Mum was Louise. Dad was Dennis. Dennis met Louise when she was 18. He was 24. Total surprise, a year later, my brother Denny. And me, less of a surprise, I guess. Dad starts working in a coal mine. It’s more money, slightly more. But he’s barely home now, and Louise, well Louise is home with the kids but she’s basically a kid herself. A kid with two kids and husband 600 meters down. So, she does what kids do. She plays. So, Dad’s underground and Mum’s under some bloke and… the thing about a coal mine… well, the thing I think about most now I’m older… No plants down there. No life at all.
See, these men, we send them down into the dark mess, digging for something dead. So dead that it’s now lumps of dead things, so old and lifeless that they will literally burn, and that was his life. While she did whatever she could to feel alive. All that death, that dark, powdery death is all over his face, his hands, his fucking lungs, when he comes up. There’s not a leaf, not a branch, not a flower in his world and when he finally climbs out of that grave, finally climbs back to the land of the living…they laugh at him. They laugh because the whole town knows that the new baby, my little brother Mikey, isn’t his.
So, Dennis buries his head in the soot, and they praise him for his loyalty while they mock him for a cuckold. Louise, on the other hand, call a spade a space, and they call my mum a whore. Call the daughter one, too. Bully her a school, on the streets. Even makes its way home. Little Denny piles on, tries to save his own skin by blaming all the females in the family, and in `67, Louise bolts. She splits, and I come home from school to find Mikey, alone, screaming his little head off. He’s still a baby and he doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong. I try and take care of him. But I’m just a kid. Kids can’t raise kids. I forget things. Like watching over a pot when it boils.
So, one day there’s an accident. Social Services gets involved and we’ve split up. Dad did his best. He spent so long underground, didn’t know what to do with a kid, let alone three kids. So, he disappeared into the dirt. Then, it was foster care. Just a bunch of stale, perverted man and bitter wives, hoping to make a few quid by taking care of the local trash. I left for London pretty soon after that. Got myself into all sorts of trouble there. Wound up serving a couple of years. And it’s there I start gardening. Busy work for idle hands. But I fucking love it. Love it.
And it’s so clear then how people aren’t worth it. But plants… you pour your love, and your effort, and your nourishment into them and you see where it goes. You watch them grow and it all makes sense.
