Birth (Beginning when it was called 'Another Day' back in 2008 or 2009')

It has been stated elsewhere that I have been working on ‘Birth’ since about 2011 in one way or another only for me to discover just after I released the book, a much earlier version of the book called ‘Another Day’ dating back to 2008.

I don’t remember this version and certainly don’t remember the book being started earlier than what I said previously but decided now the book has been out a few weeks now to share this earlier version warts and all to show how the book developed over the following 14 years or so.

**

Another memory.

Another photograph.

I’m stood there a little younger with a huge smile on my face with Sean standing right next to me, who is stood there with a huge mixture of pathos and laughter on his face in the way he is stood there with a huge smile but also has a tired look in his eyes which went beyond just looking tired.

I believe the photograph was taken by the lakes. I’ve been there once or twice and truth be told spent most of it ducking under showers avoiding the most stupid showers, which sort of really put me off going there again, but back then we would have trooped up there like we were a little army which we were I guess considering my brother had arrived only the year before.

My mother had asked her older sister, Pat if she had wanted to come along with her family. Truth be told, I didn’t like her very much. Her brother, Conor had a look in his eyes which had always sent a shiver down my back even when I was barely out of my nappers.

I could tell my father didn’t particularly like him, by the way he would frequently smile with his lips at some of the remarks or jokes Conor would come out, and then sigh almost with a huge sigh of relief when he had gone.

They had 4 children. The eldest of them, Matthew ran away from home when he was 15 and I never saw him until at the funeral of Conor years later. They also had at that point a baby son, Hugh who was a little older than my own brother, and by the time he had started to raise his own hell, I had well moved on, but it was the middle two, the twins Martine and Stephen, both of which I knew the best.

Let’s just say neither was angels.

One of Sean’s friends, a crazy Irishman called Gerald had agreed to drive us all down there. Gerald was a softly spoken Irishman who I guess was somewhere I guess in between my father’s and Sean’s age, whom my father told me Sean had met during one of his infamous drinking nights in the Horse and Jockey.

I had met him once before, I think the year before, but I didn’t really remember him, I must admit and when he spoke to me, I must admit I didn’t know what quite to say.

‘You’re Gary’s oldest, aren’t you?’ He said, when I stepped on the bus.

‘Yes, sir’ I blushed slightly.

‘You’re a polite young man, ain’t you? He said to me hinting towards my cousins who were sitting on the end of the bus raising literal hell.

‘He looks like just his mother’ A female voice said from behind him, which I didn’t recognise and I kept on walking, as this female voice kept on talking ‘Who is she again’ She changed the topic.

‘I have no idea’ Gerald replied ‘I haven’t met her yet. I wasn’t with him;

‘What do you mean, you weren’t with him? You two are normally joined at the hip..’ She countered.

Gerald laughed ‘Not on Monday night, I had more pressing business shall we say’ which made that woman blush, and after that, he turned round to my father who was standing outside chatting to Uncle Conor ‘Gary, have you spoken to Sean?’

My father shrugged his shoulders, and said ‘He said he be here for 12’

Conor laughed at that one and said in his usual underhand way ‘He’ll be late for his own funeral that one.’

Gerald swore at him, and I got a frosty look from my mother, who I knew didn’t like me swearing in particular when I knew Gerald or Sean swore.

By that point I had both Stephen and Martine sat just behind me, who then started pushing each other quite forcefully and then one of them (I can’t remember which) threw an apple at the top of their seat which hit me on the head. I was about to throw it back at them when Sean walked on the bus, and he wasn’t alone.

There was a blonde-haired lady with him with long curly hair and hat on top of her head which made her look like a film star or something. She was beautiful, without a shadow of a doubt to my young eyes and as she sat there I could see the looks that shone off the faces of everybody including both my cousins, Stephen and Martine who were clearly stunned – in fact so stunned they didn’t realise I was throwing the apples back at them until it bounced off Martine’s cheeks.

‘Whose she?’ I heard my aunt Pat say to my mother who was sitting there saying little as she normally did.

It was hard to believe, I thought to myself looking at both my mother and her sister how different they looked and indeed acted. My mother at that point was only just in her 30’s and was still quite slender with a quiet but thoughtful way which people said I took after, which was in complete contrast to my mother’s side. Pat was 10 years older than my mother, a large, plump woman with a laugh that I was convinced back then as a kid could shatter glass about 20 yards and a voice which frequently used to want to make me up even then as a 12-year-old shout shut up as a 10-year-old even.

My mother returning to the central conversation looked at the woman sitting down next to Sean and said ‘I’ve not seen her before, but I’ve heard Gary talk about her.’

I think I had heard my father talk about her also, but only in hushed tones to my mother, which said to me in hindsight looking back from an adult perspective, that was a problem even before that day.

After Sean’s death, my father told me he had pulled her in the Horse and Jockey. He hadn’t been there when it happened himself, he thought Gerald had been there with him that night (Gerald denies this) but as he did, almost anything was possible with Sean.

He was very capable, my father told me afterwards he was capable of walking in by himself and having people flock to him like he was a magician or a pied piper.

On that day however, I sat here in a stone-faced silence for a good few seconds before he patted me on the head with a large smile and said, ‘How’s my favorite nephew?’ which wasn’t really the truth as he wasn’t blood-related to my dad but I felt proud he regarded as his nephew.

‘I thought you were an only child’ This woman said to Sean surprised before I could say anything.

‘Surrogate really’ He smiled ‘He’s Gary’s eldest’

‘Gary?’

‘Gary who did you meet outside about two minutes ago’

I smiled. I liked the surprise in her eyes. Uncle Sean had this way of surprising problems sometimes even he opened his mouth.

The girl he was with however was something else. She looked at me with wide, surprised eyes which made her look even younger than she was and she said eventually ‘You never cease to surprise me’ and then sat down promptly next to me and said in a matter-of-fact voice ‘What’s your name, young man?

I blushed a little ‘Andrew.’

‘My’ She laughed ‘You’re a polite young man. I bet you’re not like that when you are out with your friends’.

‘Not really’ I blushed even more.

‘I remember when I was your age. I was out every night. Where do you go?’

I didn’t know how to answer her. I was used to my mother and her quiet mannerisms, and even my mother’s sister, Dorothy, who used to talk and talk and talk and talk and never listen to a word of what I was saying.

This woman was totally different. She could talk in a way like my auntie Dorothy could, but listened to you.

‘I don’t go out much’ I admitted.

She looked at me surprised before saying ‘I was out every night at my local youth club.’

The less said about mine the better.