- Details
- Written by Christopher Bellamy
What do you do when you’ve been to the
Moon, when you’ve been there and done
that, got the spacesuit to prove
it? What do you do when you’ve walked on the
Moon?
How do you feel when nobody asks how you are. How’s the wife? And the kids? How’s the car? They just want to know what it’s like on the Moon.
Wherever you are, whoever you’re
with, you’ll
always be known as the man from the
Moon.
What is the point of a round-the-world
cruise when
you’ve been round the Moon, looked down at the
world, felt
homesickness pangs as you’ve gazed across
space at the planet that’s
blue in the midst of the void? What
do you do when you’ve danced on the
Moon?
What step’s left to take when you’ve
stepped on the
Moon, or leap left to
make now you’ve come down to
Earth?
Why wake up at dawn to watch the sun rise when you’ve stood on the Moon and witnessed Earthrise?
Just what do you do once you’ve walked on the
Moon?
- Details
- Written by Christopher Bellamy
If there’s one thing that makes me angry it’s people who get angry about the least little thing.
Only the other day I was buying some tobacco from one of the few remaining places that still sell it when another customer complained about smoke getting in her eyes.
“Well, don’t smoke,” I told her.
“I don’t,” she replied. “It’s you. Your pants are on fire.”
They weren’t her pants, so I don’t know why she was complaining. They were my pants and I would have to buy a new pair as soon as the fire brigade had put them out, which made me more angry. And where can you buy just one pair of pants these days? They come in packs of three, minimum. Besides, all the stores that sell pants would be closed, it being getting on for 10.00pm – the perfect time to buy tobacco, but not for buying pants.
When the fire brigade arrived they sprayed me with water, which made me really angry. If there’s one thing I hate it’s being sprayed with water, or anything else for that matter. If I were a Formula One driver and I won a race I would tell them not to spray me with champagne. Save it, I’ll drink it later.
Spraying me with water also ruined my tobacco, which made me even more angry and by the time they’d finished I’d missed the last bus, which made me really angry. I was too angry to take a taxi, so I walked all the way. When I finally arrived back home I found my flatmate watching Look Back in Anger on the tv and he started to tell me what a good film it was, but I was too angry to listen so I went straight to bed, but I was too angry to sleep. And all this happened because someone complained about the least little thing.
- Details
- Written by Christopher Bellamy
“You see the hill behind the shoe factory?” Lieutenant Milo asked.
I squinted through the shattered window of the office block that we were using as a temporary command post.
I could see a building with a giant shoe on top of it, somewhat shot-up and, beyond it, a hill covered with trees.
“I see it,” I said.
“The other side of that hill,” Lieutenant Milo continued, “there’s a bridge across the river. We need to know what strength the Militia are holding it in.”
I asked him why we didn’t just send a chopper over to take a look.
“We did,” he replied. “Never came back.”
Before I could suggest sending another, as if reading my mind, he said, “HQ vetoed sending another.”
I suggested a drone.
Lieutenant Milo shook his head. “We’re too far down the pecking order. HQ has bigger fish to fry.”
“But they still want the intel.” I completed Lieutenant Milo’s sentence for him.
“You got it.”
I continued to gaze at the hill, saying nothing. It was just a hill, covered in trees. I grew up near a hill covered in trees. But this was a hill covered in trees in a war zone. Not the same thing.
“I want you to take two men with you and get that intel,” Lieutenant Milo continued.
“So we just rock-up to the bridge and ask the first Militia we meet what strength they’ve got?”
“That’s one option,” Lieutenant Milo replied, ignoring my scepticism. “Or,” handing me three pairs of nightsight goggles, “you could take these with you for tonight.”
“Tonight?”
“Tonight,” he confirmed. “We need that intel ASAP. Young man like you, if you set off now you should make the top of the hill by nightfall, find a spot where you can observe the bridge from and make yourselves a comfortable little bivouac, but not too comfortable – your mission isn’t to find the best place to sleep up there.”
In my experience bivouacs are rarely too comfortable, but I didn’t say so. Instead, I said, “Our mission is to do the math, as our American friends say.”
“Exactly,” Lieutenant Milo replied. “And don’t forget to come back with the intel.”
It was his way of telling me to be careful.
I decided to take Tomasz and Valod with me, Tomasz because he could speak the local lingo, which is always an advantage.
“And why me?” Valod asked when I gave him his goggles.
I told him it was because he could count.
“Yeah,” he replied, “that’s the first thing they teach you when you start a maths degree.”
It was getting on for noon when we set out, a little later than I would have liked, but I was sure that we would reach our objective as planned.
“We could run the first few clicks,” Valod suggested enthusiastically, sprinting ahead.
Tomasz and I weren’t so keen. We held back, Valod soon slowed down and we caught up with him.
My plan was to stick to the road as far as the village of Strelno, then find a path that would take us to within fifty metres or so of the top of the hill. At that point we would leave the path and make our way through the trees until we found a suitable spot to set up our observation post. The others agreed, with only the slightest hint of sarcasm, that it was an excellent plan that would probably win the war.
It was early June, so pretty warm by mid-afternoon and our pace had begun to slacken. I would have liked to have rested by the side of the road in the shade, but I was becoming increasingly concerned by our late start, so we pressed on, consuming our rations on the move.
Tomasz was the only one who smoked, and smoked heavily – cigarillos with a plastic holder. He was also the youngest, but he was the one who found the going the most difficult. I thought that the cigarillos might have something to do with it.
“How many’s that?” I asked as he lit another.
He shrugged. I think that he genuinely didn’t know.
“Ten,” Valod answered.
“You’re counting?” Tomasz looked offended. He must have felt like he was out for a walk with his father and older brother.
“It’s why I’m here,” Valod answered.
“Oh, yeah,” Tomasz said, “you’re the brainy one, the one with the maths degree.”
“Except I never got it, thanks to our neighbours deciding to start a war.”
I told Tomasz to enjoy his cigarillos while he could: “Because once we bivouac, I don’t want you giving our position away with them.”
He took a longer than usual drag and blew out a cloud of smoke with a satisfied sigh.
By the time Tomasz had smoked his cigarillo we were half a click from Strelno and about to leave the road when a figure appeared up ahead. It was a sprightly elderly woman and she was hurrying towards us.
We immediately trained our weapons on her.
She raised her hands and shouted something.
I asked Tomasz to translate.
“She’s telling us not to shoot.”
“They always do,” Valod muttered. “Then boom.”
I wondered if he really was as hard-bitten as he liked to make out, if he really would shoot if the old woman didn’t follow Tomasz’s instructions. I don’t know if I would have. I told Tomasz to tell her not to come any closer.
She slowed, but continued to come towards us.
I ordered Tomasz to repeat the instruction.
“Tell her!” Valod reinforced the order.
Tomasz repeated the instruction.
This time she stopped and stood in the middle of the road, her hands still raised.
“Tell her she can put her hands down,” I called to Tomasz, “but keep them where we can see them.”
As he spoke, Tomasz walked towards her, his weapon lowered.
“Keep your weapon up!” Valod shouted.
They spoke together for several minutes, then Tomasz called over his shoulder, “She says there’s a sniper in Strelno. Taking pot shots at the locals.”
“Anyone hit?”
“Only the priest.”
“Bad?”
“Just a flesh wound. Grazed his arse. She says she’s never heard such language from a priest.”
“But he’ll live?”
“Yeah. He’ll need a cushion for a while, though.”
“Not our problem, sir,” Valod said. It was the first time that either of them had called me sir.
Then from Tomasz: “What shall I tell her, sir?”
Now he, too, was calling me sir. I took it as a sign that things were getting a little hairy.
I glanced at Valod. He shook his head.
“They need help,” Tomasz continued.
“It’s not part of the mission,” Valod reminded me, unnecessarily. “And we’re already behind schedule.” Another unnecessary reminder.
Tomasz repeated, “What shall I tell her, sir?”
What should he tell her? I’d no idea.
For some inexplicable reason I told him to ask her her name, as if that would some how resolve the situation.
“Karèn,” was the reply.
“Tell her,” I began, “tell Karèn….”
But I couldn’t think what he should tell her.
“Tell her what, sir?”
Tomasz was becoming increasingly agitated.
I glanced at Valod again. If I was hoping for support, I didn’t get it. He studiously ignored me and continued to stare fixedly along the barrel of his weapon at Karèn.
I called to Tomasz, “Tell her we would like to help, but….”
“But what, sir?”
“But we have a mission to complete. An important mission. Tell her….tell her….we’ll be back….or we’ll send help….tomorrow, hopefully….if we can.”
A slight smile from Valod indicated that he was happy with my answer, but I knew how it would sound to Karèn: vague, empty, mealy-mouthed.
Tomasz and Karèn spoke again for a few minutes, then Tomasz re-joined us, with Karèn a few paces behind.
He clearly had something to tell me, but didn’t know how to begin.
“What is it?” I asked.
TOMASZ: She wants to come with us.
ME: No way!
TOMASZ: She says she’ll be our guide.
ME: Tell her we’ve got Google Maps.
He told her, and she answered.
TOMASZ: She wants to know if Google Maps will show us where the Militia have laid mines.
VALOD: We can’t take passengers, sir. Anyway, she’s only offering because she knows it’ll make us feel obliged to go for the sniper once the mission’s over.
TOMASZ: She wouldn’t be a passenger. She knows these hills, these woods like the back of her hand, been roaming them since she was a child. She looks pretty fit, sir. I mean….well, you know….fit like she could….
ME: I know what you mean, Tomasz.
I also knew how intimately you get to know hills and woods by roaming them from childhood and how useful that knowledge could be to us now.
VALOD: We’ve only brought enough rations for us three, sir.
TOMASZ: For God’s sake, look at her. She looks like she eats like a bird. We can spare a few scraps.
VALOD: You can spare a few scraps if you like. Me, I….
Then I suddenly made a decision. I don’t know what it was based on. We hadn’t exactly had a lengthy discussion or considered all the angles. It was as if a coin had been flipped in my brain and decided me.
“She’s coming with us,” I said.
It was one of my better decisions, and – who knows? – perhaps it did win the war, as the others had joked that an earlier decision might. It probably saved our lives, too.
We were nearing the top of the hill when Karèn suddenly stopped and motioned to us to do the same and to say nothing. Slowly, silently, without so much as snapping a twig underfoot, she edged towards Tomasz and whispered in his ear. One after another the rest of us gathered round them.
“She says there are some bad guys a hundred metres to our left,” Tomasz translated.
Valod snorted, dubious.
None of us could see any bad guys.
“She can smell them,” Tomasz told us.
Valod sniffed the air, displaying his scepticism of what he took to be Karèn’s claim to have some quasi-mystical ability to detect the enemy: “I can’t smell them.”
Tomasz looked enquiringly at me. I got the impression that he was inclined to think that Karèn was right.
What did we have to lose? If she was right, we could save ourselves a whole lot of trouble by dealing with the bad guys. If she was wrong, we’d gone a few metres out of our way, lost a few minutes. I gave the order to move fifty metres to the left, Valod on point. Because he could count.
She was right. After a few paces Valod indicated that he’d spotted them. The rest of us edged forward and a few moments later we saw them. There were two of them, leaning against a tree, smoking. That was Karèn’s ability – nothing mystical, just a nose for the distinctive aroma of the enemy’s cigarettes. Passing Cloud: not available in Strelno, smoked by every enemy soldier.
Of all the things that happened in the war – in war – what followed sticks in my mind more than anything else. Dying for a smoke. What an irony. No, actually, there is something else, but I’ll come to that later.
An hour later we’d set-up our observation post. My decision to let Karèn come with us had been justified. Even Valod had warmed to her. Despite his earlier reluctance, he offered to share his rations with her, but she declined, eating berries and mushrooms instead and drinking from a stream. Tomasz was right: she ate like a bird. And, while we took turns on duty, she stayed awake all night, counting militia.
“She’s quite an old lady,” Valod conceded as dawn broke. We’d completed our mission and we wanted to get away before the militia realised that they were two men short.
“She also cooks,” Tomasz told us. “As you’ll see when we get back to Strelno.”
Ah, yes. Strelno.
The local priest was a big man with a beard, an Old Testament attitude to vengeance, and a hunting rifle, which he didn’t hesitate to use, especially after the sniper had grazed his backside.
“The bastard’s in the beekeeper’s house,” he told us. “Top floor, third window from the right.”
So, not just a priest, but a good scout as well.
“I think I wounded him.”
A decent shot, too.
But we couldn’t simply trade shots with the sniper until one or other of us got tired of it or only one of us was left. We had to go in, flush him out, get down and dirty, call it what you will. And that wasn’t a job for the priest, or Karèn, come to that. It was a job for Valod, Tomasz and myself.
I asked the priest how many doors the house had.
“Two. One at the front, one at the back.”
I told the others to take the back door. I would go in through the front.
The priest offered to give us covering fire.
I said ok. “But keep your head down. This isn’t The Gunfight at the O. K. Corral. This is the real thing.”
So that’s how we did it - Valod and Tomasz in through the back door, me through the front, and the priest keeping the sniper busy with an impressive number of shots.
I was first up the stairs. I had to be. The others followed.
The door to the sniper’s room was slightly ajar. He sat in a rocking-chair which he’d put at an angle to the window, a World War Two Lee Enfield across his lap. Blood dripped onto the floor.
He didn’t seem surprised or alarmed as I stepped into the room. He turned to me, almost smiled, then slowly, casually began to raise the Lee Enfield to his shoulder. Too slowly, too casually to be a hostile act, but not surrendering, appearing to invite death.
The impact of my bullet drove him back into the chair, which began to rock and creak. Something fell from a pocket and fluttered to the floor.
The others entered. Valod picked up whatever had fallen to the floor and handed it to me.
It was a colour photo, now somewhat faded.
It showed a young woman on the beach, ankle-deep in the sea. She faced the camera beneath a sign that read CAMPARI. She wore a bikini.
I turned it over and read KARÈN. ITALY. 1980.
You might think it a little insensitive that an hour later the five of us were in Karèn’s kitchen eating boar sausage and borscht and being plied with vodka, but we were. The response of the villagers helped overcome any sense of guilt, of waste, the madness of it all. They were relieved and overjoyed, even more so when they heard about the two militiamen on the hill. They crowded round us as if we were film stars or the team that had won the World Cup. Perhaps that’s why I forgot about the photo until we were in Karèn’s kitchen.
It was when I noticed an empty photo frame on the kitchen dresser that I remembered it. The frame was just the right size for the photo.
I handed the photo to Karèn and asked if she was the woman in it.
She was.
I assumed that the sniper had stolen it, but Karèn shook her head.
“She gave it to him,” Tomasz told us.
“It’s not giving if it’s at gunpoint,” Valod said.
“It wasn’t at gunpoint.”
“You mean she just gave it to him?” I asked.
“A long time ago. Before the war. When he was just a boy.”
“She knew him?”
“He was called Mikel. He was often here, sitting at the table like we are now. Then, one year she went on holiday to Italy. That’s when the photo was taken. When she came back, she put the photo in the frame and put it on the dresser. He was intrigued by it. The sign. CAMPARI. The sea. He’d never seen the sea. When the family moved away, she gave it to him. He must have kept it with him, even when their two countries became enemies.”
We all fell silent. The madness of it all had got to us. It does that. It creeps up on you, takes you unawares.
Then Valod murmured, “She knew him. She bloody knew him.”
“Oh, yes,” the priest replied. “She knew him. He was her grandson.”
That’s what I was going to tell you about, the thing that sticks in my mind more than anything else, more even than what happened on the hill. It was that. He was her grandson.
- Details
- Written by Christopher Bellamy
Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like an empty plate left upon a table;
Let us go, through the dark overcrowded streets,
Where DJs play their beats 5
And bouncers will enforce a strict dress code
That leaves the wrongly dressed out in the road:
Streets that follow like a Paxman interview,
Revealing nothing that’s new
To lead you to an overwhelming question…. 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
To the toilets women come and go,
Talking of “him” and “so-and-so”.
The exiled smokers rub their backs upon the window-panes, 15
The exhaled smoke that leaves its tar upon the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the men that stand in groups
Let fall upon its back congratulatory slap,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night
Curled once about the bar, and fell asleep.
And you know there will be time
For the exhaled smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to order and to eat,
And time for all the days and work of hands
That lift and drop a burger on your seat; 30
Time to watch the mute tv,
And time yet for me to try a hundred beers,
And time for another hundred drinks and “Cheers!”
Before the making of a toast at three.
And I know there will be time 35
To wonder, “Do I eat?” and, “Do I drink?”
Time to open the menu and to think,
To decide before my heart begins to sink –
(The staff will say: “Is that punter here alone?”)
I pretend I’m checking messages on my mobile phone, 40
I try to give the impression that I’m not here all on my own –
(They will say: “It must be sad to be alone!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the waitresses?
In a minute there is time 45
For me to change the feelings and the thoughts my face expresses.
For I have known them all already, known them all:
Have known the mornings, evenings, afternoons,
I have measured out my life in Wetherspoon’s;
The voices like the voices in a shopping mall 50
Beneath the music from an upstairs room.
So how should I presume?
And I have tried the drinks already, tried them all –
The drinks they offer with a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on the floor, 55
When I seek support leaning on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the e-cigs of my days and ways?
And how should I presume?
And I have tried the meals already, tried them all – 60
Meals that begin with breakfast at seven
(They continue right up to eleven!)
Is it lager smooth and cold
That makes me feel so bold?
Meals that are brought to your table, promising you heaven. 65
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
Shall I say, I have gone at Happy Hour to bars
And heard the banter of the men in short-
Sleeved shirts who must be freezing now outside it’s winter?... 70
I should have been a pair of Reebok shoes
Scruffy and dirty and covered in booze.
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!
The staff might think us
Asleep….tired….not young binge drinkers, 75
Stretched on the floor, no, no, not you and me.
Should I, after beer and wine and lager,
Have the strength to reach the climax of this saga?
But though I have drunk and eaten, drunk in Rome,
Though I have seen my chicken dinner brought in sizzling on a platter, 80
I’m just a punter – and there’s no great matter;
I have seen the lights go out nearing closing time,
And I have seen the youthful Barman do his please drink up now mime,
And in short, I just went home.
And would it have been worth it, after all, 85
After cider, session beers, J2-Os,
Among the pre-match drinkers singing songs where anything goes,
Would it have been worth while,
To have bitten off Fish Friday with a smile,
To have squeezed the Curry Club into a ball 90
To roll it toward the doctor’s waiting room,
To say, “You gave me tablets, for my heartburn,
Now I shall tell you all, I shall tell you all”-
If one, spilling drink as she starts to turn,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all; 95
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while,
After Mexican Monday and beers from around the world,
Checking my emails (you can get in the cloud the moment you walk in through the door) – 100
And this, and so much more? –
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But like a PowerPoint presentation throwing nerves in patterns on a screen:
Would it have been worth while
If I, messaging a friend or answering a call, 105
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
No! I am not Prince William, nor was meant to be;
I am security, am employed on 110
Zero hours, still here when the crowds have gone,
Clearing litter with my litter tool,
Glad to be of use, I’m trained to pretend,
Really waiting for this long shift to end,
But smiling so that I do not offend, 115
Even though my back hurts with every bend –
Certainly not so cool.
I grow old…I grow old…
I shall wear the bottoms of my high-vis rolled.
Shall I go on holiday? Do I dare to book a flight online? 120
I shall wear white budgie smugglers and walk upon the brine.
I have seen the other bathers make the sign.
I do not think that they will sign to me.
I have seen them ride their surfboards out to sea
Return to shore on the crest of a wave 125
They seem so young, so fit, so bronzed and brave.
We have lingered in the bars beside the sea,
Lain comatose upon the beach and then
We wait for revelries to start again.
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