Mr. November

This is noth­ing like it was in my room, in my best clothes. Sharply creased, pressed and ironed into my uniform.

It had been decided that I was going away, because Some­thing Wasn’t Right about me. Because out of sight meant out of mind. Out of the way, more likely. Out of your harm’s way, even more accurately.

I should have been pleased, because being gone from that place meant dis­lodging its pois­on­ous atmo­sphere from my mind too. Yet I wanted to stay. So much. I ached to stay. Yearned. Not only to pro­tect — some ridicu­lous heart­felt notion which informed a pre­co­cious young­ster that he could be on con­stant watch­ful guard, that he could be respons­ible for every­one and everything under the sun. No, not only that. I wanted to stay because I wanted to remain con­stantly within your vis­ion, haunt­ing you, taunt­ing you with your guilt. Being the liv­ing embod­i­ment, day in and day out, of what you did, what you were doing, what you con­tin­ued to do.

This is noth­ing like it was in my room, in my bed­clothes. Nights fre­quently found me foetal, whis­per­ing those unin­tel­li­gible Ger­man lul­la­bies learnt from a mother’s tongue into the mat­tress like a man­tra. The words them­selves didn’t mat­ter. They were merely phon­etic reas­sur­ance: a charm to lure sleep into my clutches, a spell to weave which I was always cer­tain would one day spirit me away from the world that habitu­ally col­lapsed out­side my pulled cov­ers. Noth­ing could hap­pen if I kept my magic verse alive, or so I believed.

Inno­cence is a hushed sound when it lives and breathes. You only hear it when it dies, some­time between bed­time and dawn.

Mr. Novem­ber can still reduce me to name­less, face­less, frozen. I wish he didn’t have that power. I only need the merest ink­ling that he’s breath­ing the same pol­luted air — in the same vicin­ity, maybe on the other side of that wall and the next wall and the next — and I will be sucked down, doubled up, ripped ragged. Dragged, kick­ing and scream­ing, back to my room. Under, slip under. Sing, whis­per and hush. Soon be morning.

All the evid­ence should tell me oth­er­wise. Grow up, be sens­ible, behave like an adult. You’re old enough and ugly enough to know bet­ter. Pull your­self together. And I know, and I know. But still.

His voice, once so strong and with an edge that could prompt sick­ness and fear if I felt even dis­tant traces of his anger begin its nox­ious escape from his chest, is now a shadow of its former self. Exhausted and mono­syl­labic when I was forced to listen to it on the other end of a dis­tant tele­phone line, with barely enough enthu­si­asm mustered to dis­cuss that most harm­less and inof­fens­ive of top­ics: the weather. His hair is an undis­tin­guished shade of grey, his beard scruffy and unkempt. The eyes that formerly fired with rage have burned out, clouded over, mis­ted and aged. What could I pos­sibly have to fear from him? Noth­ing, most prob­ably. Abso­lutely noth­ing. Only echoes.

I gaze at the one recent pho­to­graph I pos­sess that offers even the slight­est clue as to how the past two dec­ades might have writ­ten their tri­als and tribu­la­tions into his flesh and bone. His face is half turned away from the cam­era. He is smil­ing, thin-lipped, at his blond, blue-eyed grand­son who sits, suck­ing a lol­li­pop, on his knee. I can’t stop the shiver that runs through me as I note once again those eerie familial traits. Sins of the father? Sins of the father’s father?

It’s all in the eyes, nar­rowed towards me. In an instant, I want to reach into the snap­shot and drag the boy out of that freeze frame moment, shake some sense into him and explain all the dangers. The signs to watch out for. The inflex­ions to listen for. The black moods to run from, and run, and keep running.

This old man — I can say it now, because that’s what he is — wants to offer all the reas­sur­ances he can, albeit grudgingly. Peace offer­ings and olive branches. He’ll build bridges from his door to mine, if i will do the decent thing and agree to telling him where I live. I can hear him. If only he would sum­mon up the nerve, he would utter these very words: “I won’t fuck us over, I’m Mr. Novem­ber. I’m Mr. Novem­ber, I won’t fuck us over”.

Does he want to make amends before he dies? Does he want to wipe his slate clean? Does he want to leave a clear con­science? Does he want us to have fond memor­ies and tear­ful recol­lec­tions? Cruelly, I hope he does. Cruelly, I hope his wishes are never granted.

Except I can’t be that cruel. All I can do is ignore the telephone’s insist­ent elec­tronic tones and delete yet another tired mes­sage before it’s even reached my ears.

Mr. July will never be con­vinced, because he doesn’t for­give and for­get. Mrs. Janu­ary wants noth­ing to do with you, and will most likely dance on your grave if you are lowered into the earth before her. Miss May goes her own sweetly dis­astrous way, and I can only hope and pray that Mas­ter Octo­ber sees the truth before he’s too much older.

Come Novem­ber, I won’t be light­ing any candles for you.

• The National
• Lyr­ics to Mr. Novem­ber