Suicide was painless in Berlin

On January 6, 1990, after a long illness, my mother died peacefully in hospital. The last evening that we spent together was one of those sacred moments of the spirit, that one experiences only very rarely. It was time to say goodbye to a remarkable woman, the power that made and nurtured me. She was totally in command of her destiny, bright and clear, warm and cheerful. A few hours later she would be dead and I would be called upon to identify her body in the pathology department of Llandough Hospital. Then I went home and listened to Mozart’s “Coronation Mass.” It was the end of an era. The only link to my birth was gone. She had spent her pregnancy in a convent similar to the Magdalene Asylum in Dublin, the gory details of which I discovered many years later. It was good that I was born in England or maybe I would never have survived. Those nuns left some deep scars on my mother. She could never quite believe the Christianity of her childhood ever again. In those days there were not many alternatives available to a poor, working class woman so my early years were hard, and my mother had to suffer a lot. Yet later in life she transcended it all and became wise.
A month after her death I was back in Berlin, living in Moabit. While recently watching this Blank and Jones video I remembered that I was once in love with a girl from Kreuzberg, whom I had long since forgotten. The pain of a broken soul, and some wounds that would not heal, came rushing back. Tanya and I met in an U-bahn station, just like in the video. It was love at first sight, and within a few days I had moved from Moabit to Kreuzberg, heart of the alternative scene in those days. Tanya was a cool woman, sensitive and elegant, but she had one small problem, she was a heroin addict. Until a short time ago I had repressed her memory, even when a friend of mine told me she had had a relationship with a junkie, I still could not remember her name any more. Then I met an Amsterdam junkie mate of mine, who pointed out that something was bugging me. Still my unconscious would not reveal its secrets until, by chance, I watched this video. Looking at the U-Bahn clips I suddenly remembered everything and the floodgates opened. In my mind I was lying in bed with Tanya in Kreuzberg, watching her show me how she jacked up, and seeing her drift away with the needle still in her arm. She was in her own world that I was not a part of and could not share. Once we talked about my trying the stuff out myself, but much as I loved her, something inside me said no, this is a line you must not cross, ever. When I was a teenager I hung out with a heroin addict in London, who made me swear on my mother’s grave that I would never use the brown powder. Now that Mam was gone, I felt more than ever that I had to keep that promise. Middle class and not short of money, Tanya had a very good connection and knew a pharmacist, who kept her supplied with clean needles. We had a great social life, hanging out in Sox and all the cool places. At the time I had friends in Obershoeneweide, who were environmental activists. For a while I lived with them in East Berlin. After many years of isolation, the East Germans were discovering freedom.
Tanya saw the east of her home town for the first time. It was a strange meeting. A group of straight, middle class east German intellectuals, one west Berlin junkie who looked like a starving supermodel, and one grieving Welshman. The evening near the Franzoesische Kirche was tense, but instructional for all parties involved. Tanya was an alien in her own city. She was like an exotic butterfly in the drab grey darkness of the Alexanderplatz, where six months later I would be teargassed by the German riot police on the day that Germany was reunited on October 3.
In June of the same year one of my best friends died of cancer, and so I found myself in the same pathologist’s department identifying another dead body that belonged to someone I loved. Tanya and I had split up by then, after a big row at Checkpoint Charlie, in front of the east German border guards and the Americans. They must have thought we were crazy. We were. After many nights of watching her hanging on the needle, I’d had enough. She was a good kid, but she had a deeply narzissistic personality which was very hard to live with. In public she made me feel like a million dollars, while in private she put me through hell. Once she said that she loved me, because I was different, but she loved her brown sugar more. Years later she overdosed on china white. Whether or not that was her intention, we will never know. Cold is the night, cold are my hands, cold is my heart.

A Rhondda girl

Genetically speaking my life began in west Wales. My grandparents on my mother’s side were simple farming people from Carmarthenshire and Pembroke, who moved to the Rhondda to work in the coalmines. My mam was born and grew up in the Rhondda valley in Penygraig, and spent her childhood living through the depression. Hitler came closer to her house every day as she used to put it. At the end of the war grandfather died of the consequences of pneumoconiosis, the miner’s lung disease, and our mam was evicted from their house and joined the army. There she met my dad, an English officer and a gentleman of Somerset farming stock. They did not marry, a great sin in those days, and she spent her pregnancy scrubbing floors for the sisters of Mary Magdalene, luckily not in Dublin, otherwise I would have been killed at birth. Those Irish nuns are hardcore bitches. After four idyllic years in the Cheshire countryside we moved to Cardiff, which in those days was a grey, wet city with a steelworks, a lousy football team and Shirley Bassey to entertain us. My mother’s Sunday school teacher was George Thomas, who by coincidence was also our MP many years later. He came to our house every Christmas and became the Speaker of the House of Commons. George was a gent, a fine Welshman and a wonderful public speaker. Nobody ever said, “Order, order!” in the house quite like he did. Mam loved Beethoven so I grew up with the symphonies and concertos of the master. I used to hum the slow movement of the fifth piano concerto on my way to school. In those days you could smoke on the top floor of the cream and brown double decker buses that ran from the Pier Head past our house and on to Cardiff High, where I went to school. Number nine if I remember rightly, and they were electric trolley buses. Elvis was king and we greased our hair with coconuts. Cliff went on a summer holiday and we bought a brand new Dynatron TV in a beautiful walnut cabinet. Then came the Beatles and everything was different.

In the beginning…

Last Monday evening we drank three tripels and smoked three cigars in a brown cafe in Amsterdam. The next day the Netherlands banned smoking in public spaces. My first beer and cigar in Amsterdam was on the Zeedijk in 1965. Some shit went down in between, and so I thought I might bore you with a few of the highlights. We live in strange times when supermodels throw themselves off NYC skyscrapers, and their husbands feel the need to spend $2,000 a month on porn. I hate porn. It degrades women and bores me to death. Sex is sacred, at least the good sex is. It must be, after all it made me, and I’m still going strong. Some time ago the Cookiemouse died so I decided to tell our story to honour his memory. It is a story that is a bit of a muddle. A friend called me a drama queen the other day, so I hope the tale contains a bit of drama. There will be a lot about women, some drugs and alchohol, too much religion (we may have to skip over some of that) and maybe a few jokes, if we are lucky. I first saw the light of day in Chester, but left immediately and never went back. Instead I grew up in Cardiff, very close to the River Taff. So the Cheshire cat became a Taffy, a Welshman and a trickster, who morphed into a fool dancing on a tabula rasa at the end and the beginning of his adventure with life and death. My motto is sapere aude, dare to think. So you are welcome to join me as I think out loud, before I finally go crazy, or even worse, totally sane. It is a fine sunny day in Mokum today, so let’s start on an optimistic note. For what it is worth, I believe the journey of life is worth it, even when sometimes there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel. My dearest friend died of cancer. She was far too young and had a fine mind and a big heart. In many ways this is Ceri’s story more than mine. She was my muse and I miss her every day of my life. My little Celtic goddess will never die. She just left her body for something better.