My toilet seat is down. Ah of course, Sylve is staying. Here for our journey down to where our paths first crossed, at the beginnings of our lives, 60 years ago. New Hall Boreham, Chelmsford, Essex, CM3 3HT, England, Great Britain, Europe (it was then), The word, the universe. “She was my prefect”, I introduce Sylve these days. She is 6 years my elder, a generation then. She was even then fay, ‘away with the fairies’ picking daisies, easy to laugh, impish, intimate, exotic with her French accent speaking English, beautiful, tall and different to anyone I had ever met before.
There was such enormous infrastucture road works going on top of an already changed road structure, we went at least twice around the various roundabouts (later one said he did it 7 times), to find at last the iconic Avenue. It had grown, (naturally) was much darker with more leaf, but above all I noticed for the first time, these were Lime trees. Who would have known then that trees would become so important to me now, and that unknowing of this avenue being Limes, I had just planted my own avenue of lime trees on my land. Later, walking the dogs, I paced the distance between them: 15 paces where mine were 10. (Photo the Avenue Bobji, with Brow behind a lime tree)
Inevitably ghosts of the past arrive, and here Ruth Raven, our down to earth games teacher. We were here for another who would become a ghost , but now still in the in between time/space, still alive in our minds, Tre Lenahan. Our paths first crossed at the begining of her life in the community and end of my life at New Hall, but I came to know her as I re-united with the community after they’d moved to Howe Close, when I was involved in Fishy Tales the story of the Community and the old fishes.
We had the luck of sitting next to an Irish priest who worked with Tre on social justice in the East End London – work she did I knew nothing of, but it epitomized her work with the marginalised, the shy, the unattended, and did not surprise me. ‘Tre liked the fact it was women who first spread the gospel of the Lord, the women of the tomb’ said x giving a testament to her life. She was a community person, both a leader and follower, confident with a hint of vulnerability, mischief never far away mixed with a good wisdom. I will miss her even though I knew her so little. Of Irish genetics, she was born in Wales, bought up in Christchurch, Newport. How did she find New Hall? I shall never know and – more importantly, it does not matter. What we are left with, I thought at the end of the day, is the feeling of that person, the facts disappear, but the love and light from them shines on.
‘So are you happy, have you had a happy life?’, I asked a woman who could have been from my New Hall generation, (but whose name I could not recognise) over tea after the service. She looked at my with a fixed smile, eyes with a hint of bemuse. “We came here at the beginning of our lives, and here in the furnace of new hall were forged our hopes for our future life, (mine had been to marry a farmer and have 6 children!), our desires and expectations, our confidence as we walked out into the light of all those years ahead of us. And here we were now, retired from our working life, having birthed or not birthed a new genetic generation, back at this forge, to reflect to look back on that road we had taken. ‘Yes’ she said, she had had a contented life. But I was speaking to myself asking myself this question, as she continued her conversation with the remarkable Stephen, now 93 and bright as a button.
They were all there, the nanogenarians of Magdalene, Stephen and now Stephanie. Angla, Mathew, Gabrielle, Margarete Mary, Diana (Miss Impy). ‘Is Diana now doing the practical running of the community?’ I asked Angela.
‘She is certainly in charge of the kitchen, Angela replied
Ah I said I thought she was practically in charge of the community since Tre’s mental/physical health deteriorated.
She is not a practical person’ said Angela. She is slow to respond and it is not clear if it is the Parkinsons or her reflecting on the question. She made me laugh with her straight candor.
Spent a bit of time with Ann Downey, now a glass sculpture artist, with a child of her own merged with a family of 4 other children and a new husband.
Sylve, I could write a whole story on. “i’ve been a saver and giver all my life”, she concluded. “But I’ve given it all away and now £20 is good to live on for a week. I’ve been involved in over 25 court cases – yes I’ve attracted drama through my life. People throughout my life have been jealous of me, and I’ve had enough” From the age of 40 she has suffered with Fibromyalgia, which has limited her capacity, and increasingly so, she arrived with a walking frame, which was as much for her bag of mystery gifts as her body (tarot cards, angel cards, gifts, creams). ‘I’ve stopped doing the fairs (handwriting, and healing and she offered), I’ve stopped my friendship group. It’s enough now. I don’t want to go on much longer. I’ve had a good life, it’s been a struggle, but I haven’t done too bad have I?”
“I have no family” she said to me over breakfast, and I baulked. “You cannot say that” I correct (like a teacher, she observes), mistaking words for ‘truth’. “You have a sister and brother who you do not speak to, the remains of 6 of you (Luke her genetic brother, John Paul and another brothers by her mothers second marriage, all dead through alcohol or some such tragic story) .
“You are too rational, she said, you are too masculine, you leave no room for romantic or sentimental.”
“Ah so what you mean is you feel you have no family”.
She cleans out the room she has been living in, finding a dustpan and brush, polish, finding cobwebs years old. Her scent lingers. The room has never been so clean.
“I can come once a fortnight, and clean your home, sort out your clothes, you have far too many”. But I am preparing for the next visit now, aware of emails I have not answered and cannot hear her stories or her questions any more.
The loo seat is down. Sylve has gone. I feel a relief glad for the silence and space to write this story which I would never have time for otherwise. Would that have mattered?
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Kalikellett 