CHAPTER 12: ABRAHAM’S BOSOM, WELLS-NEXT-THE-SEA

An excerpt from But Certainly Dancing, a novel written collaboratively by D Mortimer and Hannah Levene

Phil’s ice cream van played A Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams for ice cream bell as Billy drove away away, as Billy drove away. Bye Bill! Phil shouted and Billy bibbed his horn and revved his engine. Before us must have come a steam roller! Billy said gleefully to Sud who was with him. Sud of uncertain origin but perhaps from middle Dutch ‘suds’ denoting the flood water of the fens. Are you with me Sud? Billy asked. And had Sudbury replied??? Before leaving Billy’d looked through the mobile library collection for books about Norfolk found only a grubby copy of David Copperfield well-thumbed first chapter: I Am Born! So sure of himself. Peggoty’s days in Yarmo. For Sudbury, life had been what might be described as “Peggotty” in a David Copperfield type way, resembling the state of being beached. East out of North Finchley Billy felt as if he had a stowaway. Had bundled SadSud into his van and told him to sit tight. So Sud steadied himself in the back of the mobile library. Am I being borrowed or am I being returned? he thought. He didn’t know. He heard the sound of water trickling thickly like a millwheel turns water over. The sound was coming from inside of Billy, the constant churning of his insides that flipped his feet round like a roadrunner his wheels round like wheels. You’re non-stop Bill, Sud said, his voice still weak from all the silence. All those months of it, of dumb living. A death roundly plumbing in his throat that place he’d gladly have slit open easily, like unzipping your flies. You’re non-stop Bill. What’s that? Billy said because he hadn’t been listening but singing as the radio tuned out of Core fm and into Star fm (Cambridge) and then crisply into Future Radio. You’re listening to Future Radio “Fuck me!” Billy cried “hear that Suddy?” he was being so sweet with him, pet names, father figures, pats on the back, pats on the cheek, “this is Future Radio you’re listening to!” The radio played cheerio but be back soon from the original cast recording of Oliver Cheerio, but be back soon. I dunno, somehow I'll miss you. I love you, thats why I Say, "Cheerio" and Not goodbye. “The I rhymes with the goodbye” Sudbury said. “Yeah” Billy said. “Lovely to hear him say he loves the boys.” “Yeah, it’s lovely” Sud agreed, “how Fagin told his boys he loved them.” Billy rustled blind in the sat-on plastic punnet next to her. YES! Get in, she said, launching an unexamined raspberry into the O of her mouth. Red juice ran down the L of her hand. Like an estuary. L O L O L O L O L O? Bill turned to Sud. Want one?

YOU’RE LISTENING TO FUTURE RADIO.

You say stop and I say go you say stop and we knooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooow where we’re going but we don’t know, where we been. Abraham’s bosom. That’s where. First stop on the road to know where. Tree of no ledge. Gotta be somewhere to jump off round here. Flat land. Don’t get me started. The horizon is always 5 foot farther than you think… Mirage-a-lous. Pot-o-goldian. Grass is greenerer-erer-erer-erer.

Where we been? IDK IDK IDK IDK IDK. Abraham’s bosom. Thats where. The meme of a cat jumping from rock to rock to rock to rock in the watery ravine, and each rock has block letters in white Arial. IDK the rock says. And I said hey rock, what’s the matter with you rock? Sud was what the matter was with Sud but Sud was mobilising! Didn’t matter if the rock in front of him said IDK. He was mobilising! He saw horror and as he saw it, he couldn’t stay in bed much longer. The scream inside him had stopped screaming by itself. You know sometimes in that year in bed his ears would bleed from the screams. ‘Shut the fuck up’, ‘shut the fuck up’, he’d think he’d realise the screams were coming from him. You’re my rock of empathy my dear. He was better. In that now he knew why he was screaming, and his scream had a name.

The album cover was 5 different photographs of Robbie Williams on a football pitch. It was Robbie Williams pulling different faces. 5 Robbie Williams celebrating a goal. And the scoring Robbie Williams carried on the shoulder of the other Robbie Williamses. Some of the Robbie Williams have different hair. One Robbie Williams has a combover. The blues and greens are vivid on this ‘97 album and Robbie Williams and Robbie Williams and Robbie Williams and Robbie Williams and Robbie Williams are all smiling triumphantly. I am in the car on the way to Burnham Thorpe, silver cd Walkman blasting out:

 WE GOT STARS 

We watched the sky fall dark. Didn’t it change so quick and so slow. And all the clouds went black at different times. It was like a sea up there. On the window, on the roof, we separately stared out. Side by side having a conversation like we were in a car grazing window screen or something. We were talking to the view about cd players. My eyes once, twice, ok, many times rested on a single razorblade abandoned on the window’s indoor ledge. It sure was a nice place to rest my tired eyeballs, that cosy ass razorblade. Nice car to drive after the war, that razorblade – I said that, did I? I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours, Bob Dylan said that. I never told you this, about the razorblade eyeing me up, with such intent! Nuff to make you blush really. Adam and Eve never had a conversation, facing each other I mean. They talked loads but they never addressed each other man to man, like. Yeah, communication I think is easy with you. Like talking to myself kinda? Did you like Robbie Williams as a kid? Yeah, I loved Robbie Williams! I loved him. His lyrics were so great. And I loved those hooks. He had a way with a bridge. His bridges were great.

They whistled and sang together as the bus bumped along eastwards to where the sun rises – cheerio but be back soon - “You were meant to have been Bugsy” Bill said, and Sudbury cringed. “Gah don’t Bill, I know I fucked it.” Jen’s directorial debut of Bugsy Malone had been an Avant Garde affair with a whistling silence where Bugsy should have been. Bugsy had turned into a kind of Rebecca character like Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca but that was Cornwall, which was a different direction completely, the polar opposite, Hunstanton’s alterity, Yarmo adverso, Burnham Deepdale diametric. Billy’d been born in Cornwall mind drifting as he drove - yeah born like a dumpling into a stew in the west country going – going – scone. Billy laughed to himself. Well, we know where we’re going but we don’t know where we’ve scone. Something funny? Sud said. London accent nice and clear. And Billy said something funny back. He had no ties to Cornwall, he’d left ages ago like gays leave places they begin so it’ll end differently, fingers crossed. He’d left himself behind and probably there was some magic eye Billy back there going about his business and whenever anybody told him they’d just got back from a jaunt to Perrenaworthal he’d thought, did you see me there? And maybe in Norfolk there was an inverse Billy living the opposite way as an immobile notlibrarian transversing gender the other way around: jam then cream.

Robbie Williams was like the boy that does the worm on the carpet at school. Anywhere he can he worms. In the corridor - he worms. In the playground - he worms. No place that doesn’t get a good worming while he’s around. The boy in my class who wormed was called Jamie. And in my head Jamie was Robbie Williams. Desperate, frustrated, sad, cheeky. A resister. “There’s a lot of push and pull in your personality man”, makes sense, writing is running away from yourself and towards yourself at the same time. Do you get anywhere travelling like that? running away from yourself and towards yourself at the same time. Yeah. But not in this time zone. That’s how the hadron collider works doesn’t it?

No one says let your catatonic depression mobilise you. That was the cincher for Sud.

Vroooooooooooooooooooooooooom there’s our Sudbury on a shredder! That’s a kid’s motorbike to you and me yeah I know the words kids and motorbike shouldn’t be seen dead in the same sentence. But here they are rubbing up against each other like toe and nail. There he is, tennish. PLAYER. Waiting on the corner. His fine, gleaming shredder squidged between his trackie b’d calves. VROOOOOOM. Sud’s dad did up bikes. And he let Sud have his own shredder when he turned 9 years old. The same age he was when he first got a car started said his da. Sud was on his blue and white shredder in his blue and white jeans and his blue and white T-shirt with his blue and white school bag strapped to his back and his hair smacking his face, thwack, and sticking to his lips in the wind. Come on he thought, come on Miss, come on. He saw the car turn the corner and there she was ! His year 4 teacher Miss Eltham in her silver Volvo. He looked straight at the road, and with cold hands twisted the throttle. When she passed him, that was his cue! He sped off and rode in her petrol dust all the way to school. Every morning till he left junior school for good he waited at that corner for her, and rode in behind her, proud as punch of his hair, his dad, his motorbike. He wanted to be looked at so bad by her. He wanted her to appreciate these things about him too. But more than his dad and his football sweater, more than his long hair he wanted her to be proud of the way he drove his shredder.

Let your desire mobilise you.

THE FREEDOM THE POWER TO BE THIS SPEEDING THING THIS MESS OF BONE AND HAIR AND SKIN AND NAILS BEHIND HER. 2B THIS THIS UNCORRECTED SENTENCE OF DAD-LOVE AND MISS-LOVE AND SHREDDER-LOVE. 2B THIS HIM.

THEN CARPET CLASSROOM STOP. MISS. SHARED OUT.

– you know Sud this is the most mobile the mobile library’s ever got. I know I seem a broad trans man (I dunno somehow I'll miss ya) but I’m all talk about having never stopped moving and it’s true I’m a mover (Sudbury singing I love you that’s why I) I’m a road runner, a corner hugger, a tarmacian rotatarium I am all that. It’s not that I haven’t been moving it’s that I’ve never gone anywhere! Billy bumps his hands on the steering wheel which is big and low like a bus driver’s. Bumps his hands on the wheel as if to say ha! What a revelation, all this moving and gone to nowhere! [ANGELS COMES ON FUTURE FM] I was like you, it was girls that powered me. I didn’t have a shredder but I had my van. I spent my youth dreaming of kissing girls. I’m 48 but I don’t count the years in the closet, so I’m just pushing 30! What shall we do for my birthday Sud? Cheesecake and Karaoke? HAHAHA (Billy cracks up with laughter). I got better at dreaming Bill says just realising now hands on the wheel rolled our carpet of Norfolk ahead of him behind him so clear now you gotta. Oppression as I see it works by squashing the dream before it germinates. And aint that sad. It’s like when bulbs rot in the packet. They almost stopped us thinking we could make it, for ourselves (LYRIC) Now I dream of making the starting squad for Scotland. I dream of setting up the perfect goal. I dream of letting them players rush me when I kick it – right.

Sud turned the map around so east was straight ahead. “Straight on” he said!

Abraham’s Bosom is a place of rest and captivity. I only went there once. Bill is somewhere else. Somewhere in the past. It’s in Wells Next the Sea. Me and Rose went there with my family and Rose’s family. They had trampolines there but we have trampolines where I’m from so I wasnaearsed. Although I’m not one to pass up a trampoline. Rose and I got lost in the reeds at Abraham’s Bosom. We were beached on the banks in the abode of the righteous dead guarded by them caravans and them jumping locals. Hear em now 

THADUM THADUM THADUM.

Bill keeps going, keeps talking, to himself out the  

We paddled out too far into the reeds and couldn’t beat the current on the way back. The lake took us to the bottom of the lake I don’t wanna say bottom cos bottom is not what I mean I mean far side not bottom. Far side of the lake. The lake took us to its far side. Rose doesn’t understand irony or sarcasm which is why some people think she’s you know, a salt of the earth type. But I don’t. I just think Rose doesn’t fuck with bullshit. She got us out of the tangled water and hauled the boat up on the banks all by herself. A hug can be restraining can’t it? Yes, yes an embrace can be suffocating. Comfort can be stifling too. You can’t move without a struggle. And ain’t that the truth. No movement without struggle! Abraham’s Bosom is ‘posed to be where the believing souls awaited judgement says Bill and when Bill says Abraham’s Bosom is ‘posed to be where the believing souls await judgement. Sud just imagines a bunch of nervous amoebas vibrating in God’s bra.

BILLY AND SUDBURY GET OUT OF THE VAN TURN OFF FUTURE RADIO AND ARE PRESENTLY LOOKING OUT TO SEA.

Well what dyu think Suddy, my Sudbury, my Sud?

The low low tide seemed to say his name each time it sumped against a barely lifted ebb of sand. Sud

Sud

Sud

Arrhythmic as the sea changed directions. More east! Sudbury thought, jealous suddenly of the sea being able to reach further out into itself. Never, not on one visit to his cousin in Kings Lynn as a kid and then less then less then not for god, not for what twenty years, Billy’d never known they were anywhere near the sea. A coast! The east coast! An edge!!! Just the old cinema there where he’d seen that gay film in that nice old cinema that’s all he remembered of Kings Lynn. Was that in the east?! It was in the east and he’d barely known it! This place! It’s so, it’s so, it’s fucking broad Bill. But no bounce came back from Billy. Billy? Sudbury turned. Billy felt his toes deep in the flat sand. Sucked in like trying to pull out a fist. And where all his body normally moved, movement came to hold him. Forces from all sides west from before and south from all the rest of the time and now the east tugging in equal measure I have never felt so sturdy he said or thought or felt or all three. The land spread before him in a way which made him want to apologise! No please, no need to bow so low, to spread yourself so thin for me, no really, come on, up you get, trying to make the land stand up, but it seemed to cower before him, not cower, no just to relax. The land lay flat on its back and looked up at its big sky and didn’t move when Billy came to stand amongst it, completely at ease, with the land showing itself plainly that is, like a plain. So flat your own shoulder became a vista, you the highest point. That was it, really. For Sud and for Bill. For a land to let them be the highest thing was so generous, was so not what they had had. In the flatlands Billy and Sud were the tallest thing. As tall as they’d imagined themselves to be but never felt themselves to be. They’d thought that they needed a cliff edge, or a mountain top, something to leap off like Dido or aim towards like Sisyphus. Level pegging that’s all they’d ever wanted just fucking level pegging and here they were! Sud’d wandered easily away further than he’d thought he was going. SUD! Billy called across the sand and across the pools and something churned in his belly like panic like they’d be stranded before he could tell Sud his idea he’d just had about his van his rickety old tincan of a mobile library constantly breaking barely drivable barely mobile library he called out: SUD!

WHEN WE GET BACK TO THE VAN I’LL DUMP ALL THE BOOKS OUT THE BACK AND THEN IT’LL STOP BEING SO FUCKING HEAVY!!

Billy’d been trying to think of ways to keep the van from breaking down the tires from sagging the cam belt from buckling the spark plugs from draining the windscreen wipers from smearing all of it and as the water gathered up over his ankles, crept up his calves back of knees wet he’d realised how to fix it!

YEAH WILL DUMP THE BOOKS!!! MUCH MUCH MORE ROOM THEN AND LIGHTER LOAD SO WON’T BREAK DOWN!

Sud said YEAH WICKED BILL tried to find a route back to him MUCH BETTER VAN THEN leapt over new pools splashed about BILL?

YEAH?

AREN’T SOME OF THEM RESERVED THOUGH??

Sud is staring out into a break in the distance where the sea seeps into the sand. Thats where they are walking toward. The part of the beach where today they will both decide to swim. That is the point of them both today. Even after Billy protests and says no one wants to see my wrinkly old bum. Sud will take off all of his clothes and shut his eyes and run into the waves. Billy will have on her black Victorian swimsuit, with one of the straps down and one up. And Billy will be caught like this in Sud’s mind for years after this day. Her black swimsuit, shirtlessness undecided, teeth chattering like castanets. Her strong legs fighting the breaking waves by the shore until she moves her body past the pesky white wall and lowers her chest in with a single oof. Billy will be caught like this for Sud.

Abode of the righteous dead