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Authors: Keith Reilly

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BOOK: Ahoy for Joy
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Eventually, they moved on to music and the seal of mutual interest came to a head, for most people Michael knew were interested in the top 20 music hit parade with its plastic actors singing songs by commercial songwriters of shallow intellectual value. Anna was much more interested in album tracks by singer songwriters with profound messages to send. For Michael too, it was all about people like; Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young, where the lyrics were not just rhyming nonsense, but poignant, touching stories of sorrow or triumph or political statements and observation of the changing world.

Michael had been listening to such music for several years by then, but had barely even had the shortest of verbal exchange with anyone of a similar mind in his life. Now suddenly this beautiful girl engaged completely as they each mentioned favourite songs and albums. Anna ventured questions or comments on lyrics, which she somehow expected Michael to immediately be able to clarify as if his mother tongue was also the fountain of literary understanding. He did try to explain the analogies contained in Dylan's Blowing in the Wind and they both speculated if the lyrics were just an observation of life, as Dylan himself had claimed, or part of a subtle theme of political change. They both liked Neil Young and fellow Canadian Joni Mitchell whose haunting lyrics of love and relationships seemed to speak to them separately and together, joining them now at this moment in time as if the same songs offered a constancy of understanding like the sun or the moon. Anna had laughed and of course agreed that nobody could decipher the words of Procol Harum's Whiter Shade of Pale and speculated that they were probably inspired by some form of substance or alcohol abuse. On the other hand, American Pie, the only song by Don McClean they rated, clearly had clandestine messages that would keep the music speculators busy for a long while yet.

“It might be,” Michael offered, “that some messages, we just have to enjoy not understanding.” Anna smiled, her white teeth showing quickly before she once again bit her lip,

“Don't you think the new Dylan song, Forever Young, is one of his best?”

“Perhaps the very best,” agreed Michael, looking into her eyes and thinking of the lyrics he knew by heart. “Nothing political in that,” he said at last, “just maybe the most perfect ode to youth ever written.” Suddenly Michael seemed able to express himself. After years of near silence, at last he seemed able to say what he wanted, as if a door in his mind had suddenly opened. Anna smiled once again. Engaging, warm, open. He could have looked at that face forever. It was,
she
was, sublime in every sense. He watched intently as her gaze left him bashfully during the short, silent interludes in the conversation, before returning, engaging him once more and breaking into an open smile. As the evening wore on, and the pace slowed, Michael took only to watching her, like he wanted to absorb everything about her into his mind, through his pores and his being like this was Brigadoon and tomorrow she would disappear from his life for a hundred years. He reeled at the thought.

At last, Fred looked at his watch.

“Hey, shit!” He exclaimed, “We've got to go. We should have been back twenty minutes ago.” Lorrie jumped up and crawled for the exit, causing Grietje to fall over as the pressure in the blow up bed that had been their seat rose, and suddenly fell. Fred quickly followed, crawling head first through the door, but Michael stayed put.

“Hey Michael, aren't you coming?” shouted Fred.

“I'll be along in a minute.”

“You'll be along in a minute? You'll be in trouble. You'll lose points for your team.” Michael looked back at Anna. She laughed.

“Points for your team?” she questioned, grinning. Michael blushed. This was indeed true, he would lose points for his team, for while the boys could earn points for all sorts of activities, like good inspection results or winning games or even individual tasks like the tent peg carving or orienteering competitions or kite construction, they could also lose them for lateness or any other misdemeanour. Michael tried to explain how it worked, but suddenly, it all seemed so silly, so childish, so crass. He whimpered with embarrassment, reddening as he spoke, revealing vulnerability that unknown to him, Anna, who just sat there smiling and amused, rather liked. Suddenly, he had nothing to say. He just looked at her. Then, Grietje cleared her throat and said something in Dutch, before grabbing what looked to be a soap bag, pulling up the zipper once more and leaving the tent.

They were alone. This should have been his opportunity, but his mind was suddenly as empty as a liar's promise. He tried to recapture the subjects of the last hour or so, but nothing seemed appropriate. Anna just sat there, looking at him, then looking away when the gaze became too much and focusing once more on an imaginary object at the side of the tent, biting her lip, then looking back at him again and again. Michael just watched, perhaps in a curious premonition, recording her image in his mind, like he might need it again, forever young. At last there was an angry shout from outside.

“Is Michael Coglan in there?” Michael jumped. It sounded like the Adjutant.

“Yes, OK, OK, I'm coming,” he shouted back, entirely failing to conceal his irritation.

“Well, get up to camp at once boy, or you'll be touring the black hole all week! I don't want to have to come down here again,” and perhaps with some sympathy for the lad's situation, he walked off. They both listened intently as the steps faded and Michael was just about to launch into explaining what the black hole was, when Anna saved him from himself. She put her hand on his, her palm atop his knuckles and softly wrapped her fingers around, squeezing gently. Her touch felt electric, spiritual, sublime, transcendent.

“You have to go,” she said.

Chapter 4
Desire – the Mother of Poetry!

Michael slept uneasily that night, his unfamiliar elation not lending itself to a gentle slumber and by the morning bugle call, the one he had undertaken to do ‘quietly' the night before, the endorphins in his mind had begun to transmit a rather mixed bunch of messages. He was really quite troubled.
How could he see her again
?

It was Wednesday and today was the eagerly awaited trip to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and England's largest Big Dipper, as well as an endless host of other attractions whose principle objective was to relieve children of their money. They wouldn't return until evening.
Perhaps he could see her then
. Suddenly a chilling thought surged through his mind;
What if she was gone by then?
He had no idea what her plans were, if they were to stay until the weekend or when they would leave. Fear took hold and suddenly he became convinced that Anna would be just the shortest of fleeting encounters that would simply fade into the past like a fond memory of no consequence. He wondered if he could feign illness or injury and stay behind with the women officers.

While the others were preparing for tent inspection, he found a few moments and slipped away, heading down towards the Dutch camp. He called Anna's name quietly outside her tent, but there was no reply. He didn't feel he could quite burst in, so instead went over to one of the boys' tents, unzipped the door and crawled in, waking its inhabitants who seemed to have been undisturbed by the bugle call that morning. Geert sat up, perhaps at last a little fearful for his sister's virtue and exclaimed,

“Man, have you been here all night?”

Michael was quick to reassure him that all was indeed well and he had slept in his own tent at the BB camp, but that he would be gone all day and wanted to see perhaps if they might meet up again later that evening. Geert rubbed the sleep from his eyes but Michael's fears were not without foundation for the Dutch group were indeed set to leave that very morning.

Michael arrived back at the main marquee as breakfast preparations were underway. He was distraught. His mind was in chaos as he struggled to find a way forward that he felt he could live with. He ignored his team's activities for tent inspection and sat silently, head in hands, in the empty marquee as Miriam and the others milled around getting everything ready. At last, Danny, one of the younger officers, a thoughtful and sympathetic sort, who Michael remembered had been one of the older boys when he first joined the company, sat down on the bench beside him. He didn't speak. Instead, he just sat there quietly, his hands clasped on the table. Michael tried hard to ignore him, but at last, his presence irritated him sufficiently and Michael turned towards him revealing a face, red and swollen with pain and anguish.

“What do you want?” he barked quickly.

Danny smiled back warm heartedly, but didn't rush to reply. Eventually he said,

“I'm just here to see if I'm needed.” Michael scowled back. “Do you want to tell me about it?” Danny went on, his voice soft, considerate. “Girl?” he questioned.

There was no girl. No
girl
. Michael's thoughts raged. Maybe he wanted there to be a girl, a relationship, something, but there wasn't. It had just been a fleeting moment, a mirage, a dream that could never be. A sickness rose in his stomach. Anna had probably forgotten him already. Why hadn't he just let himself be? He had been fine, he got up, went to school, he went home, watched TV, he slept. Life had been fine, now a giant anvil had fallen from the sky and his fragile demeanour lay crushed and distorted in a way he hardly understood.

“See, Michael,” he went on, “you don't look great. You're upset and you're upset maybe because it's something important to you. That's fine.” Danny paused, thinking a while, taking care over his words. “Look, I probably can't help. I admit that, but you might feel better after talking about it. If you tell me about it, maybe you'll get an idea. An epiphany!”

Michael smiled inside at the use of the word,
epiphany
, but prevented it showing.

“Look, you're an intelligent boy, but at this moment in time, are you really using all your grey matter? No you're not. You're simply lost, wallowing in your own self-pity. Maybe you need to raise your game a bit. Maybe you're short of time. Maybe you need to think fast. Don't let things get you down, confuse your mind. There are some outcomes you can't control, but you can control your own actions.”

There was logic in his words and Michael sought to confide in the friendly young man. He even opened his mouth to speak, but emotion came over him and he had to bite his lip hard to maintain composure, clasping his face once more to conceal the distress in his eyes. Danny sat patiently. It was a busy time in the morning and he too, like the boys had various duties to carry out, but still he sat allowing his responsibilities to fall by the wayside as a greater priority, sat in abject misery beside him. Eventually Michael composed himself.

“Well, it's nothing really,” he explained at last. Danny raised his eyebrows. “Well, just…” His voice tailed off. “Well, there was this girl and I though we got on so well and probably she didn't really like me anyway and she's foreign and I would probably never have seen her again anyway and now she's going, like right now this morning, like while we are away and that will be that. Oh God, why do I feel so utterly…” He paused and his red eyes met Danny's for the first time, “so utterly, well lost, miserable?”

Danny smiled, once again, maintaining the eye contact that he saw as a victory, sympathetic for the boy whose very dignity he had trodden on to get to the nub of the issue.

“Sounds like you're in love,” he ventured at last. It wasn't the right thing to say.

“In love?
In love
? How can I be in love? I only just met the girl. There was nothing. Look nothing, you know. Nothing happened. I wanted it to, but it didn't. It just didn't, now it never will.” Michael slumped forward, his head once more in his hands and now resting on the trestle table in front.

“Well, has she
actually
left yet?”

Michael didn't answer, but Danny went on anyway.

“Well, why not leave her a note and ask her to write to you, or even just to send you a postcard from her home town or something. Or just give her your address and see what happens.” Michael knew it wasn't a bad idea, but the mood of grief and desolation in his mind was still very much in play and he rejected the notion lamenting sorrowfully,

“She'd never write. Why would she write to me? She'll forget me. She probably has already,” but the more he went on, the more reasons he presented dismissing this as a plan, the better it sounded.

It seemed such a poor compromise though. He wanted to
see
her again, but it also seemed the only way forward.
But what if she never wrote to him? What if she just left his note tucked deep in her bag but never retrieved it, never wrote?
Every step forward in his life, however small, always involved a whole wider scope for new fears and terrors, worse than the last, that would occupy his mind and eat at his soul. At home, he spent most of his time alone in his bedroom. It was easier that way; simple, undemanding. In solitude he appeased his vulnerability, a sense he found so debilitating, now he had adopted the greatest vulnerability of all.

Oh the joy of love could never be worth the pain of loss,
he lamented silently. But there was also a new sense he felt inside too; a logic, a consideration, a reality. Perhaps one day he would have to stand up and accept these human emotions that he crushed from his consciousness with a zeal that had left him alone, silent, friendless and all but invisible to those around him.
Perhaps, this was not right?

He presented this notional challenge to himself that moment on that bench, in the camp marquee, Danny by his side, for the very first time in his life. Perhaps he had found a prize worth fighting for and his default setting of dis-involvement with everyone around him may actually be a bigger problem than he had considered. He shuddered. Perhaps today was the day when he would finally have to confront reality and accept that his state of mind; his solitude and his withdrawal, was not a true state, not a natural state. His mother had always worried about his quiet nature, his apparent social ineptitude and awkwardness. In truth, it had never really worried Michael, not until then that was. But by now he did know that love was in his mind and in his heart. He also knew that if he was to move on, then he would have to invite once more, another, more familiar emotion, one that had tormented him, bullied him into silence and detachment for as long as he could remember. He would have to welcome fear as willingly as he sought love for he knew that without the fear of loss, there could be no love.

And fear chilled him to the core. Fear was all he had known for as long as he could remember. Fear was the predominant emotion in a mind complicated by a murky past and a disturbed present. Tentatively at first, but quickly a confidence grew in him and although a fear did rise inside, it was not quite a negative fear, a debilitating fear in the way he knew it, but a fear that focused his senses and stimulated his mind. Suddenly, Michael knew that if he got the next hour or so of his life right, he would change it forever. He knew if he got on that bus for Blackpool without taking the right action, the emotion that he at last realised he wanted to share would remain buried in him and Anna would disappear from him forever, like an illusion, a fantasy that never was.

Politely, he thanked Danny for his help, excused himself from the table and went to his tent. Rummaging in his suitcase, he found some sheets of paper he had brought with him to write to his parents. Derek shouted at him to help with the inspection preparations, but he hopped out of the tent again, oblivious to the abuse directed at him and returned to the marquee taking up the same position at the trestle table. Then, with pen in hand, he settled himself down to write.

However, before long, breakfast was ready to be served and the boys quickly appeared, milling in around him. It was not the best environment for so important a task, but he was obliged to be there and couldn't really be anywhere else. In any case, this was the only horizontal surface available. So, to the sound of further complaints at his failure to prepare the tent for inspection and as the table moved and shook as the others constantly pushed and shoved, arguing over the milk, sugar and cornflakes, Michael wrote.

While he wrote, the others poked and prodded him and each other and mocked and ridiculed and tried to wrestle the sheet from his hand, but he resisted, his introverted nature adept at shutting out confusion. He had just finished, and was writing his address at the bottom when one of the boys snatched it from him and pretended to read. Michael lurched at him but he quickly passed it on to the next boy and from him to the next, along the bench. Distraught, Michael jumped up from his seat, knocking the arm of a boy behind who emptied his spoonful of cereal onto his lap, before retaliating with a hard thump. He ran around, after the note as it was passed, thrown and tossed from boy to boy. Every so often, one would hold it just almost within reach, then pull it away suddenly as he made a lunge to catch it. After a while, some took to reading bits of it before bursting into fits of laughter, then handing it on to another, or throwing it across the table. Michael was hysterical. A cocktail of rage, fury, embarrassment and humiliation ran through his veins as he danced to everyone's tune, desperate to get his note back. At last, Jackson, a boy a year or so younger than Michael with a quick wit and a cheeky grin the girls back home rather liked, jumped to the centre of the marquee.

“Shall I read it?” he said, egging a response as he ran around the Marquee dancing, holding the paper in the air while Michael begged for it back. Once or twice, he almost grabbed it, but Jackson was too quick for him. Michael struggled to hold back the tears welling in his eyes. He could take the mocking and the humiliation; these were prices he was willing to pay, but he wanted his note back. Then, one of the larger boys who had rotated his position on the bench to watch Jackson's performance in the middle of the marquee, grabbed the unfortunate Michael from behind, pinning his arms helplessly to his sides before pulling him down and holding him tight upon his lap. The shrieking faces of onlookers laughed and leered at him from both sides, from before him and behind, their heads turning to look and laugh like he was some kind of nineteenth century freak show. Michael struggled in desperation, swooning from the heat, the exertion, the attention. “Don't you
want
me to read it?” Jackson jeered, inviting a response. Michael struggled once more, but his breath was short from the strong arms surrounding his torso and he whimpered, a response so pathetic, it only added to the fun.

The adjutant, now startled at the commotion shouted angrily,

“Will someone please give that boy whatever it is belongs to him,” before going back to eating his breakfast and continuing to try to hear the conversation with the others at the officers table. Seeing Michael now pinned down, his challenge mollified, Jackson filled his chest. There was something of the performer about the young man and he confidently set to address the room, the paper in his right hand with his left gesturing for emphasis and effect.

“To Anna,” he began,

Last night I met a friend but now

I find that you're to go
So here's a note to get your goat
And maybe even though

You live abroad so far away

Beyond the lough and sea
I hope the most that you will post
A note addressed to me

He stopped, pausing for effect amid hoots of laughter. “This is bollocks” he retorted, before reading on silently, “Hold on, it's getting better.”

BOOK: Ahoy for Joy
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