Pete Murray So Beautiful, And Living With An Alcoholic
Without Prejudice
Condensation runs down the windows and Pete Murray plays softly on the radio. The crappy old radio covered in paint splatters that you love so much. The one Yvette says every painter has, covered in tiny flecks of white paint. But you don't paint. You don't do much of anything, except sleep and drink. An educated man, a Michael Caine, from Educating Rita, with no trade, no profession, just the "Goo", the itch you have the next day to drink the bar dry.
The other radio lays beside you as you sleep. You sleep and it's 3 in the afternoon. I stay quiet, the better not to wake you, let you sleep. Half man, half mattress and tears weep into my heart as I realise the hopelessness and despair. Outside is a beautiful Summers Day and you sleep. Pete Murray's husky voice singing, So Beautiful. Haunting lyrics.
I cook corned beef and the the windows have steamed up, almost as if it's winter and I realise how very lonely this is, this disease you refuse to admit you have. The first sign of alcoholics, denial. The meetings we went to, and you couldn't see that they related to you. You Mr Saturday Night when in your cups. Your impressions of Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
At first funny, charming, impish and then a sodden mess at the corner of Springvale Road and High Street, traffic driving around you as I run to pick you up, after I left you there in your Christmas party works " do". Your body lying half in the Road and half in the gutter. A man runs to help and we get you on to the grass verge.
You leaping up like a modern day Lazarus, suddenly alive.
" Don't leave me"
you cry and tears run down your face and at once I am saddened and repulsed and drag you to the car and you are singing and crying and I am humiliated. The Man looks at me and I wave him away, you my private problem.
Tomorrow you leave for Ireland for twelve months, losing your licence for 19 months, a month for every point you blew into the bag. Amusing on your tape as you tell the police you prefer Tennants when in Glasgy. They don't laugh. And the Police Woman that comes to see me personally and tells me you are an alcoholic. That word that mustn't be mentioned. Her husband died of it, confessing in his death bed at 42 that yes, he was an alcoholic.
She tells me to let you go. You are not my job, you are an alcoholic. Me a demented Joan Of Arc trying to " save" you. Save yourself she tells me.
And tomorrow when I drop you off at the Airport I don't cry until I see the terrace houses in Port Melbourne, so English and I think of you and how much better you could be, but your'e not. I drive to my home, with my stuff and all your stuff is gone. The radios are gone and your bag with ripped tees in it. Your radio, the one not covered in paint splatters that you kept tuned to the BBC World services as if your very life depended on knowing the crop count in Afghanistan, or wherever.
Always turned up loud and next to your sleeping head. You could sleep for five days, sick, you said. Then the recovery and the short rapid climb up to the next binge. The " back walking away " they call an alcoholic. As that's all you see, that back walking, skipping, running to the pub, where strangers are immediate friends and rob you or laugh along with you, more drinks called for. Sometimes it is coming up out of your mouth as you try to push more in, slobbering but still standing.
One time you invented a whole new language and Dec and I helped you to bed and asked each other after what the hell was that.
Condensation runs down the windows and Pete Murray plays softly on the radio. The crappy old radio covered in paint splatters that you love so much. The one Yvette says every painter has, covered in tiny flecks of white paint. But you don't paint. You don't do much of anything, except sleep and drink. An educated man, a Michael Caine, from Educating Rita, with no trade, no profession, just the "Goo", the itch you have the next day to drink the bar dry.
The other radio lays beside you as you sleep. You sleep and it's 3 in the afternoon. I stay quiet, the better not to wake you, let you sleep. Half man, half mattress and tears weep into my heart as I realise the hopelessness and despair. Outside is a beautiful Summers Day and you sleep. Pete Murray's husky voice singing, So Beautiful. Haunting lyrics.
I cook corned beef and the the windows have steamed up, almost as if it's winter and I realise how very lonely this is, this disease you refuse to admit you have. The first sign of alcoholics, denial. The meetings we went to, and you couldn't see that they related to you. You Mr Saturday Night when in your cups. Your impressions of Sean Connery and Michael Caine.
At first funny, charming, impish and then a sodden mess at the corner of Springvale Road and High Street, traffic driving around you as I run to pick you up, after I left you there in your Christmas party works " do". Your body lying half in the Road and half in the gutter. A man runs to help and we get you on to the grass verge.
You leaping up like a modern day Lazarus, suddenly alive.
" Don't leave me"
you cry and tears run down your face and at once I am saddened and repulsed and drag you to the car and you are singing and crying and I am humiliated. The Man looks at me and I wave him away, you my private problem.
Tomorrow you leave for Ireland for twelve months, losing your licence for 19 months, a month for every point you blew into the bag. Amusing on your tape as you tell the police you prefer Tennants when in Glasgy. They don't laugh. And the Police Woman that comes to see me personally and tells me you are an alcoholic. That word that mustn't be mentioned. Her husband died of it, confessing in his death bed at 42 that yes, he was an alcoholic.
She tells me to let you go. You are not my job, you are an alcoholic. Me a demented Joan Of Arc trying to " save" you. Save yourself she tells me.
And tomorrow when I drop you off at the Airport I don't cry until I see the terrace houses in Port Melbourne, so English and I think of you and how much better you could be, but your'e not. I drive to my home, with my stuff and all your stuff is gone. The radios are gone and your bag with ripped tees in it. Your radio, the one not covered in paint splatters that you kept tuned to the BBC World services as if your very life depended on knowing the crop count in Afghanistan, or wherever.
Always turned up loud and next to your sleeping head. You could sleep for five days, sick, you said. Then the recovery and the short rapid climb up to the next binge. The " back walking away " they call an alcoholic. As that's all you see, that back walking, skipping, running to the pub, where strangers are immediate friends and rob you or laugh along with you, more drinks called for. Sometimes it is coming up out of your mouth as you try to push more in, slobbering but still standing.
One time you invented a whole new language and Dec and I helped you to bed and asked each other after what the hell was that.
