Trigger

Strange to say, it is only now beginning to dawn I am no longer in the war zone. It is as if I am still waking from some kind of dream, a dream of fitful whirlpool sweats, one in which the mountains are impossibly high, the people uncannily wise yet poor, and the prospects as bleak as a winter's day, which some small part of me, some ridiculous principality within, still believes could end in sunlight. My sister's funeral is at the end of the week. There, is a kind of moonlight, not sunlight. I will be going with the artist. We will wear black mostly, but the artist has said she also wants to wear the blue shawl I bought her. This I purchased with a close protection team from a thirteen year old boy who has known only war. Wear it well, his brave smile seemed to say as I looked back one last time. The snows on the peaks were melting fast. The passes were clearing. Was that cordite I could smell in the distance? Or a twist of hope? I like to think my late sister would have known. Interesting, too, how we grant the dead wisdom.

My Sister

My sister has died. I have been immersed in other people's problems for a good few weeks - assassination attempts, minefields, cross-departmental blustering, charity, military strengths and tribal weaknesses - and have forgotten about those equally important issues closer to home. She was a strong person, my late sister, a firm mind, and bore no humbug. I am told my other sisters were there for her, as much as they could be, but her husband will not have taken it well. He is a loyal man who nonetheless depended on her greatly. They had one child and he is with him now. I am hoping to receive a date for the funeral and perhaps I will find it appropriate to say something there. As the only male member of my immediate family since before my voice broke, I find it important to speak on such occasions. I only wish I had the power to bring people back to life.  

Oh Sister

I am visiting my ailing sister tomorrow. I have mentioned her before. I may also have mentioned I have five sisters. Anyway, this sister was the reason for the reunion a number of months ago and I now gather from my eldest sister - a former doctor who worked for many years on the world's poorest continent - that this particular sister's health has taken a sudden downturn. She isn't well at all now and it seems death is trying hard to stalk us again as a family. Just as it did when our parents died prematurely, in my case before puberty. Sometimes when I am relaxing on a train, or staring out the window of a plane, I wish I knew more about my parents. I wish for example that they had left some kind of articulation of their being, especially my mother who for many months knew she was dying. This regret is perhaps one of the reasons I am glad of the opportunity in this blog to express feelings not only for the artist and her art but for family life too, and indeed for life - and in this instance death - itself. My ailing sister is probably too discreet to say much at all of any personal note about her predicament except with those closest to her. I can say a few things. For all of her working life she looked after others. Now she is a recipient. No one can quite stamp out the merciless march of cancer when it gets going I gather. I was going to say it is like the largest army in the world marching into a tiny country. But there is a fairly recent precedent of the tiny country winning. (Only to have another illness?) Can this really be a good omen? All I know is that with any luck I shall catch my train tomorrow and stare out the window and think not only of my parents but of my ailing sister's unailing dignity. Because of the fragmentation, the shattering almost, of family unity when our parents died, I never got to know my sisters - all older - well at all. But our love is indivisible, in sickness and in health. I am proud of this fact.

War's not about who's right, but who's left

I remember as a young man waking up in the war zone. It was a war back then, too, but a different war, and this was long before I met the artist. Anyway, I had just been awoken by the azan, or call to prayer, and it was a handsome thing discovering you were still alive. By the entrance of my tent, a small one-person home donated by a western government, stood a tall figure. I squinted and rubbed my eyes again. It was still dark outside but I began to see that the man staring over me was holding a metal plate with some naan and yoghurt. Also, I noticed, he had my camera under his arm, my film camera, and it was half-wrapped in a light grey blanket. I took it from him immediately, before I took the naan and yoghurt. What was he doing with it? This was mine. This was my lifeline, why I was there. Without it, I was useless, both to the people I was with, and to the people I hoped would be paying me later for being there. I devoured the food he gave me and thanked him. I think we both chuckled in the end. An hour later, I was filming with this man's commander as about two dozen others were preparing for battle. This transition from prayer to war had been seamless. A buzzard, I seem to remember, swooped down and rose up again before jinking behind the facing mountain. Weapons were dragged like bodies from the cave. Barrels were cleaned – something I'd been told never happened - and I kept filming, kept peering at it all, through my peephole, only occasionally losing my balance. It kept coming, too. Fresh ammunition cases were stacked on top of each other. Pride of place in this expanding ritual was a twin-barrelled heavy machinegun, plus the usual assortment of what are and were the most famous assault rifles in the world. As we moved closer to what would become my first ever firefight, I told myself that if I made it out again, I would always try to be a man of peace. Well, I feel I have tried to keep to this. I have erred many times, many times, in other areas. But I like to think I have at least tried to keep the peace. Is this down to living with an artist?

hi5

It was the artist's son's birthday today. The brightest face in the land beamed five years of joy at us both this morning. My son. His excitement was as wonderful and as innocent and as a flower without cynicism. He ran through the room like an erupting balloon to gather up his presents. Paper and tape were ripped apart. Gifts were revealed. A dungeon of doom was erected. Ghosts were planted in cages. His elder sister, whose own birthday it is in a couple of days, was on hand for him. Whatever he wished for she would endeavour to get for him. He did everything. He leapt. He spun. He played with his toys as if under their spell. (The artist took one last look at her work and covered it up.) And then the birthday boy led his creative troupe - the four of us - out the door to buy the food to feed the family on its way to the party. Five years old today, I am thinking. Five. I watch the artist marvel at her son's progress on this planet. She knows the children are her greatest creation. That is her edge. We returned home. I had twisted a nerve in my back and was straining like a clown to get everything ready in time. But of course when the people began arriving it was all somehow in shape. We ate salmon and creme fraiche mixed with lemon juice sandwiches and roast beef with lettuce and gherkins in sandwiches. The birthday boy played with his cousin, again watched admiringly by the artist. There was the odd grey cloud above, competing with the blue sky. There was laughter from the next garden but one - another party. The artist looked content throughout, like a selfless critic at an exhibition. She is at her strongest when giving, I was thinking. The birthday boy continued playing and running. He looked older and acted accordingly. There was also an assertion to his stride, and a confidence to laugh. This is the peace we defend.