Happy 40th.
I have in my mind, clear as day, snapshots of you, of memories that are repeated over and over again – pictures of the years turning into decades and passing by. My dear and only brother, my friend, my childhood nemesis at times (evidenced by the scratches and pinches, kicks and bite marks from me on your fair skin. We were often each other’s only target.)
Today, as I sit and think of you, I am dazzled by the number and variety of things I can recall about you – about me and you as The Big Kids and specifically for now, of you as Boy David – my blue eyed, fair-haired, scrawny, quiet, gentle brother. The memories came so quickly to my mind that I could hardly get them down on the pieces of paper I’d torn for notes.
I sat in the garden this morning and wondered what to do to celebrate your 40th birthday. You are hard to buy for. I wanted you to know I love and cherish you, so socks just would not do. I have accumulated, over days, a selection of random memories – of you, dear Dave – from as far back as I can remember up until I left home. I’ve tried to put them into some chronological order but one or two may have slipped through my orderly net and appear where they choose.
I remember my small, wiry brother with the blond hair that I coveted and the blue eyes I longed for. Gran’s eyes, they were, according to everyone. The only one of us to have that from her. They made you notable and even extraordinary in Thailand – allowed you into the temples and the monks bestowed their interest upon you. Such a striking little boy.
There were snakes at the Nippa Lodge and I can picture us running in absolute terror, trying to find Mum and Dad (Dumb and Mad...) as one chased us. At least, it seemed to chase us. We were so scared. I wonder if in reality, it was just there on the ground? Dad was always warning us with horror stories to be wary of them. And there were pineapple chunks for you and sugar cane for me from the man selling them at the villa we lived in, with the guards and the palm trees and Ow, the maid . These memories are almost intangible – they pass in an instant as soon as I recall them – vivid but fleeting. There was a pool and you could dive and I don’t know if I just didn’t want to learn or plain couldn’t do it, but you were the one who could dive. And duck dive. I only learnt to do that as an adult. You were like a fish when you were a small boy – swimming and spear fishing with Dad. You and I used to lie on the beach in Thailand – white sands and Mum and Dad nearby – and we would pray to our own invented sun gods to make the sun come out again whenever it disappeared behind clouds. We thought it was us making it happen.
Remember the fridge falling on us – we’d been swinging on the door with only Ow in the house and we got hurt – I remember my lip bleeding. “Ow”. Most likely not spelled like that. “You like fried banana?” Except she said it “Flied”.
Peatmore Close. Me and you waiting for Mum to come home after having Tommy. Rushing to the back of the ambulance and asking the driver: “Hey Mr Man – where’s the baby?” And not understanding the silence. Mr Man. I can hear that so clearly. We were so excited.
You smashing my head with the potato masher and me yours with a pen. Me having stitches, you not. You trapping my finger in the bathroom door hinge and me again having stitches and a manky nail for ever more. I think of you and that day when I look at my left hand. I don’t mind the nail or the scar. They’re like wrinkles – badges of honour, marks of a life lived.
High Birches and our tree house and Tarzan & Jane. The roles pre-assigned but nowadays I’d as likely be Tarzan as you. I tried not to mind back then. I did the “cooking” of the grass and the berries and the twigs you “hunted” for.
Samantha! That plain plank of wood imbued with life by us and played with and given a soul. I loved that crocodile.
We called Melly “Puffa” – so mean of us. She was little and slower and couldn’t keep up with us as we charged up the garden away from her. And that song “Two Little Boys” we played over and over again to see her cry. Sadistic siblings. And playing Monopoly, which I mostly always hated but did it anyway to stave off boredom.
Watching you helping Dad in the garage with his tools, the bench at the back and the vice and the smell of oil and the dirt. Boys’ things and I wasn’t allowed and a part of me really minded that. Mixing araldite and holding things steady and being his right hand man/boy. “Hold this son” and “Do it like this, boy” and me minding The Babies while Mum slept or something. Dad and Boy David. Much as it is now, I imagine.
We used to spend endless hours looking for pretty stones in Gran’s front garden, crouched over on sunny days, scrunching the gravel where Bam’s car would often sit – that yellow BMW. And we would dash inside to Gran’s room – the ‘dining room’ - filled with excitement, wanting to show our finds to the adults sitting and talking and trying to disguise their resentment at out intrusion – all except Jilly, who seemed to actually care about meaningless scraps of stone. Bless her – always patient and keen.
Gran’s ‘Bogey Hole’. Scared me witless.
Going down “the bumps” in the car – exciting and frightening.
Being sent upstairs to Jump On Jilly when she overslept at weekends.
Being sent upstairs to watch The Persuaders on that old black and white telly that took ages to warm up and had a two-pronged aerial on top.
My quiet, self-contained brother. I wonder if you remember these things and if you do, if you remember them in the same way that I do.
I can picture you in your room at High Birches, on your ZX Spectrum – a thing that left me cold – or on your CB radio, (was it stored inside a double-doored white cupboard?) a thing that fascinated me but that I just didn’t get. My handle was “Thin Lizzie”. I can’t recall yours.
Stories with Dad. All those wonderful tales we begged for again and again and never grew tired of.
Libya. The hateful heat and the weirdness of it all. The walls round our house that you used to climb onto and walk round. You could go for a long way, travelling like that, to neighbours houses.
The shack of a ‘shop’ we had in the back yard on the pink pebbles and the cactus grass, with Jackie Burkermeyer
Nigel Crump. Who we privately christened “Nigel Crumplebiscuit”. That makes me laugh just writing it down. What a daft name. He was a large boy, if I recall.
Muddled-up, disjointed memories, flooding my mind now I sit down to write this to you. All so vivid. As if we were little again – me and you, Bec & Dave, The Big Kids. Sometimes, it felt like me and you against the world, Dave.
I remember watching Saturday telly with you; eating cereal and laying on our stomachs; scrumping Dad’s fruit; roly polys down the sloping grass; going up in the loft; being told to turn the immersion/lights/telly off; bumping down the stairs; you having beans and sausages on toast for tea and me having spaghetti hoops; having that old man, Mr. Martel, to babysit us and watching in horror as he picked his scalp; going next door to play with Nathan’s toy garage and really hating him...
I remember a time when I didn’t really know you at all anymore, when our lives diverged and you went your way and I went mine. Cars and girls and friends and always busy and out or on your computer – while I moved out and on and away.
I have so many memories and every single one of them is filled with love and makes me smile. You are my past and my present - a vibrant, vivid fixture in my mind. I recalled all this with such pleasure and I thank you for being my constant, lovable brother – from the day you were born and we became Bec’n’Dave to this day.
I will think of you as you read this, hoping it makes you smile and think fondly of me. You mean the world to me, Dave. Your gentle , weird, predictable, hilarious sense of humour; your towering, solid physical presence, your blue blue eyes and your familiar hands that haven’t changed since childhood.
I am proud and honoured to have you for my brother and I wish with all my heart that I could be there to hug you. I know you’ll understand – you always do. Your uncomplicated heart always lives and lets live. You are so generous of spirit. And hilarious of joke. But that would be another letter about another era.
I love you, Dave.
Happy 40th Birthday.
Bec.
