Mrs. Robinson

I'm launching Booker's World offically on Sunday, April 17. The following day I get to start on the second one which I'm looking forward to. Writing through the night for months on end. It's not how I'd like to be riding out the recession, but it comes pretty close. Below is another cut chapter.

Monday, January 11, 2010

For the first time in many months I heard Mitch come into the house this morning. The reason for this was a night I spent in complete solitude, alone with my thoughts, unable to sleep. It was the longest night. I tried everything I could to tire my eyes out. All in vein. I watched TV, read some of Bill’s wisdom, I even reverted to counting sheep. Nothing worked. My bed side clock reminded me as every second passed through on it's way to becoming a minute and then on to hours. I heard every lonely one of them. Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock. My eyes remained wide open through it all.
Eventually the silence was broken when the boiler kicked in around 6am to heat the house a little. It's important the house is warm for Mum before she wakes. I'm thick-skinned in many ways and it's a good job I am sometimes. Mum is different. Her skin is now receding, trying desperately to melt into her bones. A chill in those bones could be fatal at her time in life. I hope this cold snap ends soon, I have no money for oil until later in the week, and even at that i can't stretch it much more than I am at the moment.
I got up and went downstairs and asked Mitch if he would mind sticking around for the day. I told him I had not slept. He told me he would. He's a good bloke. I returned to bed and after a couple of hours I finally managed to sleep. I slept into the early afternoon, until a stupid chime entered my dream state. When I woke it was still there. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I rose and looked out my window. Below, parked as if abandoned, was the ice-cream man. Temperatures in the negative and there he was. I continued to watch. The driver was just about to pull off when Mitch entered my view. Broad and brisk, he walked up to the van. Money and ice-cream cones were exchanged. The driver left and Mitch left my view.
I returned to my bed and put on the news on the TV. Bad weather, gangland murders, and the stepping down of Northern Ireland's first minister, Peter Robinson, for a short time so he can help his allegedly corrupt and adulterous wife through her mental breakdown. I'd missed this one. Seems that Iris Robinson, Peter's wife, was playing tootsies with a nineteen-year-old man. Not only that, she borrowed money off a couple of builders so she could help her toy-boy to set up in business. She then tried to commit suicide, just before the story broke late last week on the BBC documentary programme, Spotlight.
I took a flick through my news sources here and in the UK and every one of them were all over the story. The slant they are coming at it is from the corruption allegations, the sex on the side aspect taking second billing. Peter Robinson looks like a man beyond his years, the stress with coping with his wife's infidelity in the public domain very visible. At least he’s not hiding like Tiger. I switched off the TV. I feel I may put my foot through it soon. As a child it was a source of joy, of entertainment, of misguided believes that the world could be a perfect place and I could do my part while drinking Coca Cola.
Instead I've done nothing, even my notions of a new beginning this year slowly disappearing. Trust me to resolute to take up walking as part of a new healthier regime just as nature decided to make my small little world a trecherous place to walk.
Maybe if I get some money from somewhere I'll be able to make sure next year's resolutions don't disappear so quickly. I'll buy a pair of skies. It's nearing midnight and I’m tired. I better go down and let Mitch head off. I’m a little sniffly. I may raise a glass of Lemsip.

Here's to you, Mrs. Robinson.