months, perhaps even years. When you’re on a roll it’s always best to keep going. Breaks mess up an established routine
and can, in tragic circumstances, alter it permanently and you wouldn’t want to stop drinking and using, would you?
—Not permanently, but maybe for a week.
—And what
reason
do you have to stop?
I look at him. He smiles. We both know I don’t have an answer.
Apart from the magic seven days, all I remember about the book was the title of the first chapter:
Who Are You Really?
I haven’t a fucking clue who I am, what I’m doing or
where I’m going, so my job for the First Day is to fill in at least some of those blanks. Here’s the result of my best efforts:
I Really Am:
A Cunt
An Alcoholic
A Coke Freak
A Pounder of Wraps and Grannies
A Great Salesman
A Ball of Muscle and Anger
A Father
A Son
An Artist
When he sees the list, Esurio can’t help himself:
—You see, Lincoln, where does honesty get you?
—At least it gets me a list.
—So choose one, then. My choice would be the first item on the list. Absolutely you in one little word.
I want to be a Father or a Son but I lack courage, so I go with the next best thing:
—And mine is the last and that’s what I’m going with.
When I get to the flat I prop the canvas on the dressing table and begin painting. I feel sick and I need a drink. Every stroke of my brush is an effort until, one slow movement at a time, I
disappear into what I’m doing. The twisting in my stomach eases and I become the rhythm of my brush on the canvas.
I am a child again. I feel breathing behind my left shoulder. I turn and my Granddad Bob is watching me:
—Hold it this way, Lincoln . . . That’s it . . . Picture what you want to do and let it happen . . . There’s no right or wrong . . . Just enjoy doing it . . .
I can feel his hand holding mine as it moves.
There were paintings on the wall of our council house when I was growing up; all of them given to us by my Granddad. He was an engineer; a short, stocky man who worked in an artillery factory
during the war, and he was as hard as the shell cases he made. He was also skilled at re-engineering the human body. Someone threw a dart in his head once and before he could say
One-Hundred-and-Eighteeeee
, the guy who threw it had his nose moved to the side of his face, like a Picasso. The rules were simple: you cross Granddad Bob, you pay a price. One of his
favourite sayings was:
—They all pay. One way or another they all pay in the end.
He developed a variation of that saying for me:
—It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a brothel with a prostitute or a church getting married, you always pay for it one way or another.
Bob was one of those men who surprised you. Just when you thought you knew ‘his type’, you found something out which made you question whether he really was ‘his type’ at
all. As well as keeping the long-standing Townley tradition, passed down the male line, of throwing a killer right hook, he was a talented artist. He didn’t just give us the paintings on our
wall. He painted them and he kept painting until he began to lose his mind, and that’s when he forgot much more than how to paint. He forgot who he was. Where he lived. Everything.
When the Alzheimer’s got bad he could no longer live on his own. He had nowhere to go, so I moved him into my flat in London. His memory came and went in waves. One day I came home and he
was sat in the garden with a sketchpad and some pencils.
—What are you drawing?
—A lake and some trees.
—Yeah, I can see it. It’s beautiful.
It was just a random series of lines and colours. He was no longer able to make sense of the sensations that bounced around his brain. Perhaps that’s what it means to forget. Everything
becomes a whirl of words and colours without any meaning. And there are many ways to forget. Alzheimer’s is only one. Drinking and using is another, and the outcome is always the same. You
and can, in tragic circumstances, alter it permanently and you wouldn’t want to stop drinking and using, would you?
—Not permanently, but maybe for a week.
—And what
reason
do you have to stop?
I look at him. He smiles. We both know I don’t have an answer.
Apart from the magic seven days, all I remember about the book was the title of the first chapter:
Who Are You Really?
I haven’t a fucking clue who I am, what I’m doing or
where I’m going, so my job for the First Day is to fill in at least some of those blanks. Here’s the result of my best efforts:
I Really Am:
A Cunt
An Alcoholic
A Coke Freak
A Pounder of Wraps and Grannies
A Great Salesman
A Ball of Muscle and Anger
A Father
A Son
An Artist
When he sees the list, Esurio can’t help himself:
—You see, Lincoln, where does honesty get you?
—At least it gets me a list.
—So choose one, then. My choice would be the first item on the list. Absolutely you in one little word.
I want to be a Father or a Son but I lack courage, so I go with the next best thing:
—And mine is the last and that’s what I’m going with.
When I get to the flat I prop the canvas on the dressing table and begin painting. I feel sick and I need a drink. Every stroke of my brush is an effort until, one slow movement at a time, I
disappear into what I’m doing. The twisting in my stomach eases and I become the rhythm of my brush on the canvas.
I am a child again. I feel breathing behind my left shoulder. I turn and my Granddad Bob is watching me:
—Hold it this way, Lincoln . . . That’s it . . . Picture what you want to do and let it happen . . . There’s no right or wrong . . . Just enjoy doing it . . .
I can feel his hand holding mine as it moves.
There were paintings on the wall of our council house when I was growing up; all of them given to us by my Granddad. He was an engineer; a short, stocky man who worked in an artillery factory
during the war, and he was as hard as the shell cases he made. He was also skilled at re-engineering the human body. Someone threw a dart in his head once and before he could say
One-Hundred-and-Eighteeeee
, the guy who threw it had his nose moved to the side of his face, like a Picasso. The rules were simple: you cross Granddad Bob, you pay a price. One of his
favourite sayings was:
—They all pay. One way or another they all pay in the end.
He developed a variation of that saying for me:
—It doesn’t matter whether you’re in a brothel with a prostitute or a church getting married, you always pay for it one way or another.
Bob was one of those men who surprised you. Just when you thought you knew ‘his type’, you found something out which made you question whether he really was ‘his type’ at
all. As well as keeping the long-standing Townley tradition, passed down the male line, of throwing a killer right hook, he was a talented artist. He didn’t just give us the paintings on our
wall. He painted them and he kept painting until he began to lose his mind, and that’s when he forgot much more than how to paint. He forgot who he was. Where he lived. Everything.
When the Alzheimer’s got bad he could no longer live on his own. He had nowhere to go, so I moved him into my flat in London. His memory came and went in waves. One day I came home and he
was sat in the garden with a sketchpad and some pencils.
—What are you drawing?
—A lake and some trees.
—Yeah, I can see it. It’s beautiful.
It was just a random series of lines and colours. He was no longer able to make sense of the sensations that bounced around his brain. Perhaps that’s what it means to forget. Everything
becomes a whirl of words and colours without any meaning. And there are many ways to forget. Alzheimer’s is only one. Drinking and using is another, and the outcome is always the same. You
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