Fear

Fear, my old friend and confidante, came to live with me way too early in my life. One expects the occasional visit as a child. At the telling of a spooky story, or lost in a crowd. However, as a child, one also expects that someone will protect you from it. If that doesn’t happen, then fear doesn’t get the house rules explained properly and starts showing up at all hours of the day, mostly the vulnerable hours, when a child is alone with himself, in the dark maybe.

As we all know, a visitor that doesn’t go home eventually becomes family. Fear became a part of my family when I became responsible for mums unhappiness, I think I was about 6 or so.  I was a smart boy – I worked that one out myself. If mum was sad, I could cheer her up, which I did really well.(Cut to scene of me in black and white, dressed as a boy doing tap dances, telling jokes, peeling grapes, magic tricks) Except sometimes it didn’t work like that. All that meant of course, was that I obviously wasn’t trying hard enough or doing it right. (Cut to same scenes only faster) I used to fear that mum would die from sadness – I think they called it a broken heart. It seemed reasonable at the time. If you break someone’s heart, like you break a teacup, then that just must be bad for the health.

Then I found out that Mum and Dad were unhappy with each other, which of course was probably due to Mum being unhappy, which (as we know), was my fault, because I couldn’t make her happy. My brothers didn’t seem to notice as I did. Then of course, I had made checking mums feelings my top priority. Especially, since I’d heard at school that; sometimes Mums and Dads actually split up and their children are killed or fed to dogs or something.

I saw a lot of Fear back then, so I got good at making mum happy. In the end it wasn’t complicated, just give her everything she asks for - Cooking, cleaning, shopping, hugging, backrubs, religious slavery; the usual stuff that Catholic mothers need to keep them happy.

Nobody likes Fear. He’s the bad kid your mum doesn’t want you hanging around with cos he’ll lead you into mischief. Mischief is a crime punishable by abandonment. As Mum once explained to me, (In the presence of Sergeant Moffat, the local Bobbie) when I was about three, “If you get into mischief young lad, I’ll turn y’ over to th’ Bobbies.”  Quite a reasonable proposition, considering that sparing “rod” was likely to lead to the child catching something called “Spoil,” and probably dying from it or being fed to dogs or something.
Mum would often ask, “are you up to mischief Chris?” To which I would silently reply, “Fear made me do it.”

No matter how happy Mum got, it seemed, you could never make fear go away completely. No one else seemed to see him, but me. So it would be a “clip round the ear” from Dad for “mekkin’ bloody stuff up, ‘e’s allas mekkin’ stuff up Mary, ‘ava word wi’ the lad, will yer – ‘e’ll never get fat on stories” – If I ever mentioned the presence of fear in my life. In the end, I learned to pretend its not there – why not, Dad said I was good at making things up. But, he’s still there, you sometimes hear him, whispering at you from the shadows, “You can’t keep her happy for ever Chris…”

It was a tough and dangerous world when I was a kid. Other kids from “beyond th’ Jennels” roamed in gangs protecting their turf. Traversing those alleyways was perilous if you didn’t have a big hand to hold on to and protect you.

Eventually I got trapped, as most unattached and vulnerable kids were. Thanks to Mum though, I had all the skills needed to read their feelings and give them what they wanted most, just like I did with Mum, I knew how to please the bullies. Those ringleaders, who always looked to have Fear living with them too. Of course, they didn’t want their washing hung out, or a tonne of coal barrowed into their coalhouse, like most of the adults wanted. They just wanted to laugh. To laugh so they couldn’t hear the whispering nag of fear in the shadows of their lives.  

I started making people smile to stop them hitting me. Now you’ll have to hit me to stop me making people smile.

Christopher Davies © 2007