Autobiographical Memories

The story is so familiar that I now remember the event from my mother’s perspective: my mind’s eye sees, framed in the doorway, an old wardrobe worthy of Narnia, leaning against the bed, which has interrupted its fall. I understand that the boy – me, or my son – is inside. But Professor Kirke built his wardrobe to last – it was sturdy, like its creator’s faith – and a mere child’s hiding inside could never have caused such a fall. As a child, I found everything exciting. My eyes then saw every cupboard as an opportunity, but I was no assessor of stability.

Unexpectedly today, the tabby I pass every day conjured the memory of a white cat my neighbours owned when we were children. My brain, when racked, produces the name “Claude”, but that was my grandparents’ cat. He was black, not white, but both were prickly, like dogs never are, and like my sister could be; like she was when I knocked on her door when she wanted privacy, and like she must have been when we came home from the Vet’s without her rabbit, and I did not see in her face the concealed blame my memory now reveals to me.

She pushed past, and suddenly my mother was strange to me. The front door slammed, then the car door, I feel sure, and my memory narrates the getaway with cinematic melodrama: screeching tyres, a furious engine. Dad explained that this was what women sometimes did, and this was explanation enough at the time – learning then consisted mainly of discovering new realms of ignorance. Later on, she rang: I picture myself answering, but it was probably him. He went to get her, and our mother returned. This vague memory is still a mystery: my mature mind cannot make sense of it.

“The world is wide,” I thought; then, feebly, “The world is whole.” These thoughts did not begin as words, of course – what we feel as we walk down or up the hill to meet our lovers after work, smelling the end of winter, cannot be contained within inverted commas. But my fidgeting mind cannot feel without making those feelings signify; cannot sense without translating that sense into words. Does being a writer mean not living in the actual world, or are my real experiences uncaptured, forgotten, free, original, raw, loose, wild, so intangible the word “intangible” makes them too tangible?

I read the new translation, and try to recreate an earlier experience, when the text’s artful magic resonated with the real magic of Christmas, as I saw it. Alone with a pencil and those pristine pages, I sat by the bay windows, seeing people pass while Gawain accepted the challenge. But we cannot re-live moments: my mind fidgets, hears the chat around me, cannot choose what to focus on, as it asks, constantly, what is meaningful? Whenever I read I want to write, but everything might be a waste. I acquire books which lack the magic of that pristine moment.

I held the book between my fingers: its thickness impressed me as I realised that knowledge was something physical. I tracked my consumption of these words, seeing where my bookmark had reached, using fingers to estimate if I was halfway yet. It was with me for months in France: I chose its company, on the bed in a strange room, instead of the family from whom I had alienated myself. “I have consumed that,” I told myself at last; and now the physical knowledge on my shelf daunts me, contains more than one life time is sufficient to even taste.

I only remember an anecdote: he played cricket in the morning, then emailed me that afternoon to say that every time he hit the ball, he imagined it was my head. What would a word like “guilt” add to this story, even if I had a right to use it? Anecdotes and terms are bland; they do not describe the real moment, what was felt. What I really felt was pride at my accomplishment; yet “pride” is another useless word. It means too much, captures none of what obsessed me as I ignored the History lesson, waiting for the weekend.

I could not bear to read it until I knew it had passed: did not want to see what errors I had hastily missed. The file sat, dormant, on my computer, while the hard copies (I imagine) were handed between offices, also dormant except for snatched moments when my qualified judges filled boxes. In bed, rejecting the impossible potential of my library, I re-read my words, their new status altering how I perceive them. Turning the page quietly under the lamp, while she breathes beside me, I pause to decide how I will inscribe this autobiographical memory in my collection.