I dreamt about it. I had it. I don’t know how. But I was washing it under the tap, cleaning it of all previous owners. It was now my radio. Mine.
I see it every morning in the window of the second-hand shop. It’s nestled next to a large glittery head of buddha and surrounded by bits of china. The window display is not what you’d call minimal. There is a clarinet in a blue-velvet-lined case balanced on top of a train set with two miniature camper vans standing on each corner. A trumpet, a ukulele and a guitar hang from hooks on one of the side walls. The rest is mostly tat. I like it though. I pass it twice on my walk and sometimes linger a little on my way home letting my eye roam over the jumbled array.
Her other son must be visiting now. He isn’t due back from Ireland for a few days yet. I know this because we could hear his saxophone through the floor and walls. At first I thought it was a cello. Perhaps it was but it’s unlikely. It’s not so easy to take one of those on a plane. He practised and played for well over three hours. It irritated him but I quite liked it.
It was a hard listen. Beautifully acted by Ronald Pickup but a hard and bitter tale. At one point he told of his father telling him a story about Shackleton wandering in the snow in search of help with his two companions. He was convinced there were four of them as they trudged. There wasn’t. Just the three. He called it ‘Divine Providence’ – a helping hand, and accompanying. I like the idea. And sometimes I feel it too but it inside not out. His father told him the story to help the boy sleep.
The clouds have cleared a little. There is more blue than they promised. A good omen, eh?
