Today’s my birthday and perhaps I should be pondering what, to date, I’ve done in my life, what I haven’t and what to do with the rest of it … you know, all those deep and searching questions one asks when another year slips by. Strangely, I’m not thinking about myself at all. I’m actually thinking of my son, Cain, who has his birthday in five days’ time. I’m in England and he’s in Australia and I miss him. I really miss him. I’m not bothered with what he’s done or hasn’t done or is going to do or is not going to do – I’m just thinking about who he is and that I miss his effervescent and peaceful charm, his intelligence and his humanity. All this (and more) I miss of him and I don’t know how to unmiss him – the yearning is still there, while I’m not physically able to be there with him. He won’t get to read this – he’s not too keen on computers – so this is not going to embarrass him. That, I would never do. All I can do, I suspect, is send my gratitude for him being in my life, over the emails and phone calls, and hope my attempts at connection assuage some of my deep desire to be with him. I love you Cain.
Every one of us is looking for connection and, as Jesus (my hero) says, it’s all a front, if you like, for the ONE BIG yearning to reconnect with God. We connect, he says, with each other in order to reach through to God. If we can see the God in each other, we can see both God and we can see who we really are. If I see beauty in you, I see my own beauty … and vice versa.
So why do we all try to find the worst in each other? We aren’t going to find God there – he’s in the other direction! God is only in the direction of peace, grace and gratitude … for each other. And so, as Jesus says, every encounter with another human is an encounter with my Holy Self … not quite sure how I got onto this subject and it’s funny where the mind goes when it’s let loose!
So, Philip, happy birthday and to Cain, my Holy self, happy birthday in five days’ time!
And so here is the fourth episode in the life of Arthur Bayly and if you can think of a good name for this book, please let me know. Happy reading!
"Look Sir, you seem shaken," she said, standing back and looking in his eyes. "Do you want to go over there and have a coffee?"
"Actually, I've just had one, thanks," he said, disappointed the hug was over, despite it feeling uneasy in a busy street.
"Well, I meant, do you want to talk about it?" she asked. He could feel her warm breath on his face and realised she was still holding his limp arms.
"That's very kind, Halee, very kind indeed," he said, feeling the tears welling up in his eyes and an odd sense of closeness with someone he had never met before, someone from the other side of the world, someone who actually seemed to care. "However, I really should go," he said, feeling conflicted between the warm feeling of a caring human and the awkwardness of hugging and talking to a young lady.
"OK Arthur, if you're sure, I won't intrude," she said, looking at him with concern. "But you know where I live, so to speak, so you just tell me if you want to bend my taringas."
"Your what?"
"My taringa, ears - if you want to talk. It's a great medicine," she said, letting his arms go. "And remember, this too shall pass." She turned and walked off, her bright red top and iridescent blue skirt contrasting sharply with the black of the herd she disappeared into. He stood there, trying to remember where he had been going. He turned about and headed for the underground station with a warm glow and a melancholy heart inside. Then, as he turned right into the all-too-familiar station, the customary dread returned, the tears stopped, his jaw tightened and his eyes became those of everyone else here - looking through and not at anything in particular. Down the steps, along the tiled corridor and down another wide flight of stairs and he was amazed - without showing it - at how few people were waiting on the platform; only about fifty or so. And so, in automaton mode he took his regular course back - four tube stops, get out, along the corridor, up more steps, through the turnstiles, above ground now, across the piazza of the crowded train station, through the turn stiles and into the train that took him home, only minutes after he found a seat. In fact, he saw many empty seats and realised it was probably the first time he had ever sat in the train at midday - just so different without the rush-hour crowds.
At the second stop, twenty minutes later at East Croydon, he alighted, walked up the wide concrete ramp, through the turnstiles and out into the air again. His first impulse was to turn left along Addiscombe Road, towards home, when he realised he needed some time to prepare himself before meeting his wife with the news. He turned right, instead, crossed the dual carriageway with tramlines embedded and pedestrian island between, turned left over George Street and headed for the park he knew was there as he had seen it many times in passing on his way to the library, of many a weekend.
He walked down the steps to the sunken garden. As he sat on the park bench he noticed there were three other people in the park - an older chap reading his newspaper with his dog beside him and a young woman eating an ice cream with her little girl. His bench was some distance from the others and he felt comfort in his aloneness, as well as a vague sense of shared ownership, with the other three, of this soothing green paradise. He looked around at the mown lawns, interspersed with gardens and trees, with ivy growing up the walls to the road, interrupted only by the steps down which he had come and, at the other end, a tiled tunnel that, presumably, went under the road to some other part of town.
He sat and smiled, though the tears threatened to well up and burst out again. The mask of commuter isolation began to melt away and he looked at the other people. Really looked. They all smiled back, one by one, and the warm glow and melancholy returned together.
As he sat back on the park bench he looked up and realised, with mild surprise, that England does, indeed, have blue skies, at times. Maybe he'd never looked up before … maybe people don't look to the skies … and so the myth of continually cloudy skies persists as no one actually looks up to check. And, as his mind soared up into the open blue skies, delighting in the freedom and simplicity, the beautiful nothingness, he realised it was actually a busy place up there. As he looked, totally present to the blue, he discovered there was never a moment when there wasn't a plane flying through it - it was full of them. He supposed he had heard them before, probably constantly, but never actually listened or looked. Quite obvious, really, considering he was sitting somewhere between Heathrow and Gatwick airports! He knew Heathrow was the busiest airport in the world - one aeroplane landing and another taking off every single minute of every day of every year, he remembered reading somewhere, and three hundred and fifty people on an average flight. He had spent his life among the seething masses of humans and had never considered where any of the might be going. As he tried to calculate how many might travel across the skies from Heathrow each year, he wondered where they all might be going. And then there was Gatwick, Stanstead and hundreds - maybe thousands - of other airports around the world and there could be millions in the air on any day, all going somewhere. So many people, so many places to go and, with a jolt, he saw his own life as a complete nothingness, a grey unmoving speck amid the colourful movement all about him. He'd done nothing but go to work every day, tend his small garden, read books of others' adventures and watch others' dramas on television. Where were his adventures, his dramas … his life?
He couldn't stop the tears as they began to ease out and he knew he couldn't hide them. And nor did he care. He simply sat, allowing the disappointment and bitterness leak from his soul, the sobs of pain to shake his body. Just a useless little man in a useless little job in a stupid useless world. He was powerless to live a bigger life, he was powerless to make a visible and lasting contribution and he was powerless to stop his body reacting to it all. For once, he didn't care what anyone else thought - he was a crying man and they could look the other way.
"Chloe! Chloe! Come back!" yelled the mother from across the park, jolting him back. He looked over to see the little girl - in her little blue boiler suit and with blond curls bobbing - trotting over to him with her half-eaten ice cream extended in front of her.
"Are you sad?" she asked, standing in front of him, her large blue eyes full of concern.
"Yes I am," he said, trying to smile as he leaned forward.
"Would you like my ice cweam, make you feel better."
"Th … thank you so much, dear," he said, as the tears flowed again.
"Here," she said with her dribbling ice cream nearly in his face.
"Oh, no, that's very kind but you have it all," he said, gingerly sitting back a little. "I'll feel fine by and by."
"But you're sad, Mister."
"Yes I am, Sweetie, but you finish it. It looks yummy."
"Chloe, dear, don't bother the man," said the mother. Arthur was unaware that she had walked over to them and had her hand on her daughter's shoulder. "I'm really sorry, Sir."
"That's no trouble, Madam, she's a very kind little girl," he said.
Suddenly he heard the sound of footsteps in the tunnel to his left - many footsteps, loud footsteps - coming his way. As he started to register and analyse these sounds, a thin, dark, wild-haired man rushed out of the tunnel towards them, looking back frequently, with fear in his eyes. Arthur had no idea how he did it but, in the moment, the instinctive and protective father within him reached out and scooped the two females off the path and, a little untidily, onto the bench beside him, just as the runner, looking back yet again, dashed towards them, running unsteadily.
No sooner had he reacted to this, than he saw a second runner, dark skinned, short curly hair, tattooed and solid, come racing behind the first man. The front-runner faltered, unsure what to do as the large brick wall loomed before him, quite unaware he was about to run into Arthur and his two charges. He looked back, momentarily, saw the three on the park bench and went to swerve away, had Arthur's instincts not cut in again. Someone - it certainly wasn't his own conscious thoughts - shot his foot out, tripped the man, who went sprawling along the tar-seal path beside them. The large runner behind took immediate advantage and tossed himself headlong through the air, crashing on top of the scrawny one.
"Oomph," came from both of them and, as the smaller one lay still, perhaps unconscious, the larger one on top rose to his knees and started rifling through the other's pockets with reckless disregard for the apparently lifeless form he was frisking. He quickly found what he was looking for after tearing the man's denim jacket open, popping a brass button off and yanking out two small plastic bags with what looked like, to Arthur, washings powder, inside. The black man leapt up and went to make off with his prize when he stopped. He turned to Arthur, panting and with a huge smile. Arthur's fearless instincts vanished and he was back in very conscious fear. He drew the stunned mother and girl closer for protection.
"Cher bro', you're the man!" said the large tattooed man in an accent Arthur hadn't heard before. The man extended his hand and instinct shot Arthur's hand out, to be engulfed in a huge brown paw that shook his vigorously. "That was choice, bro'. Kia ora Matua!"
The man turned and - whether it was some trick of the light or a malfunction in Arthur's brain - just disappeared … just, well, wasn't there. Still staring into the space where the brown man had been, he realised more, many more, footsteps were racing up the tunnel towards them. As the panic gripped him again, he leapt up, stumbled and fell over the still-prone man who was beginning to moan and move. Arthur looked back from ground level, fearing the worst and saw several police rushing towards him. 'So now I'm embroiled in something terribly criminal,' his mind said, reverting, as always, to the worst possible thought for the moment.
Uncertain about what to do in this possibly comic, definitely embarrassing predicament, he rolled off the man and lay there, as before, staring at the sky with both body and mind in neutral.
"Grab that man!" yelled one of the police and Arthur winced in anticipation of being grabbed. But nothing happened and then he saw two policemen pounce on the now-reviving body beside him.
"Umph!" the man said again as two policemen pinned him down. Arthur heard a definite 'crack' and wondered which bone had broken. Not one of his he realised, thankfully.
Still unable to move or think, a face suddenly loomed into his, a blue peaked hat slightly askew.
"Are you OK, Sir?" asked a still-panting but kind voice.
"Uh, yes, I think so," said Arthur, suddenly wondering where his glasses were. Hands grasped his and he was gently hauled up to a sitting position.
"Are these yours, Sir?" asked the same kind voice as his glasses came into view.
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