THE UNEARNED INCREMENT
As mentioned elsewhere, the years 2021 and 2022 were something of a pain in the arse. I had a heart infection and had to go and live in the hospital for 6 weeks. They cut me open and then cut my heart open and then they put me back together again (with the heart of a gorilla, or a pirate, or a tenant farmer from the 1840s, I can't remember). My mother had cancer. She suddenly got very ill and my brother and myself took turns to live with her until she died on 8th January 2022 while Will Young sang on the Masked Singer dressed as a goldfish. (My brother can't watch the Masked Singer to this day, but I am made of sterner stuff). Then I got an elbow infection and nearly died again. I was hallucinating in hospital with this giant elbow and I thought fuck it. I no longer care if I live or die, but I'm not sitting in here for another day. So I discharged myself.
Anyway, we sold my mother's house and I decided to mark the end of things by walking back from Hook, Hampshire to Bath, Somerset. I had been out of hospital for a week or two and my elbow was still massive. I made a series of bird masks to wear on the way back, a heron, a crow, a red kite and the ghost of a sparrowhawk. I set myself several tasks. I wanted to revisit the mirror where my friend Neil once saw the back of his own head. I think he had been on a three day ecstasy and crack bender and time and light had begun to behave strangely. Then I went to the field where I saw Odin in the sky. I was twenty three years old and marginally insane, so I wanted to go back as a 50 something and see if I could make contact with the beyond one last time. Finally, I had drawn a picture of Hilary Mantel that I felt very bad about, so I wanted to stop at Wolf Hall and burn the drawing.
I did all of these things, and a lot more. I was out of my mind for most of the trip. I didn't have enough water. My elbow was three times the size of a normal elbow. But I made it to Devizes (60 miles), mostly crawling on all fours. Then I took a break, because I couldn't walk and a few weeks later took a bus to Devizes and walked to Bath from there. I wrote all of this down in a book, my misery memoir. It was the best thing I have ever done, with maps and photographs. I bound it in green book cloth and suddenly I felt very protective about it. The very idea of trying to publish it made me feel unwell. So I made a steel box, I put the book in the box and poured wax over it. Then I attached the box to a model boat that belonged to my father and went to North Devon and tried to throw it in the sea. I failed, but then I took the box to Porthleven for the residency in January 2024 and threw it off the end of the pier. I have not heard from it since.
One thing, though. On the second day of the walk, I was so tired and my pack was so heavy, that I took out the red kite head I had made and left it on a stick in the woods near where I understand the television presenter Clare Balding walked her dog. I wrote to her to see if she would ask about, and maybe help me relocate the head, but she did not reply. I deleted the files of the book from my computer and found a few photographs in a folder in my trash called, "Photos to sort". I wish this could have had a wider audience, but it was all very personal. At the end of the walk I realised I was mad with grief and probably could do with some down time, so I applied to do a degree at Bath Spa University and continued behaving strangely, but in a more formal setting.
