Abse - Goodbye, Twentieth Century

GOODBY E, TWENTIETH CENTURY

DANNIE ABSE

LIBRARY OF WALES

Dannie Abse was born in Cardiff in 1923. He began his medical studies at the Welsh National School of Medicine and qualified as a doctor from Westminster Hospital, London in 1950. While still a student his first book of poems was published and his first play performed. Further poetry volumes followed over the decades, culminating in his New & Collected Poems (2003) and Running Late (2006). His first novel, Ash on a Young Mans Sleeve, appeared in 1954 and his most recent, the Booker long-listed The Strange Case of Dr Simmonds and Dr Glas in 2002. His three prize-winning plays were collected in The View from Row G (1990) and his autobiography, Goodbye, Twentieth Century, was first published in 2001. He is president of the Welsh Academy and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

ABSENT BROTHERS

After our Porthcawl sojourn, we moved to a small house in Vaughan Avenue, near Llandaff, and I left school for university. It was important for me, I realise now, that Wilfred and Leo were no longer at home to influence me. Already I owed them too much, had taken in, as if by osmosis, not only their more enlightened opinions but their prejudices also.

Whats best, Labour or Liberal? Wilfred appealed to me when I was five years of age.

Labour, prompted Leo.

Liberal, said Wilfred.

Labour.

Liberal.

LABOUR.

LIBERAL.

Well, what do you say? Leo said to me, as if I were the judge.

I liked Wilfred best in the whole wide world but I could not pronounce the word Liberal. I said cinema and they laughed. I said enemy and they laughed. So I certainly was not going ever to attempt the word Liberal.

Labour, I said.

There you are, said Leo triumphantly. Even a child knows . Wilfred looked at me as if I had betrayed him. After all, had he not brought me, the day I was born, Comic Cuts ? Did he not protect me when Leo teased or thumped me? Did he not give me pennies to cheer me up when I was crying? And here I was, ungrateful beast, five years old already and not even a Liberal.

Later, Wilfred bequeathed me his Ten Commandments which began: Do not wash your hair in the bath while taking a bath ; continued with, Do not jump off a tram without paying the fare even if the conductor happens to be busy upstairs ; and concluded, Try not to walk in dogs excrement . If Wilfred, because of his fastidiousness and moral scrupulosity, sometimes made me feel like a common sinner, Leo made me feel like an uncommon ignoramus. You mean to stand there, he would thunder, his mouth suddenly consisting of thirty-two ivory teeth, all canines, you mean to stand there and tell me you have never heard of Rosa Luxemburg. Ieusu Grist!

It was hard going sometimes. Wilfred and Leo were always in the first three in school, my father would say, and you come home, pleased with yourself, because the report says youre fourth. Dummkopf.

On a boat on Roath Park Lake Wilfred would instruct me, Watch me carefully now. You feather like this and he let the oars skim gracefully over the surface of the water. Whatcher think of that, hey? Not bad, eh? Not half bad, what? Now you do the same. And I would try to copy his action but would fail miserably and Wilfred would lose his composure. You fool, you idiot youll tip the boat over in a minute. Watch it, watch it, you nitwit. Or taking down a magazine from the shelf, Leo would read out loud some lines written by a member of the International Brigade in Spain. Now you read it, he would say to me.

A handsome young airman lay dying

And as on the aerodrome he lay

To the mechanics who round him came sighing

These last dying words he did say:

Take the cylinders out of my kidneys,

The connecting-rod out of my brain,

Take the cam-shaft from out of my backbone

And assemble the engine again.

Reading these lines I felt the bravery of the dying young airman. I read the verses with emotion and thought I had read them well. But Leo said, My God, your Cardiff accent is terrible. You could do with some elocution lessons.

To this day, out of habit, my brothers unfailingly criticise me. Recently Leo attended a concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall where I happened to be one of several poets reading their own poems. Afterwards he commented: You read your stuff all right but for heavens sake, the way you stand . Do you realise that you look like a cripple? Really, Im not joking. And Wilfred: You mean to say you find the idea of God an irrelevance. My dear chap, all the great philosophers since the beginning of time are prepared to come to grips with the concept of God. But you you say, as far as youre concerned, God is an irrelevance. Ha ha ha.

Wilfred was born to be a psychiatrist. He was always willing to listen to, and be interested in, other peoples problems. Yet, as a small boy, judging from all the stories I have heard from my parents, he had been particularly abstracted. Once, apparently, late for school, he rushed out of the lavatory and put his overcoat on, leaving his trousers off. Arriving at school and shedding his overcoat in the lobby, he was assaulted by corrosive laughter. Embarrassed, he ran all the way home only, finally, to collide with the lamp-post near our house, knocking himself silly. No wonder Wilfred became a psychiatrist.

After qualifying at the Welsh National School of Medicine and doing the usual house jobs at Cardiff Infirmary, he took a job at Abergavenny Mental Hospital where he began his psychiatric career and took his Diploma of Psychological Medicine. Nowadays he is very eminent in his field and writes learned papers and books with such snappy titles as Hysteria and Related Mental Disorders . I dont know how he can bear to work with all those queer people, my mother iterates and reiterates. Perhaps she remembers that day we first visited him at Abergavenny Hospital just before he was called up into the Army. My mother and I (neither of us had visited such an establishment hitherto) walked across the tranquil lawns of the mental hospital towards the main building where Wilfred was located. On the way we heard someone obsessively swearing. My mother, who has never uttered any oath stronger than damn all her life, pretended to be deaf. But as we proceeded the swearing became louder, the mans voice more strident. He had his back to us and, disturbingly, addressed a blank wall: Fuck, shit, cunt, fuck, shit, cunt, bugger, bloody, bastard, bugger, bloody, bastard, fuck, shit, cunt, fuck, shit My mother did not turn her head. She marched on, as if only the Monmouthshire blackbirds and thrushes whistled in the wounded air. How can he stand it? she asked me afterwards. Never have I heard a question so genuinely asked.

Leo was born to be a politician. He has always been conspicuous by his presence. His organisational ability, like his oratory, has always been formidable. Yet he did not articulate one coherent word until he was almost four years of age. One day, though, one of my mothers brothers, my uncle Joe Joe Shepherd, a doctor took him from Cardiff to Swansea. It seems that during the journey Leo became fractious and when my uncle attempted to assert his authority Leo started his revolt with aphasic grimaces. This earned a reprimand which stimulated Leo to kick Joe Shepherds shin. Ultimately, enraged, my uncle held Leo out of the window while the train was still in motion. Leo, then, uttered a most surprising adult sentence or two. He has hardly ceased speaking ever since. Shortly after Leo had begun to compose such imposing sentences my father pushed him on to the spotlit stage of the Aberdare cinema that he then managed. Ladies and Gentlemen, Leo, three feet high, would announce, next week we have a treat for you. Not only can you see Cecil B. De Milles Male and Female but also Charlie Chaplin in The Kid . Im sure you all look forward to that as much as I do.