Life with Jen

That winter, my life fell into a period of unparalleled calm, a period only comparable with the years in the Navy and those few brief, happy months spent in Reading at the beginning of the War. The Sun had shone quite brightly that September. The people I stayed with showed me, for the first time, another way. A certain kindness, even a interest, allowed wandering by the Thames, given a fishing rod, unable to forget catching that first fish, a Perch. I ran all the way 'home' with it still on the hook, too frightened to take it off.

Hackney has no kindness. Almost sixty years on the deterioration can only be described as catastrophic. The pond on the Common, no longer has its old men with their sailing boats, it is simply a slime and rubbish choked sink. The hordes of children, gone. A sea of strange faces from different lands washes quietly along the ragged, uneasy, streets. A sullen discontent pervades, sporadically breaking out in a raw rash of violence and mindlessness.

Such was the rate of her recovery; Jennifer took a job with a stockbroker in the City. For her eighteenth birthday she wanted to be taken to see the "Beatles" and "The Yellow Submarine". I went quietly, went to the Haymarket, unsure of this other me. The last film I had seen was "The Wages of Fear”.... in Adelaide, another life ago. Began to feel like a broken record, a 'Brighton Rock' playing itself over and over again, unaware that this was to be the precedent for my remaining existence, that I was never to go any way, other than through a long ellipse. Perhaps this is true for most people, the same pattern repeating itself, the only difference being the length of the radius.


On my now rare visits to 'John's Cafe'. Still in their same places, the same faces would look at me, a certain curiosity. I remained silent with my 'egg and chips' knowing they were all wanting to ask, that they were all aware my only reason for disappearing could be a woman. Certain obvious innuendoes, loud enough for me to hear. Only Bernie, lumbering off of one chair, falling heavily into the one next to me made the real attack, spluttering and stuttering 'Nah then Peter... Wots all this I 'ear'. His cigarette drooped under my nose; the long ash ready to fall either on his trousers along with the other marks and stains on his clothes, or on the floor. Wherever he sat he was always surrounded by small piles of ash.

"What's all what?" my usual parry to him. "A certain party saw you wiv a young lady... come on... you can tell me... Wot, you ain't got her locked up in the flat'. He was trying very hard, trying to be 'jovial' for want of a better word. The cigarette ash finally fell into his tea. Always my impression that everyone there wanted to live my life, perhaps there being a deep paucity in their own. People always seeing me or my old "N" cab somewhere, not taking too kindly to my silence, that I never spoke about anything tangible... anything that made sense to them... ‘Aht ‘n’ Aht loner' as Bernie always proclaimed to everyone, really, now I think about it, he never spoke, only proclaimed.


Yet, nothing to be said in any way against them. I had never fitted anywhere, anywhere at all. It was their lack of pretension, their inherent, basic honesty, their aimless conversation, their rooted, instinctive fear of 'Her Indoors'... They chattered unceasingly, knowing in most cases, that in their homes, only silence would prevail. Bernie, the epitome of such a situation. Years on, when Jennifer had abandoned myself and our son, he had invited us to his house... a kindness. Mark must have been about five years old. A strange atmosphere prevailed in that expensively furnished place. Mark, quite sensitive, noticed it immediately tried to put my finger on the exact cause, realising suddenly Bernie was totally silent, the complete antithesis of his normal self. He, almost tip-toeing about, saying 'Yes dear ... No dear' in groveling condescension, to his wife, a tatchy, arrogant woman, who's mood oscillated on the moment, painful to listen how this man was spoken to... worse than a dog, a man that had worked so very hard to maintain his wife and the two sons... so very comfortably indeed. Yet, this was practically the norm, observed it over and over again.

How does the situation come about where grown, sane, practical men become subservient to a woman? Perhaps it is the initial concern, consideration, the strong beat of life flowing from between their legs, perhaps at the three words "I love you' men fall prostrate, all reason gone, prepared to accept the shackles imposed by women and Society.
The Wedding, the Mortgage...the children, the door slammed, tight shut... for life... paradoxically this process affecting men at all levels of intelligence. Those, clever enough, try to be analytical about the situation, to make up rules and conditions, endeavouring to protect themselves, aware of the abyss. These tentative precautions being swept away once the woman has them in the bed, entwined between their legs... between the crisp sheets of matrimony... it is exactly that ... Matri-Money.

My life with Jennifer drifted on, gradually she discarded her sticks, discarded her total reliance on myself, we spent our time together locked in each other’s arms. Became very embroiled, at one stage tying our bodies together with rope before we finally fell asleep, afraid that the night and the darkness would rob me of her.