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John Fish B.Sc.
Publishers of Tenby in Wales (UK)PRESELI BLUESTONES INTERNET SUBSCRIPTION CHANNEL
Tenby Publishers
present
THE CELTIC VERSES
by
SION PYSGOD
Explore Our Changing World
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"Ond, rhag ofn y bydd fy hun yn euog i hunan yn anghywir, byddaf yn stopio fy nghlustiau yn erbyn cân y môr-forwyn"
"But, lest myself be guilty to self-wrong, I'll stop mine ears against the mermaid's song"
Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors
When a blood red sun sets in the west on your old world
Over the horizon of the eastern shore of the Atlantic Ocean
Then the Star of Pembrokeshire rises up into your night sky
And tomorrow at dawn your life's voyage to a new world begins
His life seemed to be totally meaningless, going nowhere. It hadn't always been like that but somehow it seemed to reflect the times he lived in.
I know what you're going through
And I know how you feel when redundancy strikes
The company is being rationalised, you see
To maximise shareholders' profits, you see
And you're in the way, you see
To a rich man's dreams of holiday in Barbados
Whilst your dreams are put on ice
Once I was a rich man of possessions a-plenty
Now my health is taxed by my poor eyes and teeth
My water and excreta is being sold off too
Why anyone should put such a value on me ...
But not just on me, on all of us too
The world has been turned upside down
And my senses don't cognate like they used to
If I was a rich man would I be free
If I was naked would you see my knobbly knees
If I was a blue bird would I whistle and sing
If I was a piece of rubbish would I be put in a bin
But it wouldn't solve nothing
We're in hell of a fix
What say you
Is there a way out of this mess
Well I don't know what's really best
Okay it's crazy
That I'm going to be taxed on the air I breathe
But when the ship is sinking it's all hands to the pumps
Either that or buy a generator for when the electricity stops
It's like my head's tied up in a Gordian knot
I know what Alexander would do
He'd chop it in half
So now I got two heads
One left and one right
But how to march with two best feet forward
Is a problem of a magnitude I can't solve
So I stands still in my oblivion
For with two heads I don't know what to say
And I don't even know how to think no more
But still I can hear through each ear
Year in year out each ear hears the same
There's a wisdom there to free this slave
Because it's not their hearing that's changed
It's just the things they hear sayed
So I'll listen to H.G. Wells and build me a time machine
And see if the future will say what the past used to
Or find out if my schizophrenia
Is of an evolutionary destiny
And while I'm building it I'm not going to listen
In through one ear and out through the other say I
Because what comes in through one
Is the same as the other
Then it all swirls round inside my head
So if it could all come out and leave me alone
Would I really miss it all?
Everything all went wrong at once. It was like he'd been caught in a pincer movement. Practically simultaneously his marriage broke-up and he lost his job. Still, no children were involved and things hadn't looked too good on the job-front for quite awhile. Whether one led to the other, or even vice-versa, he just didn't know. But his little world collapsed like the proverbial pack of cards and he found that the foundations of his life were built on sand. It all seemed so crazy now, for it was all glued together by a job. A job which allowed him a mortgage and car. So he could provide for his wife and, hopefully, one day a family. But without that job he was as good as dead. He thought she realised that quite awhile before he did. In hindsight certain things became crystal clear, not that he attached all blame to her. Perhaps the middle-class dream was just him being naïve.
But it wasn't just his life that was changing, society was too. In hindsight the midwife of change was the Falkland's War, though at the time it just seemed to be a continuation of the past.
We fought for them and did not know why
Yet for them we were prepared to die
A long way away in southern ocean's depths
Yet lusted by one whose strength was immense
So Britannia's ships once more ruled the waves
Fuelled by memories of Drake, Nelson and sea-waves
A last gasp of strength from our epic past
We cast fear to the winds and fought with our last gasp
The clarion call sounded clear over our land
We emptied our treasures and threw money to sand
The air-waves screamed with our bolts of death
And all who stood in our way we entombed in death
We built a fortress to protect our heart
But nearly forgot that money means nought
But we pulled through by forgetting about greed
And putting our faith in our democratic dream
So Britannia's victorious in a new Elizabethan age
Strengthened, ennobled, no longer in chains
Breathing free air with each beat of our hearts
Standing so firmly no longer apart
But when victory was celebrated it brought with it a change in the course of history. As the victorious forces were paraded before their monarch there was a massive explosion, and so Britain became a republic for the rightful heir to the throne was a girl-child barely out of infancy. And with the republic they had a president: The Maggie. Not that the change was universally approved of, but such was the former prime minister's majority in parliament that the necessary Acts of Parliament were rushed through with little or no public debate.
You're a member of parliament
A democratically elected public servant
You can't be head of state, Her Majesty is
You're not God, you can't make up our game
You're a human being who happens to be a woman
You're a wife, a mother, a home, a heart
Play to the rules and forget about being the Iron Lady
One day, in the merry month of May, he was out driving his car, with no particular place to go, when he saw a sign-post for Stonehenge. The last time he'd been there was when he was a child so, as his fancy took him, he went there. Stonehenge too had changed. Instead of being in the middle of nowhere it had been commercialised. As he drove into the visitor-centre's car-park the new national anthem was playing on the car's radio.
Oh Britannia, Oh Britannia
Oh Britannia, Oh Britannia
Oh Britannia I love you
Oh Britannia we love you
Oh Britannia how we love you
Oh Britannia how we adore you
Oh Britannia how we need you
Oh Britannia we love you
Oh Britannia she's so gentle
Oh Britannia she's so loving
Oh Britannia you're our heart
Oh Britannia we love you
With your shield you protect us
With your spear you defend us
And lead us to victory with our battle-cry
Oh Britannia we love you
To your bosom Oh you suckle us
To your heart Oh you nurture us
With your love Oh you soothe us
Oh Britannia we love you
With red for heart
For you love us all
With white you're so pure
Oh Britannia we love you
With blue for sea and sky
With green for nature
Oh Britannia you're our home
Oh Britannia we love you
Oh Britannia, Oh Britannia
We sing your praises all day long
And sing them all night too
Oh Britannia we love you
Oh Britannia, Oh Britannia
Oh Britannia, Oh Britannia
Oh Britannia I love you
Oh Britannia we all love you
Though since, to the popular imagination, The Maggie was equated with Britannia it was often sung with a slight change: Oh Britannia we hate you. He got out of his car and strolled over to the pay-booth where, under the watchful eye of two black-uniformed custodians, he prepared to buy a ticket. There was a small queue and on the wall, behind the young lady who was servicing the queue, he could see a portrait of The Maggie. But as he was about to exchange cash for ticket he heard a woman's voice, she sounded distressed: "Don't serve her, serve me, serve Britannia."
He stood there, open-mouthed. The young lady and those in the queue behind him grew agitated. The custodians moved in and one of them tapped him on the shoulder. He stepped back and they faced each other. His hands reached for his hips and theirs did too. Then with pointed forefinger guns they drew. He could hear the bullets leave his lips: "Pshoo ... Pshoo."
One gasped at his stomach and fell to the ground groaning, the other grasped at his arm and his face disfigured into an agonised grimace. He blew on his finger-tips, winked at the now open-mouthed young lady and the now silent crowd respectfully parted as he returned to his car.
As he pulled out of the car-park and out onto the open road a bright-pink car was approaching with flashing blue lights and a siren which sounded like a woman wailing. It was a detachment of Iron Maidens ... and so he came to be interviewed by Inspector X. The Inspector was a well-built handsome woman of middle-aged years. Not beautiful in the conventional sense but pleasing to the eye. He was struck by her appearance, wearing the uniform of an Inspector of the Iron Maidens she looked the part. For she was dressed as a Britannia look-alike: long flowing white robe and on her head a helmet with four plumes: red, white, blue and green. Green having been added to Britannia's colours to show that she, and by association The Maggie, were environmentally friendly.
He'd been marched into the Inspector's office by two Iron Maidens who now stood one each side of him. They all faced the Inspector who sat behind her desk eyeing him as she glanced at a file. She made an indication with her hand and the Iron Maidens marched out.
The Inspector cleared her throat and spoke in a surprisingly deep voice: "Well, Mister O, what do you have to say for yourself?"
He was completely bemused so shrugged: "What would you like me to say?"
She smiled: "Come now Mister O things are not like they used to be ..."
He quickly interposed: "You can say that again!"
"I believe we can safely agree on that but there's no turning back and I need answers ... and one way or the other I'll get them."
Behind her liquid green eyes lurked a deadly determination or something equally sinister; he joked: "Well ask me some questions then!"
"I can see that this is going to be quite tedious."
He told the truth: "No, I'm quite enjoying it."
"But will you say that when I have finished with you?"
"I don't see why not, after all I've done nothing wrong so why should I have anything to be afraid of?"
She smiled sadly: "If only life were that simple."
Oh I know what oblivion is
It is where I live my life
No future, no past, no present, no nothing
Just an ageing body-shell
And no friend with whom to pass the night
Somehow I just can't work it out
Can't find the key to unravel destiny
Can't make a meaningful future for me
Somehow I always seem to get stabbed in the back
Even if the knife is held by me
So I know what oblivion is
It's the inability to tell left from right
While all around you know the score
But you're like a beginner who can't even start
So you lose and lose but never win
So I know the way out of oblivion
And that is to win
For life isn't for real it's just a game
Even though I know I can bleed
Better your blood than mine be the moral of the tale
She continued: "When I was younger I was very naïve and idealistic. I really believed in what I was doing. Oh, many people, especially those of my own generation, despised me and made fun of me, but generally I think people respected me and the uniform I wore. There was a sense of trust which does not exist no more. I believed that I was serving the community of which I was a part. Nowadays I do not serve society I serve a regime. Do you understand my meaning?"
"Oh yes, I think so. There's no sense of belonging no more. Something's missing, gone out of life ... there's no sense of purpose no more."
She lowered her voice: "You and I have much in common then."
He continued: "Not just you and me, everybody. Everybody says the same if you talk to them."
"Would you say that people are unhappy?"
"Yes, I think they are unhappier than they used to be."
"So you blame her?" She nodded towards the obligatory Maggie portrait.
He thought he'd better answer carefully so said: "Some people do."
She was definitely fishing: "But you don't?"
"Well I think that if you're in power then you have to take some responsibility. I don't think it's really on to say that it's nothing to do with you."
"Do you blame me then?"
"I think you're in the middle."
"Of what?"
"Well, look at the uniforms you all wear. They're not so much like uniforms they're more like fancy dress."
She smiled as she reminisced: "When I first joined the force I thought I looked pretty sexy in my uniform and I knew I did from the admiring glances and comments I frequently received from my male colleagues and members of the public. They say men like to see women in uniforms, do you?"
He joked: "Especially in nature's uniform!"
"Hmmm ... that is not the correct answer."
"What is?"
"Either yes or no."
"Just goes to show that sometimes there's more that two sides to a coin. Let me ask you a question?"
"Go ahead."
"What am I doing here?"
"As you know you were arrested for creating a disturbance at Stonehenge and I am the officer who has been instructed to question you."
"I don't think you can call it a disturbance ... we were just mucking about."
"That is not what this report says ... if you would care to read it."
She passed the folder to him: apparently he'd had a fight with the two custodians after they'd stopped him when he'd attempted to rob the ticket-booth.
He was incredulous: "This is ridiculous, it's a complete story!"
"What really happened then, tell me in your own words."
He told her and she burst out laughing then said: "My experience in this police force tells me that this," she held up the folder, "is much more probably the truth than your fairytale."
Imagine a country where there lived three different peoples. Not really different peoples but slightly different: the Northerners, South-Easterners and Westerners. They'd long since settled their differences and lived peacefully in a parliamentary democracy. They elected representatives to their parliament not on the basis of class, race or religion but according to policies of political parties.
That country had three main parties: the blues, the reds and the yellows. And they all pertained to represent all the people of that country whether they were Northerners, South-Easterners or Westerners.
In the blues a faction came to the fore, and had a plan. See, the thing was that there were a lot more South-Easterners than the Northerners and Westerners combined. What the faction reasoned was this: by securing the support of the South-Easterners and 'forgetting' about the interests of the Northerners and Westerners an everlasting majority could be secured in parliament ... The incredible plan worked but had a surprising result: for out of it the three became two: the 'haves' and the 'have-nots'.
"But it's the truth!"
She pondered for a moment biting on the end of her pen, then said: "So you will plead not guilty?"
"You mean I'll have to go to court?"
"Yes."
"But I've done nothing!"
She held up the folder: "According to this you have. What is high spirits to you, is a serious crime to us. You will undoubtedly face a prison sentence."
He held his head in his hands: "This is crazy!" Then looked at her: "And all because I wouldn't pay to go in Stonehenge."
"All because you broke a rule Mister O. You broke a rule, so you broke a law. Is there any difference?"
"Perhaps not, but I didn't commit a crime."
"Is it possible that they misinterpreted your behaviour?"
He grasped at the life-line she was throwing him: "Yes, that must be it."
"So they assumed that since you weren't going to give, you were going to take? Another of your coins with more than two sides?"
"But who'd believe me?"
"I might."
All that glitters is not gold
For Stonehenge is getting old
Is page one a substitute for page three
Is a fourth term a woman's dream
What satisfaction to be dined by all high and mighty
When what they're after is your mind
She continued: "You see, I'm committing a crime right now."
He sounded incredulous: "You are?"
She nodded: "Due to there being behavioural problems of a sexual nature amongst the inner clique of the regime, all Iron Maidens including those of superior rank such as myself are required, by presidential regulations, to wear a chastity belt at all times when on duty. And I, Mister O, am not wearing my chastity belt."
"You're joking!"
"I'm not, really ... here, look." As he involuntarily leaned forward she coyly opened a draw from her desk and briefly held up a contraption of metal and leather which she then lay on her desk. She leaned backwards: "Of my own free-will I have removed it and therefore of my own free-will I am guilty."
"Yes, but nobody would condemn you for not wearing that thing."
"They would, I'm on duty so I'm breaking the law by not wearing it."
"What would happen to you?"
"To the letter of the law dismissal from the service unless, of course, compassion was shown."
"There's not much of that about these days."
"Compassion?"
"Yes."
"And that is why you must appreciate and understand the full gravity of the predicament you are in. I chose not to wear that since I find it uncomfortable and being uncomfortable around my genitals it makes me think of that which I am not supposed to think during duty hours. What does it make you think of?"
He was silent for a moment then said: ""My divorce really, I didn't want it to happen."
"But she did?"
He nodded, felt a tear come into his eyes.
"Well then we have grounds for you to plead diminished responsibility. Grounds for compassion to be shown. There is your divorce and from what I have been told about you from your initial interview, you are unemployed. Correct?"
"Yes."
No regrets have I
But a few thousand
When I did what I did for you
I believed in what I was doing
With an absolute exactitude
But now with the passing of years
With my face older and nothing to show for it
I realise that I was mistaken
And with fool's gold of hindsight
Know that I was mistaken
So no regrets have I
Even if I am regretful
Just a feeling of emptiness and sense of loss
For it was my own life I was forsaking
My own dreams which came to nought
So what is there left but nothing
What is there to do but nought
For I have no sense of where I am going
No light to guide me on my way
No target to set my sights on
She asked: "Do you suffer from depression?"
"If I said no I think I'd be lying but I tend to be optimistic if you know what I mean."
"Mmmm ... maybe. So you're not receiving any medication?"
"No, none."
"None whatsoever?"
"No ... I haven't been to the doctor for years."
She seemed to stare past him: "I'd like to ask you a question which you needn't answer if you don't want to ... have you had sex since your divorce?"
"No."
"My sex life isn't what it was either." She glanced at the chastity belt and grinned: "It's ridiculous, isn't it, a single woman of forty-three who since adolescence has had a perfectly normal, no healthy, attitude to sex has to wear that ridiculous thing. Anyone would think I was irresistibly attracted to anyone who is a member of the regime. Though according to rumour their behavioural problems aren't necessarily of a heterosexual nature! It really is so so ridiculous that I have to wear this ridiculous thing ... anyone would think I was virgin!"
So now I've cracked the secret of the universe
And that is that life is but a game
Some win, some lose, but never a draw
For this game isn't for fun but for real
So what are the rules of this game
Which nature commands us all must play
To win, oh but that's too easy
For to win you must know how to play
Show no mercy seems a good start point
For that is how it is played on me
Show no compassion, mercy or trust
A knife in the back is worth two in the front
For everyone must think good of me
So rule two is to be the friend of all
Yet friend of none so 'tis a confusing game
But all mine enemies must think of me as friend
And mine enemies are all and sundry
For if I am not, another will be over me
"Perhaps it's an attitude they are trying to instil in your mind?"
"In my mind ... who are they?"
Life isn't just a game
It's for real and so a dangerous game
For losing you lose your life
And so must develop a camouflage
So in losing merely lose a shield
My stupidity must lie somewhere
In the belief of God as man
That somehow we can alter our destiny
But which is ordained by nature
Isn't alterable by man
So bend with the wind and worship trees
Take shelter from the human breeze
Regard the words of man to be
What they are and always will be
The words of man as God and so empty
"They who must be obeyed."
"You mean she, don't you?"
I can see where I lost out to you
You fooled me into being a God
To rule destiny and change nature's will
I played the role but was only a man
So without understanding turned against nature
And being against nature nature destroyed me
For a man is simply part of nature
'tis a jolly hand you played
Set me up on a pedestal
Gave me rope enough to hang myself
Then kicked away the pedestal
And taunted at me in my struggle with death
For I broke a cardinal rule, I asked nothing of you
So do nothing for nothing
On all put a price
"Well if you're in power and conducting what she calls a revolution then you're bound to want to change the way people think."
"So I who am not a virgin must think of myself as a virgin."
"I don't know ... You'll have to ask her!"
"But why else would they want me to wear that?"
"You might as well ask why they want me to pay to visit Stonehenge."
"And you are here because you wouldn't pay."
"I suppose so."
"There is no supposing about it, if you had paid you would not be here in my clutches. You would be free."
"Are you free?"
"Do you think they are? Do you think she is? When they talk of this special relationship we have with America is there more to it than meets the eye. I mean, you and I are alone in this room. Just like The Maggie and Rambo are alone in a room. There's nothing to stop us making hot passionate love across my deck. Nothing to stop them doing likewise."
"You've certainly got a good imagination."
"But why not? They're a man and a woman who obviously like each other. And you find me attractive, don't you?"
If you're not careful you will grow
A nose like Pinnochio
But perhaps that is already true
Too clever by far you confuse yourself
"But you're an Iron Maiden."
"What difference does that make, I'm also a woman."
The killer of love is to trust
For then there is no mystery
You cease to be a fabled image
And simply become a human being
For love is an illness
A disease of the mind
For no matter who you in image may be
Your heart beats as does mine
The saviour of love is to lie
For then there is fantasy
You cease to be simply a human being
And become a fabled image
For love is an illness
A disease of the mind
And to induce said illness in another
Is the path to paradise divine
So the truth in the game of life is to lie
To steer clear of humanity like sackcloth and ashes
To be a figment of imagination
To be a refuge from oblivion
"It means I don't find you attractive."
"So I am both attractive and unattractive to you at the same time?"
"Yeah, that's right."
She smiled broadly: "You have made a wise decision Mister O. For indeed if we had made wild passionate love across this desk and had been discovered then you would have, to the letter of the law, been guilty of rape since I am an Iron Maiden. For anything you do or say would be construed as your seduction of me and so you would be found guilty of the rape of an Iron Maiden. The penalty for which is castration. And since I am a senior officer the prosecution could well have demanded total castration in which case, for the days of your natural life, you would have had to pee sitting down!"
A truth of life is that if you do
Anything at all someone else will try to stop you
And there will be no reason other than
That they will try to stop you
But why should you doing something offend them so
What seed of doubt lay you in their mind
That you should be seen as enemy
Or have you become a convenient ladder
So keep your head down and say nothing
For if you do you'll be a-hunted
The prey for all and sundry
Your head a convenient trophy
"Great."
"So where do we go from here Mister O?"
"You tell me."
"I think it would be best if you made a statement in the presence of your solicitor. If I were you I wouldn't mention that I heard Britannia speaking to me, since it is possible that that could be construed as your being a Royalist counter-revolutionary. Life is complicated enough, don't you agree?"
"If you say so."
"Not what I say but what you say. Ask your solicitor to meet me in private and I don't think it would be too difficult for sentence to be delayed until after a psychiatric report is obtained."
"Of me?"
"Yes, of you Mister O."
"The charges can't then be simply dropped?"
"I'm afraid that that is not a decision I am able to make. But if we follow this path then, hopefully, I believe it possible that they will be. After all, the prisons are full enough already so we're not exactly looking for people to incarcerate." She smiled broadly.
And so he ended up in a mental hospital for assessment. He really enjoyed his stay there, the only comparison he could give was that the atmosphere on the ward was like that of a university common room. As he would say in explanation: if you know what I mean. But the changes in society caught up with him there too. For the hospital was closing. Until then those who were classed as insane were cared for by the hospital staff who were, of course, classed as sane. Yet by presidential decree it seemed to them almost as if the insane were now to be classed as sane and sane as insane! Nobody really knew what lay in the future: the insane were to be returned from whence they'd come, what was now called The Community; the sane to be redeployed ... somewhere. Not that anybody really seemed to care except for those whose lives were affected. But nobody else seemed to care so it was like nobody cared since it didn't seem to matter what any of them, both the sane and the insane, felt. Though, at the end of the day, he was able to sum up their mood in one word: betrayal. Or were they just Moaning Minnies?
We cared for them and did not know why
Yet for them we were prepared to try
Not far away on edge of city limits
Our forefathers built what we now destroy
Our forefathers cared and did know why
But that was oh so long ago
And in times gone by people sometimes cried
We now live in an age of communal caring
So hospital proudly stood on side of hill
A tribute to foresight planning and skill
A relic of the age of reason
A Sacrifice to an age of verbalisation
For no one knows reason for sacrifice
For no one thought to ask someone a question
For those who mattered to our forefathers
Are to us an accountancy nightmare
So in truth world keeps a-changing
Without rhyme and reason unlike its spinning
For there is reason impossible to understand
It's simply that somebody knows better than you and I
Knows better than you and I yet can't explain
For to explain would be the use of reason
And that would have led to ask a certain question
For hospital wasn't just a hospital it was their home
They talked about it a lot amongst themselves. What was this new-world known as The Community? It wasn't the old-world, known as society, since to presidential decree society no longer existed. And what was to happen to the hospital itself? Some said it was going to be a training school for Iron Maidens, some a prison, some an AIDS isolation hospital. Others pointed the finger at corruption since the hospital and its spacious gardens and grounds were considering its location, obviously, worth a lot of money in real estate terms.
A man cannot serve Britannia and a harlot too
Those who serve a harlot commit treason to Britannia
In the time of Elizabeth I
Treason meant you had your head chopped off
In the time of Elizabeth II
Treason means you make a lot of dosh
So he was eventually released and placed on probation. The conclusion they came too was that he was mildly insane, prone to retreating into little worlds of the imagination or day-dreams. Back in The Community one of the first things that happened was his interview with his probation officer: a certain Mrs. T. For some reason he felt very nervous and seeing that she kindly suggested they talked in a pub. She insisted on buying him a pint, whilst she bought an orange juice for herself, and they sat by themselves in an alcove.
She said: "These new licensing hours are very convenient."
He sighed: "Something else that's changed, everything always seems to be changing."
"So you've noticed it too?"
"The changes?"
"Yes. Do you find it confusing?"
"I think I must do. Not consciously but perhaps, I know it sounds a funny thing to say, subconsciously."
"Well don't worry about it. I can assure you that you're by no means alone in finding change disturbing."
"Do you?"
She nodded: "But through it I find my real identity, who I really am."
"And who are you?"
She smiled: "Britannia."
"I always thought Britannia was white."
"So did I until my conversion."
"What happened?"
"It was at the time of the Falkland's War. Believe it or not but I was a prostitute. One of my regular clients was important in the regime. He was a pervert, he'd like to indulge his fantasies with me: the white master and the black slave. Then the war came and it was the night of the Argentinean invasion of the Falklands. He said that he was Argentina and that I was Britannia. He said he was going to fuck me from being Britannia into Malvinas. Not unusually I was tied spread-eagled to the bed and as he humped away I thought on his words.
"What I could not understand was how someone who I identified with Britannia was pretending not to be British. And afterwards I asked him. He told me that politics is about power, that power is about money, that money is about owning people. I asked him if he meant owning in the sense of him owning me for an hour. He said he didn't just want to own me but everybody. That he wanted to own Britannia, he wanted to own the British people. I asked him: Why? He said that there didn't have to be a reason but no matter what, if he didn't own us then someone else would. I asked him why we couldn't own ourselves. He said because we weren't capable of looking after ourselves, that we needed to be controlled.
"But he'd been controlling me, so I asked him if what he really meant was that the British people needed to be fucked. He laughed and said that lesson number one of life is to fuck or be fucked. I expressed that I'd thought him to be a patriot. He said he was, that what was good for him was good for Britain. I asked him if I was British. He said of course I was since, after all, didn't he own me.
"He left then and I finished work early. I didn't sleep but for most of the night seemed to lay half awake in a trance reliving a nightmare."
Love our love Britannia
And our love will never die
Love our love Britannia
Take away all pain of past
For you are love Britannia
Let Love-light to your eyes
We re-found you oh our Britannia
Chained to the Falkland Isles, naked and defenceless
Your thighs spread oh so cruelly wide
Violated, ravished, tortured, oh you nearly died
We fought a battle for you
Let love-light to your eyes
Love our love Britannia
Be true to those who were loyal
For if you don't love our love Britannia
That love will surely die
For you are love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
Be proud of your faithful Falkland Islanders
Who cherished you to the last
For if they had forsaken you
The future would be past
So love our love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
Love our love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
What's past cannot be altered
But now the future's opened wide
For you are love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
There's a world of love ahead of us
Away from the sordid nightmare past
A world of love for little children
Where their little hearts aren't broken and outcast
For you are love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
So love our love Britannia
Let love-light to your eyes
Let love-light to your eyes
Let love-light to your eyes ...
Her eyes were moist, gleamed with inspiration, as she continued her revelation: "I knew then what was wrong with this country: it wasn't me, it was him. Yet I had thought him to be British and myself as some sort of outcast. Someone who didn't belong, a none-person. British simply because I qualified for a British passport.
"I didn't even want to be British, I hated Britain and what it stood for. But I began thinking: What did Britain stand for? For I equated Britain with him and yet he'd told me I was British. But not like him, different. Then I understood the class system. He as upper-class and so the master. Myself as lower-class and so the slave.
"So I began to think of myself as lower-class British and him as upper-class British. Of him as the master and me as the slave. But then I saw that my hatred of Britannia and all things British was securing his position. That my hatred of Britannia was a hatred of myself for I had begun to think of myself as British. To think not just of the evil of the past but of its good."
A flash of light splits the horizon
A helmet gleams into view
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
She shades us with her shield
And protects us with her spear
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
And all our foes are vanquished
And run away from the anger of her stare
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
She takes us to her bosom
And then she suckles us, and then she suckles us
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
Then she takes us to her heart
And then she nurtures us, and then she nurtures us
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
And then we're happy
Because we know that Britannia loves us
Hey it's Britannia, hey it's Britannia
"And what I knew then was that I'd been fighting on the wrong side. And instead of fighting for myself I was fighting against myself. Instead of fighting him I was on his side. Which is why I say that I find the changes illuminating since now I know what side I'm really on. And I know I'm on my side and I know I'm fighting for us all."
"Including him?"
"To fight you need an enemy."
"Britannia spoke to me. Just before I was arrested. She told me the same as she told you. Not to serve them but to serve her."
"Do you think of me as British?"
We cared for each other but did not know why
Yet for each other we were prepared to try
Scattered like myriad stars across our planet's surface
From the depths of jungles to ocean's outpost loneliest
United by bonds of history and common causes
To the depths of antiquity our pasts are recorded
And inter-kindling and seeding of minds' ideas
A rationalisation in an irrational world
Boxing the compass nature's winds have blown us
Into each other's arms in all continents
Whether ye be paled or darken of complexion
A bond of blood is something we've inherited
Have you a grievance of our mutual past
Does destiny stare into your eyes or are you crucified
But remember all else our history tells us
That we are interlinked and of nothing else certain
What see you in the future of our past unfolding
A reconciliation, a conflict, united or split asunder forever
With your intellect will you write a future
Will you erase a past like pencil on paper with rubber
We have but a future for the past is over and buried
We can build monuments to it and memories cherish
We can crucify our hearts, pretend it all never happened
Or we can listen to our hearts and live without malice
He joked: "As British as the English are!"
She laughed: "What about you then, you're Welsh aren't you?"
"Yes. I come from Pembrokeshire in West Wales, which is where the Preseli Bluestones come from which were used five thousand years ago to build Stonehenge. Us Welsh, we're the real British! We're Celts, we arrived here long before the English did. We were all crazy: before the Romans civilised us we worshipped trees. We had a green religion which was environmentally friendly."
"But are you British or Welsh?"
"Well it's not that simple. You see the modern English word, Welsh, comes from the Old English word wealh which means foreigner. So really, since we were here before the English it might be better if Wales was called Britain, England was called Wales and the whole thing was called England!"
She laughed: "What about Scotland and Ireland!"
He retorted: "What about the British Empire!"
She smiled: "What about Britannia?"
He shrugged: "I wouldn't worry about it. I've never met anyone who claimed to be one-hundred per cent one thing or another. It's all a bit of a joke really. Haven't you heard the one about the Englishman, the Irishman, the Scotsman and the Welshman?"
Then she glanced at her watch and left to go home and make tea for her children when they returned from school and her husband when he came home from work.
When Argentina raped Britannia
Was a child spawned
A child of hate for Britannia
For do not all now hate Britannia
Yet why hate Britannia, our heart, our home
For in hating Britannia
Do we not simply hate ourselves
Or perhaps we guilt
For leaving Britannia defenceless
And so at mercy of Argentina to ravish
For why was Britannia chained to the Falkland Isles
Naked, defenceless, her thighs spread so cruelly wide
Who forged her chains
Who broke her will
Who broke her heart
So that she could accept who is so strong
What made Britannia acquiesce to don those chains
To put down her spear
And throw away her shield
To cast away her helmet of burnished gold
Remove her robe of white
And lay naked, spread-eagle
Then who chained her so
So that she could not move
Could not resist
Could not even surrender
Just simply be a sacrifice
So to who was Britannia sacrificed
And why a sacrifice she accepted to be
Who once was a very vision
Of woman, pure and free
And now is violated, ravished, tortured
And living in a fantasy limbo
For Britannia sees yet cannot feel
Britannia's heart so surely broken
At hers and ours acquiescence
Can such a past ever be truly forgotten
Will future be irreversibly scarred by past
Yet Britannia breathes, her heart beats too
So perhaps all is not lost, not me, not you
But Britannia is not Britannia of olden days
When in youth Rome took her freedom away
And donned her to a yoke of slavery
True that yoke was cast aside
During our imperial foray
Or was it simply replaced by a shackle
For was not she still a slave
A slave to lust, a slave to greed
To one man's ambition, to a woman's need
Yet now she has her freedom
Yet still she is not free
For past has taken its toll of Britannia
No longer virginal, pure and clean
So what future Britannia
Or is a future a-none
For without your love
Of future there is none
Or does that child of hate
Fester in your womb
So a new future to dawn
To a-guess impossible to assume
So what are you telling us Britannia
That your future isn't ours
That there is no place for us
In a world of you and your child
That in your freedom you're enslaved to a sibling
That all your love is commanded to dolt upon
And so leave us none
For to love your child us do not trust
For Argentina has raped Britannia
And so Argentina must die
But in killing father, kill not we child
So Britannia truly you are lost to us
For in love of your child, you are Argentina's bride
And so our Britannia we understand you so well
You gave yourself to Argentina and we were best-man
As we fastened your chains
We were both saying goodbye
A-parting of ways, two new futures to claim
A new future for you as Argentina's bride
A new future for us, alone yet alive
So you accuse us Britannia
Of not loving you true
And quite rightly so
For were we not ever false to you
And so you threw yourself
Into another's embrace
And took his spear in total fate
Said goodbye to heart
And seeked a future a-new
A future with a spear in it for you
So was it not our impotence which drove you away
Is Argentina a man, and us eunuchs of slaves
So where is our manhood, who took it away
Who castrated Britannia's spear
So Britannia of child starved
To her woman's needs gave way
Who was it Britannia, tell me it wasn't you
Oh why in truth did we stop loving you
Or was it simply
A dumb slave's obedience to a master's will
That daughters, sisters, mothers, wives
Should be the master's for the taking
And opposition none allowed
For to refuse would mean a death sentence
So did Argentina become our master
Without us realising or caring why
And so to Argentina did we sacrifice
Our Britannia to be raped and filled with child
There's scarcely credence to our minds
For for it to happen Britannia acquiesced
In her woman's need for a child
A child we were unable to give
For in our love we feared for her life
If we did trough our master's soil
So Britannia owned, and not by us
For only a master can own a heart
And we and Britannia shared a love affair
But a love doomed to a woman's satisfaction
For we needed a permission
That the past wouldn't be granted
So like docile domesticated animals
We assumed slave's yoke
For he who would be master
So we sacrificed each other's hearts
And Britannia's virgin's truthfulness
Was ruptured and torn apart
Britannia born out of ages of dark despair
When future should have been hers
We became slaves again
Yet slaves no need, for we are our own masters
So terribly multiplied is our disaster
For Britannia with child, sacrificed to her rapist
Who now is linked with a bond of nature
So of there future is there any
Of us broken-hearted for our Britannia
And why should she love us
Who gave her no succour
So Britannia alone, we watch her future
Yet not alone, with a swollen belly
So we wait to see
What future when child is born and suckled
If Britannia will have place in her heart for us
Or simply hatred of us who allowed her violation
But Britannia why did you allow it
Why did you not nurture us true
For a legacy of hate is all that ensued
Did you tire of us, did you sicken of us
Did you see in us simply impotence
No way out for your woman's satisfaction
Were we born to part in such a sordid drama
Or we will it, or did you Britannia
So that it would seem to happen like in nature
Or did Argentina court you
And win you with his lust
Did you see in him manly virtue and in us limp impotence
So you let it all happen
For in us you saw no future
And let us clasp your chains shut
So that we sealed our parting future
So that until your rape the decision was ours
For those thighs spread could have impaled our spear
But no, we turned our back on you
And left you defenceless and were not true
So now lost to us are you Britannia
Yet still not lost, for though unchained
With child in belly go not you to Argentina
So of a future is there hope
That you choose with your child of rape
To remain with us instead of being Argentina's
And when your child is born and suckled and weaned
Will truly be the time of choosing
For then your woman's needs will need satisfaction
And spread your thighs to the lust of rape
Or spread your thighs to lover's embrace
Or is your lover now Argentina
And of us you want no future
Yet stay with us for you fear Argentina
So wait you for Argentina a-courting you
To give back all respect he took from you
So are we like father to a daughter
Loved yet doomed to part with
So future is horribly uncertain
For, Britannia, we desire you not as daughter
But as wife, mother, soul-mate, lover
As true you desire Argentina
So we are second to another
Yet wait, all is not lost
For you are yet still of indecision
So can we yet win your heart's thighs to part
But how? Know not even you Britannia
So we must stay true and seek your succour
He eventually got a job. Not that he had to get on his bike, rather Mrs T managed to pull a few strings.
As I walk my way to work
My feet follow a trail
Of left-right then back home again in reverse
Be it sunny, cloudy, rainy or blue
I walk to work like nobody's fool
Nobody's fool am I for I am in work
From my labours will I never shirk
Like superman with red knickers over blue body-stocking
So I don a collar and tie
As symbol of my servitude
The days go by: some fast, some slow
And the heels of my shoes are wearing low
But I still walk on my life-long mission
To fuel my body with nutrition
For reason is the reason why as I walk to work
So I walk to work like nobody's fool
And people don't stand and stare and cheer me on
No, nobody takes the blindest bit of notice
For they have seen it all before
Nobody's fool walking to work like nobody's fool
Mrs T's
husband, Dennis, had a friend in the local Karate club who ran a recruitment agency. By this mechanism Mister O obtained a job with a research and development electronics company which was manufacturing gas-chromatography-mass-spectrometry computer systems used for analysing human urine. This was state of the art technology and they needed someone to write a user manual about it but couldn't find anybody for the money they were prepared to pay. Not that they thought that Mister O would be capable of completing the job to the agreed time-scale and price but, through some quirk of fate in the form of imaginative manipulations of his abilities by Dennis' friend, he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.Mind you, when he started to work he could have soon come to the conclusion that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time! For something else had changed too: computer operating systems. The old familiar disc-operating-system with its sequential sequence of prompts requiring the manual entry of a command via a keyboard, had now been replaced with a windows-operating-system and the entry of commands via a mouse.
True, Mister O, was familiar with this change but the complexity of describing to a third-party, or user, what was going on was really rather beyond him. On the one hand, before the change it was rather like describing how to ride a bicycle then, on the other hand, after the change it was rather like describing how to drive a car.
But the computer system, in common with computer systems in general after the change, was extremely easy to use and once Mister O appreciated that the difficulty of his dilemma lay in its complexity, rather than any hidden intelligence which was beyond him, he began to make progress.
To use a corollary, the job became a bit like a jig-saw puzzle. A big jig-saw puzzle which would take a few months to solve in its entirety. Once more, to a degree, in command of life Mister O could once again appreciate its finer points.
Been there for nearly three weeks now
But it was two before I met Miss J
She'd been on holiday
I didn't even know she existed
The world revolves around Miss J
For she is always on the phone
Ever so polite and helpful is she
Whether to America, China or somewhere
Miss J sits at her desk
A-crossing her long legs and smiles
As her voice bounces off a satellite
Or journeys along an undersea cable
A performer of miracles is Miss J
For she is always so enthusiastic
But then I reckon she is realistic
Certainly knows how to be fantastic
His feet hit the ground with a bump when ... well, it turned out there was a handsome young man with a white Porsche in her life. But in terms of personal realism the experience proved beneficial to Mister O, for there is no fool like an old fool, and their friendship proved to be of a platonic nature. One Friday lunch-time everyone went to the pub to celebrate the announcement of Miss J's engagement. It turned out that her and her fiancé were planning to emigrate, and leave behind Britain with its dismal drizzle-like urban decline and neglect, for pastures a-new.
The weather has been warm and damp
But today it's colder and dry
The sun's been around but hiding
Today it's shining bright in the sky
In the day you don't often see a rat
But at night I'm told that they come out
From around down by the old canal
Not that I really know that
See a barge on the canal occasionally
Said there were plenty in its heyday
Not that I really know that
Haven't been around as long as that
Moon's been rising early these last few days
When I was a child it was virginal
But now it too has its scrap-heaps
Like down as the old canal
Miss J
and her fiancé had begun their relationship with a holiday romance in Spain, they'd met in the early hours of a morning at a disco in Torremolinos and danced away the night 'till dawn. She'd been on holiday with a few of her friends, all girls, and he'd been on holiday with a few of his friends, all boys. Since then they'd been inseparable. They were full of hope for the future and saw no storm clouds on the horizon, only the deepset reds of a fine sunset offering a future of an infinity of fine days. There was a dream-like quality to their relationship which was inspirational. Inspiring to the extent that they seemed a bit like Adam and Eve embarking together on a life-long pre-planned journey which was beginning at the dawn of a new age.At this time Venus was bright in the evening sky and to Mister O seemed to almost symbolise their future, almost be their guiding star. Whereas life to Mister O, personally, had become a very dull and listless experience: like he'd lost his way and didn't know which way to go.
Didn't dream last night
Haven't dreamt for a time
Or did my dreams drown in sleep
Like dreams that died in reality
Were they dreams, what thought was behind them
A chance encounter, a thought of another
Were they borrowed ideas, I somehow made my own
Did I have a life that belonged to another
Was my creation my own demise
Was I caught in an ocean without a star
Did I cast myself adrift on stormy seas
When I had a safe-haven to moor my ship
By chance, one day, he bumped into his ex-wife. It was a Saturday morning: she was out shopping and he was wandering. They had a coffee together and chatted for awhile. She'd married again and had discovered a few weeks previous that she was pregnant. She made no secret of the fact that she obviously felt that she'd made all the right decisions and, on their parting, he felt very depressed.
Wish I had a dream to call my own
Wish I didn't merely survive
Wish I could see some direction to my course
Wish I could see land to make a fall
Wish there was some certainty I could aim for
Wish there was some reason for being
Wish there was some meaning to living
Wish there was a dream a-begging
Wishes and dreams there seems to be a shortage
Wishes and dreams they've all been vanquished
Wishes and dreams they've all been banished
Wishes and dreams why have they all vanished
He seemed to be surplus to requirements. That there wasn't really a reason for his living. Like he was a minority of one. Like he was walking down a long corridor that led nowhere. A long corridor with plenty of doorways, opportunities, along it but all of them closed to him.
What could he do? Nothing. What could he remember? Nothing. What could he see? Nothing.
He'd become a stranger in his own land. He could see a parallel then between his own life and that of Britannia. They'd both become redundant in the world they lived in. It was like they were human beings but the world had been taken over by aliens. Sort of like must have happened following the Norman Invasion of Britain in 1066, or Christopher Columbus discovering America in 1492.
The rider on his steed
The sound of thundering hooves
The sounds of a new beginning
A future to replace a past
A future not wanted by you and me
Yet a future without a choice
A future where you and I cease to be
The lords and masters of our lives
No longer ours to live and breathe
But ours to sweat and bleed
No longer ours to call our own
For we are no longer men but sheep
He began to have strange thoughts: Was The Maggie an alien? And were all the changes brainwashing everybody else into being aliens?
But why had he been left behind? It wasn't his decision. He'd always gone along with things. He'd been open-minded, he'd always accepted that if things weren't one way they'd be another: that the world didn't revolve around him.
And then he understood something: that although he'd always tried to somehow adapt to the changes that occurred around him ... but they didn't just happen by accident, as it were, other people made them happen.
It was like I was a Trojan of ancient times
And you were Helen and Ulysses rolled into one
With your Trojan horse you forged a victory
Like Aeneas I left vanquished Troy
My life in ruins like that ruined city
I sailed a voyage to I knew not where
Made a landing at Carthage and found my Dido
I tarried there for a few seasons' changes
Safe in my lover's arms but love wilted
And so I set sail again to forget my shame
I landed in Rome and staked my claim
And once more grew strong again
I laid the seeds of my revenge
It was sweet in coming but I was long dead
For centuries had passed and I never saw you again
To him it was like his old life had died and he was now living a new start in a new life. Not that he'd wanted a new start in life. He wouldn't have claimed that his old life couldn't have been better, but at least it was his own. Now he seemed to be living a life made for another.
My Vietnam was not to serve
Instead I was institutionalised to learn
To learn what I am told is the question of a fool
But it's many years ago now
And I still don't know what I was supposed to learn
If we'd known why perhaps we'd done better
Was it for democracy, freedom and human rights
But sitting behind the desk of a commercial company
The wage slave of a world economy
Was all my effort really for that
Yes my effort and that is so easily forgotten
For I am told I was privileged to go
That a meal ticket for life would be my reward
Instead my degree is a badge for discrimination
A yellow star which says I did not go to Vietnam
So it was like everyone had a head-start on him and he was always trying to catch up. But couldn't. So it was like he was being dragged along against his will. Since it was like he couldn't run fast enough to keep up with the changes. All he could realistically do was to work at his job and see where that led him.
One day he and Mrs T had lunch together; she explained: "Dennis' friend says that he's heard the company you are working for are in financial difficulties and planning to make some across-the-board redundancies."
"Oh."
"Does it surprise you?"
"Yes and no really, that sort of thing seems to be par for the course these days, really. But from my point of view, are you really saying that I won't be kept on?"
"Dennis' friend says that they are pleased with your work but, you're right, once you've finished your current task then that's it I'm afraid."
"Well, it wasn't a permanent job, was it. That's the trouble with these new temporary employment contracts, you never really know where you are. I preferred it better before the changes were introduced."
"What will you do when you're laid off?"
"Sign on, I suppose."
"Dennis' friend says he'll still keep you on his books but, at the moment, he can't promise anything."
"That's kind of him. If it was possible I'd be prepared to try and retrain but at my age I don't think that's really an option."
"There are plenty of courses available locally. If you like, I could help you find something?"
"I don't see the point of training for jobs that don't exist. I think that I'm resigned to the fact that ... well, there doesn't seem to be much of a future from an employment point of view."
"What about hobbies? What do you do in your spare time?"
"Go out most nights to the pub for a few pints and a game of darts. Otherwise I mostly watch TV. I've been taking quite a bit of work home with me in order to get the job finished on time."
"You can write so why not write a book?"
Stories, poems, plays do they really matter
Just a jumble of words scribbled on paper
When is a fascination merely trivial
When it's scribbled on paper
Scribbles on paper that once was trees
That once was home to birds and bees
Now flattened in the wisdom of man's genius
To be the home of nonsense trivia
Scribbles on paper of a mind's wandering
From darkest Africa to Polar ice
From innuendo to perverted fantasies
From how the world would be better with more trees
"Why?"
"It might help you come to terms with things. After all, you've got the rest of your life to look forward to."
"God help me! But what would I use for inspiration."
"Your life!"
Saw a cloud fly over a mountain peak
For a moment I thought it would run aground
But then I knew it was only a cloud
And would envelope a mountain in suffocation
Once sailed a boat into a blood-red sunset
But the quality of that blood was tainted
It's the pollution, you see, which makes sky so glorious
As it belts out of a chimney all the way from Arabia
The snow was crisp on ground
The hills a pastiche of whites and pastel greens
Ptarmigan fled in hasty flight
As we traversed across grouse moor
The night before we drove up a trail
Deer danced in our headlights in thought to be fed
Hunter sights stag of antlered glory
Stag cocks head and runs, in thought of lead
There's a weariness creeping over as dusk falls
Even from space our orb has lost its gleam
Like a light going out, getting dimmer
Like the glass eye in a trophy case, life extinguished
Anyway he took Mrs T's suggestion and wrote a book. It was something he did as a hobby in his spare time ... and here it is now, Lost Child by Mister O, in an expurgated version.
Bob came to see me for the reason many people do: he believed his marriage was at breaking point. It wasn’t the first time he’d been to an Analyst, but more about that later. Bob wasn’t his real name, as are not the names which I’ll use for other characters—including his wife Maria.
At first I thought that I was dealing with quite a straight-forward case: older man married to a younger woman: his sexual prowess failing, hers very much at a peak that only maturity can bring. But it was much, much more complicated than that. I suppose Bob’s appearance led me astray, he seemed—without being condescending—a very ordinary person.
In fact it was only, as a matter of routine at our first meeting, when I asked him if he’d seen an Analyst before and he had told me whom he had seen, twenty years previous, that I became intrigued: Bob didn’t appear to be the sort of individual who would have been a patient of the pre-eminent Psychoanalyst of that period.
When he told me that fact I remember experiencing a feeling, something like I’d been submerged by a tidal wave. If there’s no conveyance of meaning in that phraseology then I apologise, but for some reason Bob appeared to me to be a harbinger of doom.
You see, he’d been to see my—now deceased—predecessor in this practice. And I knew something—something which nobody else knew—something which I knew had affected my predecessor deeply yet had made little impact on me when he told me about it. Something which will make little impact on you as our story unfolds. And will make no impact on you until something happens in your life to act as a trigger ... as had happened now to me.
We sat there in silence as it sank into my consciousness: two desperate men, though each for a different reason yet with a common cause. What did I know? The nature of the evil which had afflicted both our lives. Anything more than that? No.
It had been a conversation of a minute or two, as we left the office one evening over ten years previous. He’d said something like this: “Ten years ago I had a very interesting case-study. It concerned a man called Robert and had neo-Nazi connotations. The man was obviously living in great fear and it had, not unnaturally, affected his psychological balance. Have you ever come across anything similar?”
I was a lot more arrogant then, I knew it all as we often do before reaching middle-age. Besides, I was a war-orphan and he a German: my origins indeterminate, unknowable, my features bearing traits of them being Jewish. I remember now ... I’d told him that the relatives of five million people had similar traumas. End of story, he’d never mentioned it again.
So we sat there, Bob looking increasingly uneasy. He started to speak: “I have a fear ...” I nodded slowly, helping him to ease out his words—his fears. But his fear was different to what I thought he’d say: it turned out Bob had, quite simply, a castration complex.
Quite simply a castration complex? Well nothing is ever that simple but to Bob it was all so incredibly real. For Bob’s castration complex was directed at one person. Which is why he believed his marriage was at breaking point: for that person was his wife.
It soon became apparent that Bob, obviously deep-set in terrible anguish and torment, often reduced to uncontrollable tears, believed he was losing his sanity. For in his moments of uncontrollable fear, induced by the presence of his wife, he had an absolute fear of her: a belief that she would kill him; total castration being her chosen way of death.
A belief which, I initially diagnosed, mistook her sexual appetite for a blood lust. The moment of death being during love-making, when her vagina would engulf his genitals and digest them, after which he would bleed to death.
But Bob had forced himself to face his fear out of another fear. The fear I had originally diagnosed: of him being unable to satisfy his wife’s sexual appetite. The result being that his relationship with his wife was now platonic, in that Bob now found himself physically incapable of fulfilling his love for his wife with the sexual act. To be blunt: he was impotent. Therefore the task Bob had given me was this: to make him once more potent but without fear.
Bob had not confided his fear of castration to his wife: she believed that Bob’s gradual loss of potency to complete impotence was Bob going into, what is termed, the male menopause.
In fact, Bob had found his impotency reassuring: unable to engage in the sexual act he no longer feared castration. He had come to see me out of love for his wife whose sexual frustration, he believed, could lead to a break-up of their marriage. His belief was stronger than could, it was absolute: would.
To play for time, and attempt to remove stress from a stressful situation, to give nature time to perhaps heal in her own way, I asked Bob why he was so definite in his belief. He told me his wife was becoming irrational, had accused him of having an affair. His wife was even becoming jealous of their eldest daughter, who was in her late teens and lived at home with them.
With that last piece of information I thought I had detected a clue, for the child’s age was inconsistent with her having been conceived in wedlock. The truth was completely bewildering: the child was not Maria’s but her sister’s, who had been Bob’s first wife and who’d died shortly after the child was born, and who had been given the same name as her: Katrina.
Did Bob have any incestuous thoughts towards Katrina? Bravely, Bob admitted he did. Did he have any inclination that they were returned? He could not be certain but the child did, from her behaviour, appear to be coming between him and his wife as another woman might. He continually referred to Katrina as a child, as opposed to a young woman, which suggested he treated her and thought of her as somehow juvenile. Perhaps there was an avenue of inquiry towards a solution in this direction.
To my questioning he responded with the information that Katrina was mentally retarded. Physically she was very much a resemblance to his first wife, and to Maria for that matter, yet mentally she hadn’t developed beyond the age of a child of five.
Here we found a link: Bob’s impotence and fear of castration had commenced after the birth of their youngest child, when Katrina who up until then had depended totally on her aunt and adopted mother and thought of Bob as her protective daddy, had shown signs of a sexual awakening which seemed to be directed at Bob.
To be continued ...
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