Journeys: A Space for Words

Here is an anthology I edited as well as having a piece included: Up and at 'em
Review
This marvellous anthology is full of gems, a travelogue of poems and prose that tell us stories about journeys which may be familiar or new to us. For Journeys contains a beguiling mixture of pieces which do that thing that the very best writing does, which is to give us insight into our own experience and the experiences of others. Sometimes the journeys are geographical, sometimes into personal history, but in every case the writing is captivating, allusive, often mysterious, but connecting us and communicating with us at a deep level. Already some phrases from these pieces have caught at me, and will haunt me, while many stories and poems are calling me back to read them again. You will recognize some names amongst the contributing writers; others I am sure you will hear more of. --James Nash

Searching frantically in the ‘keepsake’ box for a recent photograph, I find none. They are all of her years ago. Before. I hold one in my hands, tentatively. Nobody could identify her with this. She is laughing, the kind of laugh that only comes in youth, unfettered and abandoned. Her eyes are laughing too. She must have been about 18 and is arm in arm with Dad. Gently, I touch the picture with my thumb. I haven’t seen this woman in a very long time.

“Ring Ring.”

“Fuck.” I mutter to myself. That would be the home. Did I have the picture yet? Had I heard from her? I rifle in the box again. Nothing. I let the phone ring off. How can I tell them I don’t have a picture of my own mother? They already think I am the devil in disguise at that place. Trying hard to remember when I last took a picture of her, I sit heavily on a kitchen chair. It must have been Christmas when we took her to the pub for lunch. Not that she would have noticed. Or remembered. The post its, the memory cards, none of it really worked anymore.

I can feel the nervous energy seep from me. I’m exhausted and tears sting in the corners of my eyes. It’s not that I don’t want to visit her. It’s hard. She was always so vivacious. When I was young, I would sit and watch her curl her long auburn hair and apply a deep plum coloured tint to her lips. “Up and at ‘em.” She would say as she glanced in the mirror admiringly. She always said that being a landlady meant never being seen without your lipstick. It is hard to reconcile the memories of growing up in the small flat above the pub with the woman who has escaped from the nursing home.

“Ring Ring.”

I can’t keep ignoring it, “Hello…speaking. Yes. No…I know there must be some somewhere. I just…yes. I realise that…Ok. Of course. Thank you. I am sorry. Goodbye.” I replace the receiver and exhale heavily. “Mum. Where are you?” I whisper almost inaudibly. She used to escape from the home a lot when we first put her there. “Early onset.” They said. But back then she still knew things. Still knew who we were.

“Knock knock.”

On the doorstep stand two uniformed police officers.

“Mrs Bloomsbury?” I nod and show them in.

They sit at the kitchen table and take out their notebooks. “The manager of the home, Mrs McGregor, mentioned that this isn’t the first time your mum has taken herself off. Where did you find her the previous times?”

I pause and turn over the possibility in my mind but dismiss it almost immediately. “She would go to the pub she used to run when we were kids. But that’s two bus rides away and there is no way she could remember her way there now. Not now she’s.” I pause. “Not in her condition.”

The officers nod in unison and I fight an inappropriate urge to laugh. They look like nodding dogs. “I think it still may be worth a try, Mrs Bloomsbury. Would you like to accompany us?” I agree and pick up my handbag.

As the car eases into the car park, I try to remember how long it had been since I was last here. Years. The last time mum went walkies. It hasn’t really changed. It is like it is stuck in time, unable to move on. I briefly close my eyes as we near the door and I picture her young again, happy and smiling. With a heavy heart, I push open the door sure she won’t be there and fighting the increasingly insistent feeling that something bad has happened to her.

The pub is quiet and it only takes me a few seconds to survey the room. Only two stools are occupied at the bar. Relief washes over me as I recognise the familiar figure of my mum. I call to her and she turns.

She smiles with lips neatly covered with a deep shade of plum.