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Masks

 

 

He wasn’t hiding.  He was hiding his true colours, and his colour was red.  It was what defined him.  Liverpool.  It was his background, it was his family.  A family who had disowned him.  Therefore, it was just another mask.  Another identity to hide behind.

 

It was four years since he had spoken to his Mother.  In his head he spoke to her every day.  She never replied.

 

They all knew his secret now.  It was a simple secret – he liked to help people.  He did not like to take the credit.  He hid behind his mask.

 

They all came to services now – now that his secret was revealed.

 

You shouldn’t have favourites.

 

It was 60 miles to the church and 60 miles back.  But they came every week.  Mrs Duncan spoke loud to all the responses needed.  Can a red-dressed teddy bear receive communion, the sacrificial host?  Every week Kop received the holy communion.  It was placed in Daniel’s mouth.  Sometimes you don’t need to speak loudly to be heard.

 

 

Matthew

 

 

Clifton loved words, and words that described people were apt.  There was only one word for Matthew – curmudgeonly – it was a great word, it summed him up.  Matthew was curmudgeonly.  Grumpy and sly – he never wanted to see Clifton.  He always wanted to see Clifton, and Clifton knew that.  No-one else ever came.

 

Matthew seemed to hate life but, surprisingly, there was one thing Matthew loved.  He loved pop music.  Especially he loved the Monkees.  It didn’t make sense.  Music so upbeat, so enthusiastic, did not correlate with Clifton’s perception of Matthew.

 

Maybe there was more to Matthew than people perceived.

 

 

Ronny

 

 

Ronny was the heart and soul of the hospital.  He was the one everybody remembered, but he was also the one that no-body had ever seen.  If visitors were the eyes of the hospital, Ronny was the ears.  He played records and tracks for people he never met.  Ronny was not interested in meeting people, especially sick people.  He wanted fun, he wanted a platform.  He would make it big someday.

 

He never did make it big.

 

He lacked the talent.

 

He didn’t care for people.

 

You need to care for people if you need to communicate.

 

 

 

Wildfire

 

 

Hospitals are places of illness.  Sometimes people seem to be immune.  They have a built-in immunity system.  Ronny was immune to the needs of his listeners.  He was not immune to illness.  When it came, it came hard and fast.  Ronny could barely leave his bed.  He was not dying.  He felt he was.  Ronny was not dying.  Many of his listeners were.  But Ronny could not leave his bed and Ronny could not speak.

 

Even in strange environments it is routines that define us.  They listened to Ronny and he gave them some relief.  Some of them were relieved he could not continue but there was still a gap.  Something missing from their lives.

 

 

 

Toleration

 

 

Matthew didn’t like anyone.  He was curmudgeonly.  He was moody and sly with all staff.  Only one he could bear.  Matthew never let her know that.  It would mean her having the upper hand.  But the patient, the customer, always had to be right.  So, he tolerated her.  Audrey.  Matthew thought it was a pretentious name.  Audrey wasn’t pretentious.  She wasn’t even particularly kind or caring – she just did her job.  A practical job.  Audrey did not make a fuss.

 

That was why Matthew liked her.  He did not admit this to her.  He did not admit it to himself.

 

His reaction was curt – it was curt and curmudgeonly.  Matthew knew it wasn’t Audrey’s fault but he had no-one else to take it out on. So, he took it out on her.  There was no music.  There was no Ronny.  A hospital is not financially rich.  They did not have the funds to replace him.

 

 

 

Daydream Believer

 

 

It is only when people talk that they communicate.  Shared memories are not the memories we both remember.  There are different perspectives.  And people are treated differently.  Not on purpose.

 

Some remember things differently, from different perspectives.  There is a difference between being unfriendly, aloof even, and being private.  Audrey was private and practical.  That was why he liked her.  Of course, he didn’t tell her.  He didn’t really tell himself.  Appreciation is recognition, liking is something else.

 

Audrey had never considered doing anything else other than nursing.  So, Audrey just fell into it.  It wasn’t that she was particularly caring, but she was particularly practical.  No fuss, no bother.  No-one knew very much about her.  There was little to know.

 

A small, immaculately kept flat, always warm.  The hospital was always warm.  It was what she was used to.  People can be judged by their possessions.  Audrey had books, music and TV.  All solitary and insular interests.  If anyone had bothered to get to know Audrey these were what she would be known for.  That, and her crush on Mickey Dolenz. 

 

It was a childhood crush.  Audrey was always a little bit different.  Her friends laughed at her obsession.  Were they friends?  Did all teenage girls laugh at each other?  Is it their nature?  All the others fancied Davy Jones.  All the others fancied the good-looking one.  But Audrey was different, she fancied Mickey Dolenz.  Even she did not know why.  There are some things you cannot control.

 

 So, Audrey smiled at herself, at her girlhood dream.  Dreams were all she had.  There was never any reality.  But if people thought of her, which they did not do very often, they may have thought she was sad.  Audrey wasn’t unhappy

 

It was just a life unlived.

 

Matthew never said thank-you.  He didn’t need to. It wasn’t what either of them needed.

 

 

 

Tapes

 

 

No-one appreciated Ronny.  If truth be known, no-one really liked him.  You had to have a thick skin in his job.  You had to have the confidence of a salesman, and Ronny did.  Ronny worked alone in his booth, the booth he called a studio.  He never met any of the patients – he was too preoccupied.  A person who dealt with the communication for and needs of others, only really communicated with himself.  In short, Ronny liked the sound of his own voice.

 

However, Ronny was their lifeline, especially to those who had been in the hospital long-term.

 

Matthew was a cynic.  He didn’t trust Ronny, he didn’t like him but he listened avidly.  And when Ronny wasn’t there, he missed him, missed the lifeline.  He told himself off.  Matthew was frustrated with himself.  How can you miss requests for people you don’t know?  Matthew suspected they did not exist.  Matthew had always suspected that Ronny made them up.  It was difficult to know when you didn’t move from your bed.  It was difficult when you only saw the faces that immediately surrounded you.  Often, for one reason or another, they all left, and Matthew remained.

 

So, he listened to the tapes that Ronny played.  Not an extensive list Matthew thought - too much Billy Joel, too much Neil Diamond, too much middle of the road shite.  But still Matthew listened.  Matthew suspected Ronny wasn’t even there all the time.  There was no reaction to events outside the hospital.

 

Ronny did not play the music that Matthew liked.  It was a secret.  He had made many requests to Ronny to pay his choices on the Hospital Radio but they were never played.  Matthew did not dedicate any of his requests to others, he did not have anyone to dedicate any music to.  He wanted it for himself.  Matthew and Ronny were more similar than Matthew would care to recognise.

 

It didn’t really matter.  Ronny never played any of Matthew’s requests.

 

 

Last Train to Clarkesville

 

 

Every week Clifton Maybank visited.  Matthew tolerated him.  That was the strongest emotion Matthew could muster.  Matthew knew in his heart he would miss the visits. 

 

Clifton was a shrewd judge of character despite his young years. 

 

Matthew did not want to hear stories of the parishes around Heppleton, he didn’t want to hear stories of an estranged family, didn’t want to hear tales of a red room; he didn’t want to hear about Liverpool FC.

 

Clifton surmised that if Matthew did not want to hear, he wanted to be listened to.  So, Matthew spoke.  You get to know a person when you listen to them – the things they say, the things they don’t. 

 

Matthew would miss the visits from Clifton Maybank.

 

Matthew was going home.  He was dreading it. 

 

Clifton Maybank knew, because Clifton Maybank listened.

 

Two more days.

 

They asked whether someone would come to collect him.  There was no-one and, being in hospital for a long time, he did not have access to cash.  So, the staff arranged for a volunteer to collect him and take him home.  Matthew was humiliated.  He had always been a proud man.  He did not want charity, he did not want loneliness.

 

 

 

A Little Bit Me – A Little Bit You

 

 

It was his last visit from Clifton Maybank.  Matthew would not show disappointment or fear.  Some things you cannot see. 

 

Matthew had been contemplating the exchange, even thinking he might make his confession to the priest.  But Matthew was not a Catholic and he did not think he could do it.  Matthew could not bring himself to tell him.  He would miss Clifton Maybank.  No-one else listened to him.  What he dreaded most was silence.  Matthew even missed the prat on the Hospital Radio, the one who never seemed to listen, who never played his requests.  Had he mentioned that to Clifton?  He couldn’t remember.

 

The first thing that Clifton noticed was that Matthew sat in a chair.

 

Nothing remarkable, but Clifton had never seen Matthew outside of his bed, his hospital bed.  Clifton had never seen Matthew dressed in anything other than pyjamas.  So, in Clifton’s eyes, he was a different man.  Different but the same.  Clifton thought that if Matthew had seen him at church, he would feel the same.  The people at the Child Centre did not see him in his religious role and they saw him differently afterwards.  You spot someone on the street in a different context as to how you know them – you may have known them for years but you don’t recognise them.  The hairdresser, the doctor, the teacher all doing normal things, simply living.  Things you don’t expect them to do.

 

Today Matthew sat up and was dressed immaculately.  Shirt and tie.  Tie firmly fastened as they used to be.  It was how Clifton Maybank’s father always dressed, a sense of pride.  His father probably still did dress like this.  Clifton did not know.  It had been a long time since he had seen his father.

 

It was the same routine.  Routines are what define us and, sometimes, what defines relationships.  So, Matthew and Clifton met for their last visit.

 

As always at first there was civil recognition, then silence, and then Matthew spoke. 

 

They did the civil recognition, they did the silence.  Two can contribute to silence.

 

A little bit of Matthew, a little bit of Clifton.

 

Matthew’s mouth was dry.  Matthew was nervous.  He wanted to break the silence.  Matthew opened his mouth.  The final words he thought.

 

 

 

I’m a Believer

 

Diamond Geezer

 

 

There was a knock.  It was an interruption – an interruption to the silence.

 

They wanted Clifton.  Not a word had passed between them.  The words stuck in Matthew’s mouth and he thought he was going to choke.  It was the last visit of Clifton Maybank.

 

“We want someone who can talk to people, to talk to a crowd”.  It was the Hospital Manager who spoke.

 

“But I can see my crowd.  I see the expressions of my congregation – this is something entirely different”.

 

“Think of how many people it would help”.

 

Clifton Maybank bade a swift goodbye to Matthew.  It was a calling.  He had received one a time ago.  This time the hospital needed him, they needed him to be the lifeline.  He would do his best but only his boss could really provide that.  Clifton Maybank was his agent.

 

Matthew did not have the chance to utter a word.  And, it was his last meeting with Clifton Maybank.

 

Now there would only be silence.

 

 

 

Pleasant Valley Sunday

 

 

Clifton had little time.  It was officially his main working day.  They only requested a couple of hours, just to keep spirits up.  The Holy Spirit, thought Clifton in an aside.  No-one enjoys a holy joke.

 

There were no files, no requests stored by Ronny.  Perhaps the rumours, the rumours he heard from Matthew were correct after all.  Perhaps he had made up all the requests, perhaps he had ignored the real ones.  But if Clifton could do one thing he could talk.  His nervousness and his scouse accent were the things the patients remembered.

 

If others in the past had rejected him because of his background, everyone in the hospital – everyone in this audience – loved him.  Maybe it was because he was uncertain, maybe it was because he struggled with the controls, maybe because for two hours he played only songs by the Monkees – and every song was dedicated to one man.  Matthew.

 

An old man, in shirt and tie, felt the saltiness of his tears.

 

Clifton played two last songs, one he dedicated to Audrey.  He knew what to play because he had listened to her.  Audrey chuckled and all her colleagues chuckled too.  Perhaps they knew her more than she realised.  For once they were all united.  It was a bridge crossed.

 

‘Randy Scouser Git’ – written by Mickey Dolenz. 

 

The last record was for himself.  Clifton said he felt it was about his relationship with God.

 

‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’.

 

 

 

Coda

 

 

There was a knock on the door.  Matthew had almost forgotten what the sound of it was like.  No-one ever called.  So, he was roused at the sound.  He could not imagine who would be calling on him.  Everyone else was busy, everyone else had things to do.

 

Matthew was still immaculately dressed.  He always wore his shirt and tie, although nobody saw him.

 

His visitor had strawberry blonde hair, piercing blue eyes and designer blue rimmed spectacles.

 

“Fancy a chat?”  said Clifton Maybank.

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