Living with the Truth Stranger than Fiction This Is Not About What You Think Milligan and Murphy Making Sense

Sunday 31 January 2016

#615


Memories



The truth is hard
like yesterday's friend
and if we must live with the past
does it have to feel like incest?


17 December 1987
  
 

I can’t remember the last time I spoke to Rita. It was long after 1987 and a lot had to happen to both of us in between. This poem’s not about her but the more I found myself not wanting to talk about this poem the more I found myself thinking about Rita. I think the last time I talked to her—talked to her properly like friends can—was a few days before she gave birth to her first (and for all I know only) child. I have no idea how I found out where she was but somehow the information filtered down to me and I decided to visit but as I had to go to the hospital for a physiotherapy appointment I chose to chance my arm and to be honest I rather wanted to avoid regular visiting hours because you can’t talk then. I had nothing especially to talk to her about—we had no unresolved issues to put to bed—but I did want to be able to talk to her. To be honest I can’t remember much about what was said apart from one thing. She said, “Jimmy, I’ve done some terrible things, things I’ll never tell you about so don’t ask me.” Those may not have been her exact words. I don’t think she said “terrible” but “awful” doesn’t sound like her. It doesn’t matter. She’d done things she was deeply ashamed of and that much she did want me to know even if she couldn’t bear to relate the specifics.

I’ve loved Rita for over forty years even though I’ve not spoken to her in twenty and hardly saw her the ten prior to that. We were never anything more than friends. I would’ve liked to have been but she knew that would’ve ruined what we did have and so she gently disabused me of that notion. Then she got married and I got married or maybe I got married first and we drifted apart but were always pleased when we did run into each other. We got to pretend we were teenagers again for a few minutes and not adults who’d messed up.

I’ll never know what Rita has to live with. She probably imagined I wouldn’t be able to look at her if I knew. The thing is I really can’t imagine anything that would stop me feeling the way I do about her even though she hasn’t been that person for a long time. She’s probably a granny by now for Christ’s sake, Granny Rita. I don’t have a photo of her and I’ve tried to find her online but there’s nothing. I think I may have got her married name wrong and ‘Rita’s’ not even her legal name; I don’t know why her family called her that but it’s who she’ll always be to me. A while back I found a picture of a Russian girl that reminded me of her and this is what stands as a placeholder in my mind. I think it’s appropriate anyway. Most of our memories are mostly imaginings anyway.

5 comments:

Kass said...

Dealing with the past like incest...?
I'll have to mull that over for a while.
Your friendship and remembrance of Rita is touching.

Jim Murdoch said...

It’s an emotive subject, Kass, but not a simple one. The Bible says it’s wrong (although it wasn’t always wrong) so that should be the end of the story but then it says many things are wrong—murder, theft—and that hasn’t stopped people doing them. Do they know it’s wrong when they murder and steal? In pretty much every case, yes. But they justify it. They learn to live with it. You can learn to live with pretty much anything. Other people are rarely as understanding. Just ask the women who fell in love with the Berlin Wall and the Eiffel Tower once the word got out.

Kass said...

"Just ask the women who fell in love with the Berlin Wall and the Eiffel Tower once the word got out."

Please explain. I'm so intrigued.

Jim Murdoch said...

The women in question, Kass, are Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer and Erika Eiffel.

Kass said...

Thank you. So weird.

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