How Did All This Happen?. John Bishop

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СКАЧАТЬ impale you in a collision, but I loved that car. I loved how solid it felt, which may in part be due to the tank metal it was made of. I loved that it was from the exotic Eastern Bloc that we were supposed to be scared of, but which I deduced could not be that bad if they had sold my dad a car. The car lacked mechanical sophistication to such an extent that when my dad lost the keys he began using a pair of scissors in the ignition to start the car. I actually thought my dad might be a Russian spy when he got it, and I allowed some of my mates to think the same.

      But I mostly loved it because my dad did. One thing he appreciated the most was the lighter just below the dash-board, which you could press in and which would pop out when it was hot enough for my dad to light his cigarette as he drove. It was the most sophisticated thing I had ever seen. And I broke it.

      Whilst sitting in the car waiting for my dad one day in Garston, Liverpool, I couldn’t resist pressing the lighter in. When it popped out, I decided to test how hot it was with the tip of my tongue. Yes, I did just write that. The tip of my tongue. You do not need to be medically qualified to guess the result. I burnt my tongue and it hurt like hell. But, after the initial pain, I was still sitting in the car with nothing to do, so I kept on pushing the lighter in and out until one time when it didn’t pop out again.

      My dad returned to the car and immediately went to use the lighter. When it didn’t move, he used his strength to pull it. The internal coil unravelled and the lighter fell apart.

      ‘Have you been using this?’ my dad asked.

      I tried to explain it wasn’t my fault, but due to the burnt tongue I just said, ‘Ummn dun nooo.’

      My dad looked at me, and I knew that he knew I had broken it. He looked me in the eye for a moment, sighed and simply said, ‘I liked that lighter.’

      Then we drove home. I loved that car because it always reminded me of my dad’s forgiveness and that ‘things’ don’t matter. People do. Even if those people can’t talk due to their own stupidity.

       CHAPTER 3

       A BOY LEARNING ADULT LESSONS

      It was a sunny day early in the summer of 1974 and we all went for a family day out to the swimming baths in Winsford, where the pool was outside. These days, the concept of having an outdoor swimming pool in the north of England would seem crazy, and the fact that it is no longer there perhaps proves that such a venture would be like having a ski slope in the desert (I know they do in Dubai, but they cheat). However, my childhood seems to have been full of sunny days, and we spent many an afternoon at Winsford’s outdoor swimming baths.

      As you entered the swimming pool, you were immediately struck by the brightness of it all. The diving board was painted red, and the bottom of the swimming pool was painted pale blue, which always gave the impression of freshness. There was a large pool housing the diving board, and it was a rite of passage one day to jump off the top. On this particular day – I would have been no more than seven – I had not reached the top, although I had gone halfway and was still edging up slowly. There was a shallow children’s swimming pool at the end, beyond which was a small shop where you could buy sweets.

      It was here that I saw a friend from school. He had on a scuba mask and was playing in the children’s pool. We spoke for a while before I went back to the base my mum and dad had set up amongst the tables and benches, and where I knew there would be an endless supply of sandwiches and drink. My mum has always possessed the ability to make more sandwiches than she has bread. I know that defies logic, but it’s true. It’s a mum thing that they can just do. I think the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand can probably be explained by Mary making sardine sandwiches.

      I was sitting with my family when I noticed a man run and dive into the pool fully clothed. Whilst everybody else was playing, I couldn’t take my eyes off the man under the water, as he seemed to be swimming furiously towards the other side.

      Suddenly, he emerged from the water holding a small figure that I immediately recognised as my friend. The lifeguards came running over and the pool immediately began to empty, so that I had a clear, uninterrupted view of the proceedings unfolding in front of me.

      In a panic, one lifeguard tried to administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while simultaneously another guard tried to administer CPR. Both were working hard, but they appeared to counteract each other. It seemed like only seconds before the sound of a siren could be heard. An ambulance man entered the scene carrying a holdall, striding with the authority of somebody who knew what he was doing. He was tall and wearing a white unbuttoned shirt, black trousers and had black, greased-back hair.

      He immediately took control of the situation, picking my friend up by his right ankle and holding him upside down with one arm. Water gushed from his open mouth. But my friend’s body hung listless. Dead. The ambulance man then placed him on the ground with the least degree of ceremony conceivable and shook his head.

      The body was carried away under a blanket. The lifeguards seemed just to be standing in shock, while families began to look for little children, holding them tighter as they left than they had when they arrived. I don’t recall there being hysteria or panic after the event, just a sense that something terrible had happened. I saw a woman being led away in tears, and everybody seemed to move slowly and with purpose. The ambulance man had made it clear that there was little point in trying to do anything. It was over.

      I understood that my friend was dead, and I knew what ‘dead’ meant, but I couldn’t fully comprehend all that I had seen. Then I noticed that, for the first time in my life, the main pool was empty. I had never seen it empty, as we had never managed to get in before the crowds. But now the surface was as smooth as glass, and nobody appeared to want to penetrate its calm.

      As the ambulance drove away with my friend’s body, I felt the overwhelming urge to break the stillness of the moment. Perhaps in an attempt to recreate normality, to return the pool to a place of joy and not a place of fear and death, I ran and dived into the water. As I was in the air, I remember feeling excited at the prospect of being the only person in the whole of the swimming pool.

      I broke through the surface, and my breath left me. The water was like ice; colder than it had been moments earlier, and colder than I had ever felt before.

      I surfaced and scrambled up the steps before the coldness overwhelmed me, snuggling into a towel and my mother’s arms. I should never have dived in; I could never have made things normal by doing so and, as the coldness entered my bones, a coldness that was not just generated by water temperature, I knew I had made a mistake. But I couldn’t help myself. I had needed to stop being passive; I needed to stop being a witness. I had needed to stop standing still, even if it did result in me sitting in a towel trying to warm up from a cold that I don’t think has ever really thawed.

      At school the following week we had a special assembly in which the headmistress told us to pray for my friend. He was not a close friend – he was one of a bunch of mates – but I remember him being cheeky and funny. I also remember him being held up lifeless and dead. Apparently, he had decided to snorkel in the big pool against his mum’s wishes and had got his leg caught in the steps underwater. People had seen him, but as he had a mask on, they had assumed he was just snorkelling. The man who had dived in had noticed the boy had not moved for some time. It was said he was already dead when he was pulled out of the pool.

      My friend Clive told me his mother went to the funeral, and that our friend had been buried in a white coffin. I was seven years old, and I had seen death close up for the first time. It didn’t really scare me; I knew that one day СКАЧАТЬ