gap-toothed gambler’s grin warmed could not forget her even if they had tried; succumbing to the abyss of absence that her leaving had evoked. Her memory was unconquerable, unsullied with the passing of time. Johnny willed her to fade, to reduce his ailment and allow the life-sapping wound of a life without her to recede into a more manageable dull ache. He could perhaps live and sleep easier if her face became blurred like inky tears running down a newspaper in the rain.
Johnny was past retirement age just, but he had barely worked for years regardless. His fatherly duties were finished and he was shell-less now, a soft vulnerable man subject to reminiscing and trying to kiss ghosts. Business was his leisure, he spent his hours whittling away at night talking to the telly and writing letters to himself, but is only ever embittered by the lack of reply. Yes Johnny spends his hours on leisure, but he always feels shortchanged.
Her. Her, Helen his wife and the mother of his children is gone now, along with his namesake and brightest and grandest achievement; his son. If he should wish to he can recall Helen’s hallmarks in an instant; her voice he has kept for company, a recording that coughs into life dripping with crippling kindness. A grandson’s bedtime storyteller, little boy blue drifted off in delight at his loving narrator as she lulled him with her lullaby, soothed into sleep as she chased the words off the page.
She to Johnny and all of whom that her gap-toothed gambler’s grin warmed could not forget her even if they had tried; succumbing to the abyss of absence that her leaving had evoked. Her memory was unconquerable, unsullied with the passing of time. Johnny willed her to fade, to reduce his ailment and allow the life-sapping wound of a life without her to recede into a more manageable dull ache. He could perhaps live and sleep easier if her face became blurred like inky tears running down a newspaper in the rain.
On days that were growing closer together all the time, Johnny would lay stagnant and hopeless in his bed, mountains of cider cans and half-eaten tins of cold beans. He lay and sank into his head, framed by silvery lank hair which to be kind was unkempt. He went to war with himself, and allowed his thoughts to stray into an incoherent splutter, a scrapheap of false starts.
His mind goes to war. Thoughts of her are a no-man’s land where the unrequited want and need to see or hear Helen solidly in the physical sense for a single fleeting moment, a swear or a complaint from her, anything to feel the warmth of her words against his cold dulled ears. Or some emotive evidence that he isn’t clinging to a sunken ship, that her reflection dancing through trickling streams bearing an iceberg smile of delight wasn’t just a daydream spanning the years, that he isn’t just lost at this very moment, staring into some murky puddle by the roadside. But such pretty foray into his misery is flanked, as is often the case for all of us by gratefulness.
Some old Irish song might play by chance in the pub or on the radio. Christy Moore warbles away and by his third line I am held to ransom by the past. My mind is triggered and you’re there in your armchair; resplendent in one of your many mad wooly hats that you knitted yourself, sugary tea and framed by a silhouette of smoke. Some sunny daydream where your cocksure face lined with the years that weren’t always kind to us, but were always ours.
But such shallow illusion lacks the final delivery, like an empty gun.
His mind goes to war. Thoughts of her are a no-man’s land where the unrequited want and need to see or hear Helen solidly in the physical sense for a single fleeting moment, a swear or a complaint from her, anything to feel the warmth of her words against his cold dulled ears. Or some emotive evidence that he isn’t clinging to a sunken ship, that her reflection dancing through trickling streams bearing an iceberg smile of delight wasn’t just a daydream spanning the years, that he isn’t just lost at this very moment, staring into some murky puddle by the roadside. But such pretty foray into his misery is flanked, as is often the case for all of us by gratefulness.
Some old Irish song might play by chance in the pub or on the radio. Christy Moore warbles away and by his third line I am held to ransom by the past. My mind is triggered and you’re there in your armchair; resplendent in one of your many mad wooly hats that you knitted yourself, sugary tea and framed by a silhouette of smoke. Some sunny daydream where your cocksure face lined with the years that weren’t always kind to us, but were always ours.
But such shallow illusion lacks the final delivery, like an empty gun.
But truth be told I’m glad that it is so, no hazy holiday from reality could ever create anything more than a caricature of how wonderful you were, the hallmarks of Helen.
I have a theory that I am looking for a word, one immaculately tailored phrase that would paint a picture of our summer years, and wrap you up sparkling and pretty in packaging. Because you were a gift to me from somewhere, but I can’t place whom or why gave me this gift because you’re a gift that no one wrote a card for.
I don’t want to stray into exhausted clichés by writing a caption for your image that would do you no justice. All I can say with all honesty is that I cannot compare you to any character or fairytale because you are what you are; so much better than any fiction.
So now I need to write a card for the present.
You belonged to me and I have misplaced you. Sounds so trivial, like a telly remote behind the sofa but I know you know I know.
I have a theory that I am looking for a word, one immaculately tailored phrase that would paint a picture of our summer years, and wrap you up sparkling and pretty in packaging. Because you were a gift to me from somewhere, but I can’t place whom or why gave me this gift because you’re a gift that no one wrote a card for.
I don’t want to stray into exhausted clichés by writing a caption for your image that would do you no justice. All I can say with all honesty is that I cannot compare you to any character or fairytale because you are what you are; so much better than any fiction.
So now I need to write a card for the present.
You belonged to me and I have misplaced you. Sounds so trivial, like a telly remote behind the sofa but I know you know I know.
Your coat still hangs in the hall, I can’t bring myself to hide it away on the off chance that you might need it when the weather bites. I’m not eating too well either and I know that you wouldn’t be happy about the state I’ve got myself into since you went away. You never were fond of my madcap melodramatics and I’m afraid they’re all I have left to cling to now you’re gone. Your old gold rests around my finger, but I can’t bend it into my hand’s likeness. It was worn dainty on your finger this Claddagh ring it bears your hallmarks, Helen.
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