Exclusive story: A Walk with The Mutt; Poem - Language; Forgotten Suns Instagram art exhibition; Adventures in LovE - part 22 LIVE!: Tales From The UniversE 39 - newsletter from a pre-Christmas hearth
An arcadia of imagination
Tune.
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2.
A Walk With The Mutt
‘Vincent strolled Hubert to stave off death’
He’d lived a life he could be proud of. Hailing from the Salford slums Vincent got out youngish - at 20 - his brain and wit seeing him through college in Stockport, qualifying as an electrician, working for himself as a sparky, then 30 years with British Telecom which meant good money, a pension, security, moving the family from Hazel Grove to Cheshire and the village of Poynton.
After taking redundancy from BT Vincent returned to working for himself, wished he’d never stopped, finally ended his working existence age 74 and for his dotage bought himself a sausage dog he named Hubert.
His wife, Sophia, died a decade before. Vincent was 84 and lived well from his pension. He was well shod and well dressed - ‘shoes and clothes are the mark of a man’, dear departed Sophia would tell him. Vincent wore Hush Puppies - did for years - and bought his garb from Marks & Spencer and after Sophia passed away he found a note she wrote many years before inside an old pair of shoes.
It recalled a party they’d gone to in the 1980s at their friends’ house in Hazel Grove on the Dickens estate. Tom and Jenny had a daughter like them who would play with their Amanda. Vincent no longer remembered the name of Tom and Jenny’s girl and had not seen Tom and Jenny for a long time.
The note he found from Sophia said only this:
‘Love WOULD really hurt without you.’
Walking Hubert this crisp December morning in Poynton wearing a new pair of Hush Puppies, thick winter coat, shirt, pullover and corduroys all from Marks & Spencer, Vincent had the note in mind because, earlier, when sitting by the log fire in his favoured chair, frost at the window, the mutt at his feet and drinking a first cup of tea, onto the radio came the song they danced to that night at Tom and Jenny’s.
Love Really Hurts Without by Billy Ocean.
Vincent saw them all again in the light of the kitchen at Tom and Jenny’s, the night outside, and the four of them drunk on Babycham and Pernod & blackcurrant, going around and around the dining table and singing.
Shouting really.
The chorus.
‘COS BABY LOVE REALLY HURTS WITHOUT YOU!
AND IT’S BREAKING MY HEART!
BUT WHAT CAN I DO!
LOVE REALLY HURTS WITHOUT YOU…’
An evening Vincent and Sophie recalled many times until it faded from memory, from their personal lore, and was forgotten. But the note in the old pair of Hush Puppies: Sophia penned it in a moment of happiness, to recall the time, to mark how much she - they - were in love.
Writing: ‘Love WOULD really hurt without you.’
Now she was gone and there was only Amanda left, who lived a few streets away, and Hubert.
As Vincent strolled with the sausage dog in the frost he was wary of slipping because his bones felt so ancient these days…
But the song.
Love Really Hurts Without You.
It brought back other memories.
A secret, actually, that Vincent had managed to keep from Sophia, Amanda, everyone, for as long as the secret existed.
Which was this.
He had nursed a tranquillizer dependency.
Prescribed by his doctor in the late 1970s for sleeplessness, the little octagon pill - medical name, diazepam - become a central part of his existence.
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