On Disconnection

Working from home today has meant luxuriating in the comfort of faded cotton hareem pants and an old t-shirt, the weave now so fine and granular that it hangs on my frame like a baggy chrysalis. My old chunky knit ‘clubbing cardie’ still provides warmth, comfort, and a sense of belonging to all that is intrinsically me. My thumbs slip with ease through the holes fashioned two decades ago, whilst huddled in bus stops waiting for night buses. My shoulders sag into the stretched arms of a garment fixed around my waist in haste as planes landed and I disembarked into tropical climates. Holidays booked around kitchen tables in the wee small hours with friends, neighbours, work colleagues, lovers and sometimes strangers who happened to be passing through my kitchen. Three rings and a dropped call, someone just off the tube means, call if you want beer picking up or food. Three taps on the bay window and someone has arrived; I disconnected the bell so as not to disturb the guys upstairs. Three taps on the back door, either my boyfriend does not have his key, or neighbours have hopped over the small fence or through the little bush with a plate of something delicious to share.

Working from home in my shoe-box study, a hotchpotch of every private space I have claimed as my own lends me the tools to meticulously recreate the illusion. I am happy in my work, and in this state of waking hypnosis, I can write. Crammed in and perched over my shoulder, the friends, neighbours, work colleagues, lovers, and strangers of old perch and chatter. They sometimes speak at cross purposes, nit-picking amongst themselves; choice of adverb, misplaced apostrophe, poetic licence with their feelings or intent, all is scrutinised, and bargains are made. This Narnia of sorts is the where, how, and to some extent why I write. Here at the desk, I wrote at as a girl. It’s not meant for anyone over the age of about ten, but I promised it /her when I was little that we would write a book together, and it/she has been following me around for over forty years, it/she has clocked up over twenty house moves and has earned a place in my sentiments. I push through the jaunty angles it/she requires of my spine ‘a promise made, spoke or silent’ as Arthur Miller said, and I’d hate it/her to start a vendetta, so we must write a book, here in this room, where there is connection. But is it connection driving me? The flip side is that the gnawing irritation with my disconnection makes these perfect days possible. Where do I feel most at home? A special friend who writes banging hip-hop tunes once said, ‘I guess I’m comfortable, living uncomfortably’ I can remember being struck by the line when I first heard it, and it goes some way to explaining the situation I find myself in.

Emerging from my den, I note that, the Beef Bourguignon that I have bubbling away smells divine. I empty the leftover Malbec into my coffee-stained mug, three taps on the window are expected in an hour or so, I’ll get the proper glasses out then. I lay the table, turn off the big light [nasty thing] in the kitchen, flick on the lamps and spend some time coaxing the wood burner. I never seem to have enough kindling, but a blow torch seems to work, an approach I have taken to life in general. As the fuel catches and comfortingly begins to crackle, I pour thirsty glugs of wine into my welcoming throat as though it is lifeblood. Disconnection has fed the fetishising of food and vino.

I lie down on the floor, close my eyes, and allow civilisation in. I am rushing up the escalator at Brixton Tube, thwarted momentarily by an Australian who thinks ‘stand on the right’ is a question, but my pointy elbows make short work of them. As I exit the tube into a multicultural ocean of bodies, smells, traffic, and sensations, I feel alive. Mr Two Fifty P’s [for a pound] gives me a wink and a wave, he knows I’m way beyond that rouse. I feel relief to know, via Mr Ghetto Blaster, that I am, as I was this morning, ‘dead with my eyes open’ and I ‘have no soul.’ Many people dismiss the pop-up preacher as a lunatic, but my argument is that he cannot be totally out of touch with reality if he manages to buy batteries EVERYDAY. Timelines are all over the place in this memory, I’m heading up Brixton Hill, but I’m wearing a coat that fell apart before I moved here in 1998, and trainers I did not buy until we were priced out of the area and moved to Brockley in 2010. Chantelle runs towards me, wild-eyed, a wallet in her hand, with the broken heel on her cheap plastic boots causing her to look even more like a cracked-up child playing hop-skip-jump. She checks to the rear, whoever she has clipped tonight is not in pursuit, she grinds and scrapes to a halt, arms outstretched for embrace.

“It’s you,” she gasps, “my guardian angel, I love you, we’ll have that beer soon. ON ME.” Once more, she checks behind and scampers in the direction of Brixton Water Lane.

I saved Chantelle from a serious hiding, twice. The first time as she grappled with an assailant in the bushes on the green opposite what was then The George IV, I flashed my travelcard and with the confidence of David Tenant shouted something about the police and there being quite a few of us. The second time Chantelle was running in early February, much as she was just then, down the hill, barefoot, wearing only a man’s shirt. She had clearly taken at least one blow to her bleeding lip and was trying to board my bus. The bus driver was a jobsworth and refused to take her on board without paying. I paid her fare; gave her my gym kit and trainers, and I went into work early rather than the gym. Connection, real human connection, a story I tell, and if she’s alive, possibly one she does too.

Three taps on the window, and I jump to my feet, kicking the empty wine mug under the

armchair.

“Lovely quiet spot you have here.” Says the Tesco delivery man.

“Yes, I suppose it must be.” Flinging my shopping out of the crate and onto the floor or kitchen counter.

“Cosy, with your wood burner going.” He chirps.

“Mmmm.” I respond.

“My Mrs would love this,” he says. “You can do whatever you want here.”

“Fabulous,” I reply. “Have a great evening.”

I bolt the barn door, turning off the outside light before the neighbour, whose name I do not know and whose house I can barely see, gets on the phone to log my ‘light pollution.’ The driver reverses with a wave back along the muddy track, his headlights dissolve away. ‘You can do whatever you want here.’ Prick! I can only assume the wife to be bovine or lobotomised, because outside of these four walls, it is desolate. The British countryside, not a place I ever expected to find myself, but sometimes that blow torch approach backfires and burns. What would Chantelle do here? Who would hear her scream? She certainly would not be trying to board a bus. Where would Mr Ghetto Blaster buy his batteries? Surely, he would go truly mad with no souls to save.

I ladle a little of the beef into a bowl, rip the knobbly end from the French stick, grab a spoon, stuff a bottle opener in my pocket and the new bottle of Malbec under my arm; I don’t need the glass, there is another grotty mug in Narnia. All at once, I am grateful. I see my disconnection as a gift. I am glad I did not make friends with the petty school-run mothers; I am glad work colleagues with zero life experience did not take to me; I am beyond ecstatic not to be doing yoga or basket weaving in a freezing village hall, because there is work to do. I am not lobotomised or bovine, but I am, I realise, doing exactly what I want. Today I am grateful that life has changed and that I live in a place where I can easily switch off, because today is a writing day, and my friends who hang out in the study are getting seriously impatient.

I am a mature student set to graduate from university with a degree in English & Creative Writing this summer. I have spent my spare time over the last three years performing my poetry anywhere I can. I am the winner of last year's Hip Yack Poetry Shack SLAM, and my prize was a slot on the poetry stage at last year's WOMAD festival. I have been published by the Poetry Edit online and in the Burnham Literary Festival anthology 2024. I am involved in several creative projects, including promotion for Frome's sell-out quarterly poetry event Dirty Laundry.