Lincoln

"Lincoln"

You can't fix it. That's the first thing to learn when you start
writing about a place. You can't get it all, you can't hold it in
place, can't fix it down. If you want a place, you need a photograph,
but then it looks flat and dull, or a sketch, but then it looks charged
with more significance and energy than it really has.

Always reluctant to quote the Bee-Gees, but "Words are not enough, but
words are all I have"

Don't own a camera, and I've never progressed much beyond holding a
pencil without causing my finger to blister. Perspective is a mystery
to me.

The other thing is, you have to get the scale right. How anyone can
consider writing a definitive novel on London, given the sheer breadth
and diversity of it, is beyond me. And as for a Great American Novel -
it simply isn't possible. I think about the concept and realise that it
would be tough for me to describe my street in a way that is real and
makes sense.

My old street - Carlton Street in Lincoln was easier, because it was
packed with characters. Godfrey across the road, who got us up at Seven
every morning shouting that he was going to fetch the "Pay-pahs", the
other old guy he lived with who used to swallow razor blades and set
fire to his bedclothes while he was tucked up inside them, Arthur the
chap next door with his erotic woodcarvings and backgarden with row on
row of wired-up hutches with soft pigeons choked up inside, the foxy
student who lived next door and only ever pegged out red knickers on
the line.

Not the whole of Lincoln then, nor even my own street, which when I
moved there I had no idea was populated entirely by children, who every
summer would travel relentlessly around the block on skates, bicycles,
scooters, or skateboards yelling loudly to other children who were
slower and lagging behind in the travelling.

One house. That's all.

I pass this house on the way to work, and on the way home, every day.
For the last four years. The house itself is perfectly normal, a little
flyblown plaster on the front wall, window frames that are in a wrong
shade of green. Not quite apple, not quite mint, but something along
those lines.

The significant thing about this house is the monkey-puzzle tree that
sits in the front garden. Hefty and proud, it dominates the whole
house. For example its branches with their furry textured leaves like
an action-man's hair cover almost the whole of the upstairs window
shutting out all of the light. The tip of the tree stretches past the
roof, finishing just shy of the television aerial. The trunk of the
tree is fat and ridged, like a coconut tree (and how pathetic it is to
have to describe a tree-trunk by comparing it to another tree-trunk,
how unworthy) and again is placed firmly central in front of the
downstairs window.

In front of the house is a lamppost, which kicks out pale orange sodium
light, makes the tree even more imposing in the late evening when the
cats are at their most ambitious.

I can't look at lampposts without remembering two things. Firstly,
sodium experiments at school, where teacher with stout black rubber
gloves, ending almost at the elbow would unscrew the jar remove a small
piece of shiny, almost silver-white soft metal from inside and holding
it with tweezers and respect, drop it into a tank of water, where it
would bob and fizz and drift around banging into the glass sides of the
tank, smoking and getting slowly more and more angry. We all watched in
fear at the time, awed at how dangerous this was. Three years later, as
trusted lab technician, I had the keys to the chemical cupboards and we
used cyclohexane to create fireballs, dripped concentrated sulphuric
acid onto exercise books and rugby shirts.

The other thing is the lane, the gap between houses that connected
Helsby Road and Syston Grove where I grew up. Patch of grass on both
sides, tarmaced path down the middle. One tree-stump with coiled barbed
wire around it that served as a base for one-two-three in, a spaceship,
a tank or whatever it was called upon for. Two lampposts. We used to
ride our bikes, or skates up and down that path, relentlessly. You
don't notice the light at first, not till the sky blackens up and the
light is more white than yellow or orange. Sometimes the lamppost would
break, the council would send out a man to fix it, and he'd open up the
small silver plaque that stood out against the concrete skinnyness of
the post and we'd all crowd around to see the wires that were inside.
It was never as complicated as you'd imagine.

The lamppost outside the monkey-puzzle house is about four feet higher
than the top of the tree. I don't know if the tree will ever catch it.
I've never seen anyone trim the tree, or in fact ever enter or leave
the house. They must be pale, no sunlight coming in, timid mole-like
old ladies, is what I imagine. But if nobody cuts the tree, and
lampposts don't grow, then the tree will triumph one day. Probably not
in my lifetime.

I wonder how long the tree has been growing, whether it has lasted past
several owners. I can't imagine anyone ever buying the house unless
they could cut it down. I hope nobody ever lets them. If I could, I
would buy it myself and grow pale.

You see, you can't fix it down, but that doesn't mean it isn't worth
the attempt.