Somewhere Over a Rainbow

Somewhere Over a Rainbow

  By Roger Russell

  Copyright 2014 Roger Russell

  SOME WHERE OVER A RAINBOW

  “You never finish anything; the bloody garage is full of tools and you spend money we do not have on screws or paint and wood, you start things with them and then leave them lying around the place, unpainted… It’s not quite ready yet,” she mimicked contemptuously. “Your problem is you are shit scared to finish something because somebody might see that you have messed it up again.”

  He sat at the kitchen table and listened, his head bowed; his woodwork and pottering around in the garage was his thing. She had her college degree and her assignments. She was clever, there was no denying that and her performance was always better than just good. People admired her and she revelled in it. Somehow their friends tended to be more her associates than his. Outside of his life at home he worked in the dockyard and played some football; that was it. But at home his life was this incredible association with somebody out of his league, somebody who was so fine and delicate that he could only wonder about what she had ever seen in him. There was plenty that she did not like but there was something else, some link that had brought their souls to life, that had sparked their existence into a humming, two pronged attack on the world.

  She started to cry, “James, I can’t take it anymore, it’s not just the uselessness of everything you do here at home but you have no ambition. Your job is a dead end; your boss is an idiot who never has to worry that you will replace him, because he at least has some objectives in life. You have to try harder, get another job or at least ask for a raise. Sarah and them have got a new car and it is not a beat up old Valiant that disgusts me; it is a BMW and a nice one.”

  She came and stood behind him, putting her hands on his shoulders. “I have always loved you. You know that! But I must have some self-respect and nobody really believes that you are worth much. You are a hippie, a go with the flow person and I am on my way to make something of myself. You have to go out and get what you want, not just pick it up as it floats past.”

  “You mean that none of your friends think I am worth much. My friends are happy enough about me. I play a good game and a lot of them come to me for advice about their girlfriends and families, they think I am a sensible guy… and who wants Brian’s job anyway, always sucking up to the Colonel and the Naval Officers. Thanks but no thanks,”

  She turned and threw her hands up in despair. “Oh for pity’s sake, God give me strength, you are hopeless. Why don’t you tell me to fuck off, why don’t you slap me or something? You are a wimp, you never really get angry; just annoyed or hurt. Well I am going to hurt you now, James; you must get ready to be on your own because I am going to move out, I will find myself a place and I will furnish it the way I want, with furniture that I will buy in a shop, nice furniture that I can be proud of. Furniture I can invite people to sit on without worrying that they will get splinters in their backsides.

  He got up and turned to face her, reaching out for her hand but she pulled her arm away. He sighed, “Don’t say that, I need you to be with me, you understand me, you know what I am inside, the others don’t; you are right, they see only the hippie. You know that is not really me. When I come home to this place you are the centre of it because you have always accepted me and loved me. You didn’t float past one day; you were placed beside me by some great, wise power. You are as much a part of my life as I am of yours. Go if you must but you will be back or I will join you soon, it just is that way.”

  “I am going, you will have to accept the inevitable: I have had enough – had – enough, understand.”

  “OK, but think about it Deirdré, none of those friends you seem to think so much of will help you when you are sick and vomiting up blood or messing yourself, none of them will get up and defend you if you are confronted by some asshole with a knife. They are not real people they are half people and all on the outside, nothing inside worth spit.” He shook his head, “I am going for a walk. Think about this, you know we will never be able to live without each other.”

  “Go for a walk and commune with the trees for all I care, but when you get back I will be gone.”

  “Use the disgusting Valiant; it will probably hold more luggage than a BMW.” He replied.

  He shut the gate behind him and looked out over the bay. It was early evening and the sun had not yet set. The lighthouse on Ark Rock was clear halfway out across the blue sea and the dockyards lay spread out below him. He turned and went towards the old Convent, walking along a road behind it to emerge in the cemetery on its far side. The pines swayed above him casting moving shadows across the gravestones. He often came here, more so lately as he and Deirdré went through more and more conflicts about their differences. The graves went far back, the nearest one, the one he usually sat on said:

  Here lies

  David Fletcher,

  Seaman 1878 – 1922.

  Fell from aloft

  He had found another one recently, deep in on the far side, the only stone left standing in a shady little corner:

  Henry Wilhelm

  Convict

  1763 – 1809

  Seeking God’s mercy

  He had wondered if it was a joke but the stone was ancient, and the engraving, although readable, worn and compromised by flaking. He wished he could have spoken to this man and learned something of his life. Did he have a soulmate back in his old country or was he a lonely heart, corrupt and hard perhaps or just desperate and misunderstood? The first time he had read the tombstone he had felt an immediate bond with the man below it; a link that reached out across the years and made friends. Today he went seeking out the grave; he felt that he too needed some divine intervention. His life was about to fall apart. If she really left him he would lose something precious and probably not replaceable. He reread the inscription, letting his fingers follow the letters and then sat on the headstone and tried to set his mind at ease. It was true he was a sort of a hippie, but that came from knowledge of his own strength, he knew that some thought of him as a waste of space and yet many came to him to seek out that strength. He could both allow poor opinions and provide support because he was able to. His strengths were beyond the hurt of silly criticism or degrading remarks and assessments, just the same as his strength would never be depleted by sharing a shoulder with those in need.

  He was inclined to see other people with a sort of benevolent concern; why did they not understand that they also had this strength somewhere inside them if they would only look for it. His was never in question; it surrounded him and warded him like the armour of knights of old. He was invincible, he would never be found lacking; his power was there, just below the surface, just out of sight, ready for anything. She was wrong about not finishing anything, he took pleasure in using his talent for design to the point where he confirmed his creations worked, how they looked did not mean much to him, so once he knew it was good, he lost interest, as far as he was concerned he was finished. If he put in the effort to sand down; paint, polish whatever; it would be for the others, not him. Others that did not mean too much in the run of things, they would never be happy with him and to chase after their approval was an exercise in futility and unnecessary. She was important however, what she perceived as essential was her own take on life and must be provided. Her satisfaction with her surroundings was what would keep her. He could cater to them without selling himself short, he had plenty to give and the price was insignificant compared to the fulfilment he found in being with her. If he made her happy she would make him happy. It was enough.

  After a time he got up, he would go home and if she was still in the house, apologise and make a real effort to please her going
forward. She was always worth it and he loved her deeply, a selfish love because despite his strength he needed her love in return.

  As he stepped in the direction of the cemetery gate his foot sank deeply into the soft ground of what remained of the mound. He fell forwards onto his hands and they sank into the earth in the same way. It was almost as if what was buried beneath was calling him down into the dark. He rolled sideways to extract himself from the clinging ground and hit his head sharply on the footpiece of the grave. Everything went black.

  He woke up to find himself staring at close range into a small tuft of grass. Each blade was defined in sharp edges and he could see the detail of small hairs all along its length. He remembered falling but not much else. He knew that he was in the cemetery and on the convict’s grave but not why. His awareness grew and he found himself getting really close to one blade of the grass and then coming into contact with the surface of it. He tried to stop, but continued falling through the fine hairs and the textured skin until he was caught up in a sea of life. Surrounded by what he thought must be cells he became intimately aware of every one and then of all the cells in all the blades and then of the roots and the earth. He went up other roots and into trees, along branches and leaves to feel the wind gently caressing his understanding; suddenly, in an incredible swoop of learning; he knew and understood everything around him, the concrete walls of the dockyard, the steel, wood and fibreglass of the boats and all the life in the bay. Beyond the bay into the oceans and through the continents around the world, every thought, every motive, word or intent of every man and woman on earth; then out into the stars and the universe. Beyond the Universe to what he supposed must be the domain of God, a place of intent and purpose that filled him with deep contentment and faith. It was empty but not empty. Safe but frightening; so immense and complete that he was filled with awe. He looked around and down but could not find himself, “What has happened to me?” he shouted out to the nothing that was there and it answered him. “Henry has brought you here, you have something to learn and it is here that you will learn it.”

  “Henry? Who is Henry and what does he have to do with it?

  But he knew, just the same as he knew everything about creation, the Universe and the power behind it, its building and its falling down, its insides and its outsides, its beginning and its final demise. No, he realised looking millennia ahead: there was no demise, creation would never end, neither would the work ever be finished but it was not man that drove it, nor was it man that had initiated or managed it. Life was much more than man, life was a force beyond the will to live we assumed to be behind survival or evolution; life was God and God was life and there was nothing more joyful than understanding that truth. He felt himself shrinking back from his contact with the infinite and grasped pathetically at the nothingness only to lose it and return to Henry’s grave. Far away from the incredible place he had seen so clearly and with such understanding.

  Before he gave up the earth and rose from the grave he became aware of a soul, all around him and in him; “Life is not about us or about our failures or victories, life is about the inevitable triumph of itself, call it whatever you will. You or I cannot change the domination of life over all matter or events; an argument, a crime, a separation, a heroic deed, a victory. It is all a work of infinite complexity which includes your contributions: the positive or the negative; the one is as necessary as the other. Go now and live according to your understanding of what is right or wrong, you will make mistakes, I did and my body lies here beneath you; I am just fine and I always will be because I loved life and it loved me. This has never changed even though I have.

  James pushed himself up onto his knees and spat some soil from his mouth. “What had just happened?” He must have fallen. He looked behind him there was something friendly and re assuring about the old headstone. He would have to bring Deirdré here and show her. “Shit.” he thought, “Deirdré!” He could not remember much but he remembered that he had problems waiting for him at home.

  It would be OK, somehow he knew that. Somehow he knew everything would be OK.

  #####

  About Roger Russell

  Born in 1947 in Eldoret, Kenya Roger attended schools in Bournemouth, UK and St David’s College in Johannesburg, SA. Roger started in the mines in 1968 and worked underground for over seventeen years. He has worked in open pits and in some of the deepest mines in the world. He has been a mining consultant and training specialist since the early nineties. He has also worked in the jewellery, boating, construction and manufacturing industries and worked a farm in Zambia. He currently writes on his boat ‘Loki’ moored in Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom.

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