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Theres a certain amount of inarticulacy in the whole thing isn’t there? Talk of little distresses like gruesome bloodshed and villainy. My uncle had a thing for it, self exposure, all overwrought eyes and twitching and he'd prostrate and wail but feel better after. Flung all them feelings and waking terrors into the ether. Sit back and easy listening to a deaf dead world, sobs subside and someone switches on the lamp above the piano and the melodrama plays itself out.
For some reason I loved him best maybe because he was a carcass of emotions and entertainment and some times he would even do that thing, you know, where he'd throw a skinny hand; nailchewed and sweating, across his forehead topple to his knees and scream 'no' upon discovering his shoelace was untied.
He wasn’t my real uncle but he was mine, he was my only man, the one I’d wear ribbons for and I’d always, probably, when I think about it, be trying to glean anything from him, like respect and love, and even just some smile.
He always came to our house, and we never ever went to his even once before we had to stop seeing him, and I think I might always have been embarrassed. Not sure, but it was always dirty in our little house, and candles lit everything cos mama was a bit romantic and she would always bloom out of the stuffy darkness which the flames didn’t light, like a spectre thin war child, all painted and frail and scented like sour meat and white musk and oil. And that smell when you blow out a match and the silver plume of smoke dances up. She had a kind of beauty, or maybe it was just the candlelight.
I was a bit young I reckon now and maybe I don’t remember it all properly, but then I wasn’t that young so maybe ive just tried to blot it out.
It was my birthday, and I never really like it- it’s full of stress and gratitude, and attention you don‘t really want. But this year I was excited, in that banging heart and butterflies kind of way, because uncle bill was coming and he was cooking a goose. I had never had goose before but pretended I had to sound more sophisticated and then my mother pointed out I was lying and I could feel my fists burning like when you come in from the cold and I wanted to hurt her.
My mother was divorced and not very good at relationships and I could never tell if she was happy or not, but I don’t think I really thought about it that much.
Uncle Bob had appeared quite out of nowhere but we were all welcome to have a man in our house.
Later on that night I was told to wait for a surprise. I stood in the middle of our living room, feeling anxious rather than excited. The lamps cut, a candle smothered cake came hazily into view, everyone sang, and the cloudy light illuminated blithe faces, flattering all of them into beauty. I searched out uncle’s face in the mob of people and saw it, blissful, content and pale with love. I felt suddenly alone.
I don’t know why I was betrayed, I wasn’t I guess, but I felt that way.