And Then Silence

Please sit back in relative comfort on the sofa, your hand in my hand, as I start Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness by Smashing Pumpkins. Bright and uplifting, the piano serenades the start of the day.

Ask me, "Where are we going?"

I'll reply with the echo of L. P. Hartley's words:

“The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.”

Today we will journey through my memories.

Let the keys, the hum of the organ, the orchestral flair and that rhythmic piano melody transport us — no, not to 1980. That's too far back, and it's all a blank canvas of misty memories and half-eaten experiences.

No, let's move forward from then to sometime in 1988. It's Sunday, and once we get through the tedium of a pointless service at our local Catholic parish church, as Tonight, Tonight bursts to life, time is never time at all as we drive from Stepps through to Alexandra Parade and Nonna's house.

If it's raining, the faint pungency and percussive rapping of the raindrops on the car provide a natural backbeat to car chat.

But first we drive through to my dad's mum and dad's house. Mary and Hugh.

The drab greyness of it feels claustrophobic. As children, we were told to be seen, not heard, and that we should only speak when spoken to. Polite exchanges drag on even though so little time is spent there. I just want to put my headphones on and let Jellybelly and Zero take me away.

The relief is palpable as we make our way up the drive to the car.

Finally, we've arrived at Nonna's.

As we step through the main door of the tenement close, you're lulled into a false sense that we are going somewhere that is anything but homely, but I know. As Here Is No Why plays, we are welcomed at the door by Nonna and whoever happens to be there before us, sometimes Uncle Giovanni and Aunty Frances. Hugs and double kisses are exchanged as the sensory delight contrasts dramatically with the stale feeling of the other grandparents. Colour, noise, laughter and the sight of fresh pasta on flour-dusted surfaces waiting to be baptised in salted water before being dressed in Nonna's thick and deceptively simple sugo.

So much time to talk, eat and relax.

Nonna insisting that I have more than one or two or three bowls of pasta, and even when I'm full, I oblige because she is very insistent.

Uncle Tony with his seafood diet and diet water jokes and a rousing performance of his classic "Get tae fuck, ya fuckin' bastard" song. When Uncle Claudio is up, he beatboxes, and there is so much laughter.

Often we have such a nice time that we are the last of the family to leave. Long after food, ice cream and then espresso and cups of tea. A stark contrast to how quickly we wanted to leave Grandad Hugh and Granny Mary's house.

Then, as Bullet with Butterfly Wings makes way for Creep, Anyone Can Play Guitar, High and Dry, Just and My Iron Lung, among others — but not OK Computer, as that was not ours yet — Radiohead provides a momentary diversion. I am at the Barrowlands and it's the early '90s. '94? To see Sparklehorse support Radiohead: my first gig. Sticky feet, sweat both sweet and stale, ringing in my ears for days and the stench of intoxication.

Though technically, we need to go to the original site of T in the Park, to the first Saturday when I saw my first live music in a field in summer at Strathclyde Park, with headliners Rage Against the Machine. And so Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead give way to RATM and Know Your Enemy and Bombtrack.

The rain stayed away for once, but the cold fell by the end of the night.

Many more trips to the Barrowlands, the Garage, the SECC and T in the Park followed. We could spend a song at each, soaking up the alcohol and the deafening sound as we watch Foo Fighters, Pearl Jam, Faith No More, Kylie Minogue, the Prodigy and so much more.

Before we take a flight.

I remember the rain in Rimini and the sun in Sorrento as my Walkman or MiniDisc plays, and all visits to Italy become like one.

All visits to Sesto Campano,

and the smell of fresh air,

chickens,

fresh pasta,

olive oil,

wine,

the noise, the laughter, this time in a heady mix of Scottish and Italian.

Intergalactic and The Move by the Beastie Boys bring smiles to my face.

There was that time during one visit to the village that you should join me for now. To pick an impressive number of lemons from a relative, and then we made iced tea with Aunty Lucia.

And then I feel the sadness of To Forgive and Ode to No One when we went to Pompeii.

You can prepare yourself, but it is never enough.

The haunted tragedy. The pristine preservation of a snapshot, an insight into the past.

A time when people faced mortal doom.

There were many mosquitoes, and the bedrooms smelled of vinegar because we used vinegar and candles to keep the bugs at bay.

I saw Smashing Pumpkins for the first time at the SECC, when we thought there might be an acoustic set, only to be attacked front, back and centre. The push forward. My brother was on someone's shoulders and got launched, I believe.

The smell and stickiness of the beer dripping over me, down me, and the smell of the sweat of the throng of worshippers in the court of Billy and the gang. The original gang before Jimmy and then D'Arcy screwed up.

As we reach Love by the Pumpkins, it feels appropriate to let that wrestle for prominence with Hurt by Nine Inch Nails, for the feelings I have constantly about my mistakes, though they were fewer then. But also songs of love, lust and happiness that flooded my mind as a response to the feelings I have for you, Ruth, who I have started chatting to.

Feelings grow. Of both affection and arousal, happiness and hope.

There's been Italy, schools, crushes, college and even an Irish girlfriend.

And the end of the relationship with the Irish girl burns as all first loves do.

Can you feel that tightness in your stomach and heart and the fight against tears and misery?

But then you happen. We chat for the first time for hours. Or what feels like hours. Both online and on the phone. From my bedroom in Glasgow. Your laughter draws me in.

Can you feel the wet in your eyes, the ache in your chest as the laughter subsides? The warmth and arousal. That longing that grows continually.

You're so very English, and as I am living with my family and you live with your daughter, there's no real chance of you travelling, so I plan trips to England, to Ilford, Essex.

Which means a collection of music, including tracks like Muzzle, Bodies and 1979, and a selection of others, from the Beasties to Pearl Jam. For the relatively short flight of one hour, there is a train journey from Glasgow to Prestwick that takes about one hour forty-five, and then from Stansted there's a similar journey to Liverpool Street in London.

Our first meeting in the flesh. First kiss on the busy train to your neck of the woods. Hand in your lush, long auburn hair. Saliva on my tongue, the human and mechanical chatter in the background. Sounds, tastes and feels like yesterday, but so long ago.

Then eventually, after spag bol or maybe it was roast chicken sandwiches, skin-to-skin warmth and sensations. I wouldn't trade the years that have passed, but it would be amazing to experience those firsts again.

Can you feel it, that sense of belonging, that sense of heat, a heart, a set of lungs against yours?

I stop going back home after the third visit.

Ilford is interesting because of its culturally diverse population. Sugar cane and other delights.

It felt like a localised London.

Sex and Indian sweets.

A few day trips to London. Including the DLR. Thirty-Three feels appropriate, or Beautiful by the Pumpkins feels appropriate.

Cheap and tasty ad-hoc picnic food for our trip to Green Park. Where we spent a couple of hours drinking in the atmosphere and the greenery and watching people go about their lives.

Imagining backstories for them all, to great hilarity.

A couple discussing their future while another ate on the cusp of a breakup. Another old woman sits on her lunch break. The sun is especially kind that day, and it feels peaceful with you even in one of the busiest cities on the planet.

Things are up and down, on and off, but we continue and persist.

Before we have to relocate to Leeds, which means a long car journey, paved by Cyndi Lauper through the car cassette player and whatever is on in my headphones.

Once there, we find the place a challenge but persevere for as long as we can as X.Y.U. and Tales of a Scorched Earth play out.

Sleeping on the floor the first night. Learning just how bad the area was.

A lot of things happen and a lot of things don't, and we nearly split several times.

When I went back home for the first time and came home...

The reunion was earth-shaking.

Then the unexpected, most beautiful thing happens.

You handed me a slip of paper that gave details of a midwife appointment.

I knew exactly what that meant. Although we'd believed you wouldn't ever conceive. I'm sure we hugged. I'm sure I was shell-shocked.

Pregnancy and Robert.

Remember plaster of Paris to create a casting of your belly and chest. The glory of the second trimester. When we did more than we did before you were pregnant.

Holding him in St. James' Hospital as you wash.

As you learn that I love more than just heavier rock and metal and hear Travis and Badly Drawn Boy, The Shining becomes a song you dance to with Robert in your arms.

The memory skips backwards again, we had the wedding, a small affair at the registry office, and a Subway lunch and Chinese takeaway dinner and after-wedding sex.

And when we take Robert home, I wonder if I could ever live up to the expectations of being a father, right the wrongs of my own.

Sadly, anyone who knows me knows I didn't always live up to those expectations, so if we linger on the maternity ward of Leeds' biggest hospital, please forgive me. As I celebrate and mourn just how different the past and the people living there were.

I remember labour. Cervical dilation delayed it. I remember the blood that seemed to seep from between your legs. When I alerted the midwife, she told me not to worry.

I remember holding your hand and trying to tell you how well you were doing. Do you know how well you did?

And then, the next day or so, being told we could take him home, and that shock of knowing we were on our own.

I remember asking the community health visitor who came around regularly about the game I played called Earthquake. She said it was fine and good to know a dad played with his son.

Yorkshire is beautiful, and our house, after a lot of work and effort, was great, but the area was not.

Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam.

Remember when the bedroom had carpets and flooring blackened with urine stains. Perhaps we don't need to revisit that. But we do need to revisit what happened next.

No, we worked hard on the house.

The scrubbing, the sanding, the smell of gloss paint for the woodwork and emulsion for the walls.

The coving we insisted and persisted on fixing around the edges of the wall and ceiling.

Watch us paint the exterior white with green woodwork in the bay window. Standing on top of the bay window to reach higher parts of the house as the shitty people say shitty things.

The work you did in the garden. The archway with clematis. The returning nasturtiums and how they took over the side garden.

All that work to turn the house around.

The amazing and affordable Chinese buffet in town where we offered hospitality to friends to save them having to come to the awful part of Leeds we lived in.

And Little Tokyo. Where they all loved Robert.

Bento box and green tea. Chicken teriyaki with its fragrant flavour.

The Saver Menu at McDonald's on Briggate.

Lord of the Rings, the extended cut of the trilogy; we watched a different one each night.

The Incredibles.

Spider-Man 2 and School of Rock in the cinema.

Remember the jump scare from Doc Ock's tentacle arms.

The Darkness at the student union. Sending the throngs into delirium with their old school rock.

Andrew W.K. in Manchester. One of the best nights of our lives?

Memories, places, like time really, fluid.

Eventually we secured a swap.

That meant another car journey to Scotland, where we've been since. I remember seeing the Welcome to Scotland sign and the sudden realisation that I was back when everyone, or most people, sounded Scottish again.

But I remember before, all the small details as we drift, like visits back home and reunion sex, and learning of absence when you would go down south to visit your mum and family. At first on the train, then, after passing your test, by car.

In Scotland, Luke eventually came, and I remember holding him as you washed, this time in the Royal Alexandra Hospital.

The first time you and I went to Alexandra Parade and Nonna's flat. The sound, the smell, the love, the light. The colour and chaos, the jovial spirit. The tastes of pasta, salami, salad, Irn-Bru and wine.

And soon that's all we can feel.

My mum babysitting the boys as we got ever-so-slightly pissed as a fart.

Can you feel it as we sit on the sofa, but drifting, as Thru the Eyes of Ruby drowns out everything?

I remember the Cockpit in Leeds, smaller than the Barrowlands, for Hot Hot Heat on their first trip to the UK. Bandages still rings in my ears. That glorious, deafening sound that leaves you with musical tinnitus for a day at least.

But like all memories, what exists now is not what existed then, in the moment. As T in the Park changed from Strathclyde Park to a different venue, then ceased to exist, so too did the same fate befall the Cockpit.

Nothing is ever the same once the moment passes.

And as the sound drowns out, we switch back to Scotland, to Troon, to Largs and Ayr, and Cupid de Locke, Galapagos and Porcelina of the Vast Oceans make everything dreamlike.

Lobster and breathlessness.

Teenagers by My Chemical Romance in the car when you made noises to censor the ‘shit’ in the chorus for the kids.

Sitting at peace and in quiet in Karen's B&B in Ayr.

Naked tranquillity in Ingliston. Hot tub fun.

Camping at Auchinleck, when I found myself in my element.

You sketching as I erected the tent.

Morning fried breakfast.

Traditional fire.

That night when the rain fell, pelted the tent and we enjoyed nature's percussion.

Trips to Loch Lomond.

Memories of sex before work in Leeds, sex instead of work. Laughter. Love. Sadness. Difficulties. Mistakes. Reconciliation. Ups. Downs. Paisley town centre. Barshaw Park. Lockdown, for it seems to inhabit the shared past of all who lived through it. Downs. Downs. Ups. Deaths. Love.

But memories aren't all pleasant of course. Addiction is a place I frequently revisit, even at this point of abstinence and leaving it behind. Addiction and emotional affairs and cybersex. Cheating is nothing I'm proud of, but it's there in my memories, so it's hard to avoid.

Later in life, more gigs. Travis eventually feels like a full-circle moment, as songs from The Man Who mix with L.A. Times and everything in between. Somewhere in there is Why Does It Always Rain on Me?, and for a moment I recall how Travis bridged a musical gap, provided Luke with one of his middle names, and I can see you dancing with Robert in your arms again to The Shining by Badly Drawn Boy.

Your pretty face flushed from cider.

And Caledonia by Dougie MacLean gently strums and reminds me of my ties to my homeland as Nessun Dorma wrestles for prominence, a constant reminder of my ancestral homeland.

Until we're back on the sofa, as the finale of By Starlight, followed by Farewell and Goodnight, closes our trip.

And then silence.

*

Thanks for reading!

Unless otherwise indicated all songs mentioned are from the Smashing Pumpkins album, Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness, linked at the top of the story.