The Creature

Moonlight

It started with moonlight. It shone so brightly that it woke me while the night was in full swing. I opened my eyes and waited to get sleepy again but decided instead to go to the bathroom. It was still a novelty to walk upstairs to the white tiled bathroom, which I think is beautiful, in the way hotels in foreign cities are. I had only just moved in. This was my third night’s sleep in clean sheets, in a room no longer filled with dust bunnies. Even though it was night – like I say – the moon was bright, pouring in through the windowpanes like muted floodlights. Outside was still; the days had been hot, and the grass had been scorched.

I stood on the staircase and looked out of the window on to our back garden. There was a small creature, sitting in an upright position on the lawn, peering back at me. At first, I thought it was a squirrel. Its coat was the right colour, grey and dusty looking. But my eyesight is very bad. Also, it was before dawn, so it was difficult to make out defining features. I thought the creature was too large for a squirrel. It may have been a tiny cat. I went back to bed.

Compost

Holly received plants from her parents. Lush basil, tender thyme, spindly mint which she planted in the wooden trough next to the rosemary bush. Annina re-planted the mint into pots of their own, because apparently, they hog water. Over the coming days I would don gardening gloves and rip out the vines, which were threatening the tomatoes and had already strangulated the lavender. I would also make compost from old soil, dead leaves, eggshells and used coffee grains.

We all had seeds to plant. I had shiso. A herb that’s used in Japanese cuisine, which taste a bit like basil and plum – the seed packet told me they were ‘erratic and unreliable’. Simon had unidentified seeds, which he scattered into free pots. Holly planted sunflowers.

Hole

The plants were growing exceedingly well. All this sunlight and humidity was sublime weather for a seed, it seemed. I had my morning coffee black, sat at the blue table in the garden in my string vest and shorts. The sunbeams drenched me at the start of the day, it was like being on holiday. We can all close our eyes and imagine we’re abroad – I remembered a friend saying during peak-lockdown. Then I noticed this hole in the lawn. A dusty puncture where yellow shoots of grass should have been.

Something had been digging!

I noticed a fallen flower head next to it. A white rose had been pulled apart, its petals strewn about, like feathers of a pigeon attack.

‘Oh my god it’s the squirrel.’

‘I thought you said it was a cat,’ Annina said from behind her book.

‘Whatever it is it’s digging holes.’

I totally believed it was doing this because of our stare-off at moonlight. My not reacting to its presence, probably gave it some perverse confidence to go ahead and dig up our garden.

The next day it was worse. The creature had only gone and dug up our basil plant! It had really gone to town and shifted all the soil back and forth, so that black earth covered the remaining herbs.

‘Fucking squirrel.’

I got the hoe and filled in the holes. I did not find any buried nuts in the process. I asked my surrogate mum Susan what to do. She gave me a gardener’s tip: spray diluted washing up liquid around the affected area because squirrels don’t like the taste of it, apparently. I didn’t do that.

The final straw was on a sunny Tuesday morning when I came out for my morning coffee. On the lawn, next to the original hole was a pile of shit.

‘Oh my god! Look what it’s done!’ I was abhorred.

‘This is definitely not a squirrel, or a cat’, Annina said. Of course, she was right, it was a fox.

Monster

‘At first it was a big squirrel, then a tiny cat and now it’s a fox?’ Simon laughs at me, ‘I just don’t trust your eyesight.’ I am now too offended by the chimera to care. Each day I go back to the trough and cover up the holes with more soil. Holly has been doing the same furtively, and so has Annina. We are fighting a losing battle. Twigs of rosemary are being snapped off in the fox’s digging routine, all of which I throw into my compost pot, dejected.

“If you can remove temptations or create an atmosphere that causes a fox to feel nervous about coming into your garden, you’re on the right track to stopping the digging and other problems that the fox is causing.”

My phone lights up with this message sent from Annina upstairs. She knows I am wildly plotting against this fox. I had the idea of putting chilli flakes into the hole, scattering them around the lawn, so maybe it would sting the fox, but Simon pointed out it would be a waste of good chilli flakes.

Showdown

The eve before Genevieve’s birthday the whole household had mysteriously, simultaneously, woken up in the early hours. I recollect hearing blood-curdling screeching from outside and turning over in my bed, so that the duvet gripped me uncomfortably. Caught in a daze, Annina had stopped on the way to the bathroom and was looking out of the window at the erratic movements of a fox.

‘She was running around in circles,’ she recounts bewildered. ‘I don’t think it was a dream. Going from here to there with wild energy, digging frantically. I saw her jump onto the trough and start digging again.’

‘I knew it.’

‘So, I opened the window and she stopped. We looked at each other for a while and I stared at her. Slowly, she retreated to the garage and climbed on to the roof and slinked away.’

‘Oh my god Annina. You did it. You won!’

I hoped the fox would be too disturbed to return to the garden. Maybe she would think twice, now that she knew there was someone here who was a worthy match, who wouldn’t let them get away with murdering our basil.

It was a glorious summer’s day. The air was pregnant with humidity, but the thunderclouds stayed away. Simon inflated two gold balloons in the shape of a number ‘3’ and ‘0’ and attached them to weights, so they could float freely in the garden. We all pitched-in to make Genevieve’s birthday magical, even under the restrictions. Annina commandeered the kitchen and whipped up a banquet. We had two equally complicated and delicious cakes. At the end of the night, after candles had been blown out and all the prosecco drunk, we placed the big shiny balloons on to the lawn next to the original hole.

‘I think this should work,’ I said firmly.

‘I hope so.’

‘Well surely. Anyway, you’ve done the hard part by scaring her off. The balloons are just extra.’

‘Good night.’

‘Night.’

 Epilogue: The fox has not been back since.

Packing and Moving

I am starting to pack up my room. A lovely, homely room I have lived in for about five years – on and off – I went to Japan for 6 months in between, but the room didn’t mind and welcomed me back. There are books on the shelves I never read on philosophy, sociology and political theory. They’re like standing heroes who oversaw my move in and now my move out.

Top tips for movers

·       Test your appliances, wires and devices. When you’ve been in a place for a while, you accumulate a lot of stuff, namely things that supply power to other things. It’s likely some of this tech has given up the ghost. I don’t need to take this mini-USB charger with me when the world i.e. port-sockets have moved on.

·       Close the lid. Find the lid and close all open containers and bottles you have in your possession.

·       Bags in bags. I’m a huge fan of putting small bags within slightly larger bags, and that within even larger bags. Like a Russian doll of your own stuff. I want to compartmentalise my life, to give it an ordered effect, so that I know things can’t escape and get mixed-up with the wrong things. It’s all nonsense but I want it to make sense. Sometimes it’s just about fittings things together. The end result is that it takes up less space, like this small brown leather pouch with an ipod and a wine-aerator in.

·       Get rid of old cards and vouchers.

·       There will be a lot of dust. Be prepared to sneeze.

·       If you have a massive vine – like my overgrown ivy – then unfurl it from the stand it has become attached to. Wrap itself around itself, so that it looks like a sleeping fox in a nest, then gently place it into a plastic bag for transportation.

·       No pain, no gain. Be prepared to stub your toe, scrape your arm, get splinters, etc.

·       Make sure you understand the importance of some things, in other words, “You don’t miss something until it gets smashed.” If you have a framed print you care about then wrap it in scarves.

·       Coats and bags take up the most room. Literally, they’re padding and baggage.

·       Get everything out of your drawers and pile them high on your bed, or the floor. A space where you may survey it, like a lord over his hobbits. This will allow you take stock of all you have, and give rise to discoveries like, oh I had a wad of facemasks my hygiene conscious aunt gave me in Japan – these are actually really useful in a pandemic. Thanks auntie!

·       Use bags for clothes and cases for books. It works with their shapes and consistencies.

During the move, it honestly helps to have friends cook meals for you, so that you can eat at regular intervals and not fall down with exhaustion.

Once you have arrived, hug your friends even if there are social distancing rules in place, because they are now part of your household.

Carefully unwrap the paintings, dust the floors, put the vine back on a pedestal, take a nap and then unpack.

London Wildlife

I went walking with a friend after Lockdown lifted, ever so slightly.

We met in Clapham because of the promise of a fresh gelato ice-cream. Yes. A double dark chocolate dream, but when we arrived at the front of the queue in the gelato place, it turned out my friend had eaten the last scoop the night before. So, I made do with a raspberry sorbet – still delicious and not something I could make at home, or crucially, get delivered to my door. It still counted as a pure #Lockdown experience.  

I walked with Georgia across Clapham Common where everyone was meeting again for the first time after Coronavirus hit the shores of the UK. We both stood in amazement at the park-scape. People enjoying themselves in groups, real people – not lagging behind tech, actually affecting the space surrounding one another. It was amazing.

‘This is so much better than television.’ Georgia said staring, eating her ice-cream.

‘Yeah. SO much more interesting.’

We were starved of human interaction and frozen stiff from too much screen-time. It took us a while to defrost.

The sun was bright and the common was green. It looked like paradise.

We walked through scrubby woodland in the middle of Clapham Common. There were little dens made of folded down twigs and so many wet wipes strewn across the branches. Then we ambled around to the lake to see the ducks and some geezers fishing. Rows of wildflowers had been planted on the Common, but it was mainly dandelions and they’re sort of weeds, aren’t they?

The finale was the urban heron.

A bunch of pigeons were pecking at a pile of chicken pasta salad somebody had thrown over the grass. A stealthy, very lean heron was approaching it, looking pretty awesome in an outfit David Bowie could have worn on stage. Feathery tassels, azure patterns down its razor thin neck.

A brown cocker spaniel bounded onto the scene – scattering the pigeons – screaming infants ran in the opposite direction – the heron swung its legs into the air, like when you get off a bar stool and retreated to a pond.

There were joggers, cyclists, runners, fitness pros live streaming workouts, skaters, cars, shirtless picnics, hampers: London wildlife.

Lime green things that I love that are so good

I was lucky enough to encounter three lime green things in one day. They made me smile and appreciate the colour.

When I was last in Japan my friend Saeko gave me a vacuum-packed pouch of green tea. She comes from a line of tea-farmers and the leaves were freshly cut and dried on her land. The type I believe she gave me is gyokuro, which when allowed to steep in warm water infuses it with a lime green glow. The taste is fresh and has a kick to it, like you’ve stuffed your nostrils full of mown grass.

I also had a pot of lime green raita on the table that came with an Indian takeaway. Mint cucumber yoghurt that smooths out all the crinkles of a bitter, or spicy taste. Onion bhajis are better for it and naan breads elevated.

Then a pure source of joy - as I’m stuck indoors and not allowed to go for long walks in the countryside - is the coriander. The seeds were planted months ago and now, the saplings have shot up and fallen over the sides of the pot. They look bushy and strong and emit a lime green vibe. I am into it and I am into lime green.

Additional lime green favourite: Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip ice-cream.

Lockdown London

Lockdown has not been so bad for me. I live with two brothers, both of whom tolerate my ups and downs – mainly ups to be honest, shouting at films and munching crisps and drinking wine. They let me come and intrude on their peace, which I am grateful for because it would be less entertaining living alone through isolation. Although I find I have begun to miss the oddest things during my waking hours, while in my dreams I have a very busy schedule these days, like managing a successful touring band.

During my one piece of exercise allowed per day, I began to miss King’s Cross. Not anywhere in particular but the concept of King’s Cross (the sensation of being in it.) There’s this pub I like called King Charles I which used to be more of a dive if you can imagine it - only enforcing the smoking ban about a year or ago, from what I recall. The pub has these stuffed proud-looking animals nailed to its wood panelling, like little deer and stoat, and the beers are really cheap. They put on these mad drag pub quizzes that descend into mayhem whenever we’re there, usually after a poetry and music night at Housmans, the radical booksellers down the road. The member of staff there, I think her name is Luna or Lyra, or neither, chills at the back of the shop not really into whatever’s going on on stage, but overseeing the crowd, in case they fancy buying a humanist badge, or a manifesto on something very important.

I used to work at a venue that’s changed hands many times over because they over-spent on branding and not enough on selling tickets, but it was fun and I’d get to see shows for free on my way back from flyering. I used to flyer-drop places all around King’s Cross, cafes, kebab shops, hair salons. They’d let me stick posters of comedians across their windows, which I thought was dumb because surely, you’d prefer natural light to seeing a scruffy poster every day. I traipsed over the streets with a rucksack full of A5s and poster tubes and blue tac. I would end up walking from King’s Cross through Somerstown, across the tow paths to Camden Lock and Kentish Town. I’m not a North Londoner, so I’m not sure why I feel such nostalgia for these places, or even this time of life because I was broke and living on a boat. Yet, I miss it. I miss it because it reminds me of the hubbub and what it isn’t anymore. You can’t walk from shop to pub to club. You can’t knock into people like billiard balls on a table and have awkward chit-chat.

But. That is not the whole story. Because there are some things I have done for the first time ever during isolation and these things have been good and cannot be overlooked just because they are slightly less exciting than going to the pub. No. So here they are, in no particular order:

·      Watched a MET Opera production of Sigfried from Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Phooey that’s some intense singing (4.5 hours of it) and the production value was heinously high. You can stream a show every day for free.

·      Roasted a butternut squash! I have never roasted a squash before. I had assumed that they were a legume but they’re not – they’re their own class of plant and actually a courgette is a squash, how about that? Also, what was fun was after the squash had been roasted to a pulp, it sat in the oven squeaking for a few minutes like a mouse until I took it out to film, then it shut-up.

·      Getting engrossed in a terrible overly technical low-budget film about time-travelling called Primer, which by the way, won the Sundance Festival in 2004 beating Garden State and Napoleon Dynamite to the title, which let’s admit are very Sundance-y films. I watched this bad sci-fi film and then spent the next 3 hours reading all the forums and watching a 20-minute explanation video about what happened in the film, and now I am wondering when I can watch it again, to look more closely at the wardrobe changes.

Shadows

I am interested in shadows because they are the presence of something absent, which is light. I have in my time taken some good pictures of shadows. I can’t find them right now, but they exist digitally backed-up in an archive I’ll never dig through, probably with a filename composed of a string of numbers.

The other thing about shadows is that they represent the present. (I’m talking about time this time, not light.) The reason I’ve got lots of photos of shadows (somewhere) is because I couldn’t capture them any way else. A shadow doesn’t hang about you have to either capture it, or let it go. There’s the third option of appreciating it, but then you try telling someone about a good shadow. It’s a bit like describing cloud formations to someone who wasn’t there – it looked like an elephant or the boot of Italy; its not that interesting or impressive without the morphed cloud.

This reminded me of cognitive evolution and the origins of art. When did humans start producing art? Great question – no definitive answer. Something like 300-100,000 years ago. There was this all-encompassing theory that academics called the Palaeolithic Cognitive Revolution, which occurred at this time; when homo sapiens developed tool-making techniques, started burying their dead, evolved speech and began making art.

One of the questions that jumped out at me was what on earth possesses a being to make a living breathing thing you can see into a two-dimensional image?

It’s true when I see a dog, I love them and would play with them for hours, but I would never have thought to draw one. Why would I? I can’t draw shit and I’d much rather make the most of my time with a dog. However, there are some people in society who have talent and may be able to draw the dog pretty well. Even if you had the talent, what would it really take to make that leap of inspiration: to see the dog then draw the dog… it had to happen for the first time somewhere, but how?

Another thing learnt from my archaeology and anthropology degree was that most things that survive in the archaeological record are the rarest things. Isn’t that ironic? The majority of stuff made or used by humans is lost over time because it’s either rubbish i.e. detritus (like our takeaway containers), or not important enough to keep (like the stuff in our shed.) Also, they’ve got to last! You can try and hold on to your favourite blanket, but that’ll be gone in 300 years because it’s a dirty piece of fabric. So basically, barley anything survives from 300,000 years ago.

Can you imagine? No, because it’s too darn long ago. Could a rock survive that long, maybe, if it wasn’t being bashed against another rock for 1,000 years and turned into sand. It’s kind of stupid thinking about stuff that far back, but people do and Good on ‘em! What great guys and if you want to do some extra reading go for it here and here. (Although I’ve lost the reference to whatever I’m about to say, so you can take it or leave it.)

We have some cave paintings that survive from that far back, but they were painted on the inside of deep cave systems and that’s why they’re still intact. There must have been other art made by probably not-so-good artists drawn on the outer side of rocks and carved into tree trunks. All washed away or decomposed. Like artists today who make sketches to practise, there would have been the Palaeolithic equivalent of sketching going on on organic materials.

Maybe some being saw a shadow on the sand and quickly sketched around it

TA-DA-

Could it be the first ever 2-D representation of something in the world?

Capturing a moment to record it; to possess it; when the figure who’s shadow it was moved away, was that the leap in human cognition which made it possible to create art?

Bedz on the Rye

‘It’s no time to be making plans for a holiday Ron. You should’ve done that years ago.’ Says Antoine, who is perched on a solid pine bedframe. Ron continues to stare out of the window. ‘Anyways, not at your age, there’s this virus making its rounds like the grim reaper.’

‘Don’t be so gloomy Antoine, let an old man dream.’ Ron turns around with both hands in his pockets sticking out like paws. He has small blue peepers studded in his round, pink head and wears a beige coloured sweatshirt over cream trousers. Ron is slightly blurred at the edges, but when he puts on his reading glasses to go over the accounts, he gains a certain edge like a betting clerk.

Ron runs a shop called Bedz on the Rye and he has done so for the last twenty-seven years. He bought it off his uncle when he became ill, likely asbestos - things were different then. The market was looking up, there were loads of new families moving into the area with money to splash, everyone needed a bed. Waterbeds came into fashion for a little while, nearly did his back in carrying one into the store with Larry. After that they always drained them before moving. Nowadays everyone’s about memory-foam and low bed frames, although tighter with their budget. He doesn’t make enough business these days. Ron has to keep the shop open all hours in case somebody comes in to buy; ‘Can’t miss an opportunity and can’t compete with them online retailers.’ His beds are middle-of-the-range, affordable, no frills and he’s got Larry with the van if you want it delivered to your door.

The only regular customer he gets is Antoine who works for an old people’s home. Elderly care worker is what you call them these days, and Antoine looked after his old mum before she went, so he’s a good lad, still a bit young but who isn’t when you’re over sixty. Still no plans to retire – ‘I couldn’t afford it!’ but still with an itch to get out there, to see the world. Every day he stands at the shop window looking out, watching the street, waiting for someone to come in. Ron wonders how much longer this sort of thing can go on. Every time he takes stock of his beds and mattresses, he is reminded that he hasn’t sold enough for this quarter. At least he owns the leasehold he muses, though that must be running low too, can’t quite remember or find the energy to locate the deeds.

He never married - didn’t want to - not really. There was this one lady friend he made called Veronica. Oh, she was lovely. She had this shop a few stores down selling vintage clothing and furs, she was actually older than Ron by several years, but he daren’t ask by how much, a woman must be allowed to keep her secrets. He’d buy her coffees and croissants and take them a few doors down in the mornings, chatting while she got the place ready. Veronica had these trunk suitcases that looked like they belonged in the back of a Fiat 500 and picnic hampers, which she would open up all over the shop and delicately toss mountains of shawls and silk scarves into them, pulling out little wisps, enticing customers to reach out and buy one. Those mornings were bliss. They would talk about politics and hit records, Veronica spoke about wanting to move away and start all over again; Ron felt trepidation and excitement at the possibilities that could materialise out of thin air. It was the last time he felt young.

Drizzle started falling and it got chilly standing by the door, Ron trod lightly into his back-office, switching on the overhead heater that made a faint hum. In moments like these he wished a customer would come in to make him not dwell. She did as she set out to do. It was the summer of 2005 when Veronica closed her shop forever, selling the business to a yuppie couple who transformed it into a yoga studio. She came by to sit on one of the many bright beds for sale that day and dazzled Ron as she spoke with certainty about where she was off to and what she was going to do.

‘I’ll swim in the most beautiful crystal-clear lake in the summers and be able to buy and sell as many silks as I like.’

‘You can speak Italian can you?’

‘Capisco benissimo!’ Ron raised his eyebrows impressed and besotted. ‘You must come and visit me. Will you? Yes promise.’

What would happen if he turned over the “Open” sign to say “Closed” for a week? The shop door swings open and Antoine steps in wearing a drenched raincoat with the hood pulled over his hair, holding a blue plastic bag.

‘Do you mind it’s too rainy to walk back just yet.’

‘You know something Antoine? I’m going on holiday.’

‘Oh yes, when?’

‘Right now.’ Ron looked pleased with himself and had some colour in his cheeks for once.

‘Where to?’ Rummaging in his shopping bag.

Already Ron had put on his jacket and folded his reading glasses into their case for travel, ‘To Lake Como in Italy.’

Antoine stops and looks at him like he’s loopy, ‘You can’t you know it’s been quarantined.’

‘I don’t care about that I’m going.’ And with that, Ron gave Antoine his umbrella and switched off all the electrics in his shop and swung the sign round to say “Closed”.