Come Not When I Am Dead Read Online Free PDF

a
little cooler, and a lot quieter, but flies everywhere buzzing their bastard
way through the silence.  
    The way down is quite steep and I
love walking up and down it and feeling my body work for me, feeling all my
muscles connect with each other, I am fit and a mean machine, but that can’t be
said for uncle George “slow down maid, my knees aren’t as young as they were”
and I know I should slow down for him, but I carry on walking, I will wait for
him at the bottom.   “I can’t keep up
with you Gussie” he calls from behind me and I linger for an instant, a heavy
old sailor’s rope around my shoulders.   But I hate walking slowly, even for him and so I stride on again,
thinking of all the jobs he’d done for grandma as I lift my arms and touch the
leaves in passing.   I am thinking
about how handsome and gypsyish he’d looked when I was a little girl, with his
dark hair and his earring.    Remembering how, by accident, he’d used my vest and pants set as cleaning
rags because they were so revolting.   I was remembering that awful wall he built in his own garden with
bottles in it and his horrible daughter who smeared marmite on my bed sheets to
pretend it was pooh.   And wondering
what he was going to say about my studio roof and knowing that it wasn’t going
to be good and thinking that the whole experience will be demoralising and I
just shouldn’t have asked him.   I
stride along and then wait for him, he catches up and I stride on again.   I must be a pain I suppose, but that’s
what I think of other people when they can’t keep up with me in any way at all,
and really it shouldn’t matter, I’m not important to anyone and no one’s
important to me anymore, apart from my nephews, apart from Charlie and
Coningsby and a few others I suppose.   I suppose .   I watch him come down the track, he has
two legs, two legs longer than mine, why don’t they move quicker?
    The quiet here is beautiful.   I stand still and stare at the black
shade and yellow-white sunlight on the rough and sepia ground, it makes me
smile, it puts me in a daze and my eyes drift off lightly into space and my
mind disintegrates.   Choo, choo,
choo, it falls to the ground.   I’m
distracted, I’m intrigued by hums of insects and hard twigs and rainbow colours
in heavy warm air.   I am in love
with all this that is mine. And I would like to have a child and be walking
down here now with him or her, holding my hand, toddling along by my side.   I would hold their little fat hand in
mine, wrapping it closely like the most precious present in the universe, a
freshly caught trout in giant dock leaves, tied with grass.   I would tell them that one day this
would all be theirs and that our family has lived in this little house for over
300 years now and in this village since 1423, that’s a long time.   I would tell them that whoever they are
and whatever they are they should always be proud of themselves because you
only have yourself and you should be strong.   And I am still chattering away to my
little imaginary child when uncle George catches up with me.   I’m standing by the studio, I’m holding
the nettles down with my left foot and kicking at the roots of them with my
right and I’m staring at the gate.   “You
talking to yourself?   Good
conversation was it?   That’s the way
to madness they say!” but I ignore him, I always ignore people when they say
stupid things they feel they should say and mean nothing.   Uncle George goes in to the studio,
through the door I hold open for him   “now then, you let me have a look here” and suddenly he is golden and
mine and lovely again.
    I left him to look and measure and
stomp around and I walked down a little way more and got out a cigar, I am in
love with them, I love the feel of the soft leaf   and the weight of them on my lips, I let
it hang there, guess the weight, the taste and the smell and the heavy smoke in
my mouth like a fat man in a