Memory, and the absence of memory

Memories

“Time moves in one direction, memory in another. We are that strange species that constructs artefacts intended to counter the natural flow of forgetting.”

William Gibson, Distrust That Particular Flavour

Called to a smoke alarm sounding, by a neighbour, we arrived at a flat 'known' to the fire station. Somewhere we could expect to visit once, twice a year. The bloke was late thirties, early forties, drink-addled, prone to forgetting. He forgot his keys and called us to get him in when locked out. A routine developed, easy to pop out beading, remove the glazed panel to the door, flick the internal Yale thumb-turn. A couple of times were more serious, burnt dinners, bath overflowing. On the last occasion I saw him, he was dressed, as usual, in a suit designed to fit someone else, shirt and tie, hair long and scruffy but immaculately cleanshaven. Regardless of how he did or didn't fit into society, regardless of the burden he did or didn't represent on the welfare state, taking into account the monies he no doubt paid in, in his better (or worse, depending on your view) years, he made me laugh. Whatever marbles he'd drank away, a sense of humour shone through. On the last occasion I saw him (and there's alternatives for no further visits: improvement, moved elsewhere, forced to move, put away somewhere 'safe') he'd burnt some sausages. Burnt them enough to set off the smoke detector:

“Er...yeah,” he said “I forgot I'd put them on. Sorry guys.”

But not enough to render them inedible:

Worried that he may have heard us coming and hastily disposed of the evidence, into a rubbish bin or wastepaper basket of inflamable materials, I asked:

“Where are they now?”

“Well, they weren't too burnt...”

“Oh?”

“Well, they're...er...in my face.”

Ah, well. The neighbours insisted on calling in the government rottweilers, police, social workers, whatever. Poor bloke. Dealing with the authorities, blessed with a sense of humour, and with some marbles left, is a horrible task.

Fire-people are now hybrids. Part social / community workers, part smoke detector installers and maintenance personnel, no longer big, burley, bust in the door and extinguish the fire types. Whether or not that constitutes progress and improvement depends on your point of view. And on whether your house is alight. If you are in the latter position, you may just want one of the older-fashioned chaps to appear.

None of us were anywhere near sensitive soul territory, but neither were all of us insensitive, ignorant, unintelligent, and unable to empathise. Everyone's flat, everyone's car and neighbourhood is a palace, a Rolls Royce equivalent in terms of pride and achievement (an insured Micra, to a teenager, represents a massive proportion of their annual earning potential), and any and all run down areas have more civic pride to them than those newly gentrified, no community sanitised suburbs.

We met Hannah, a contemporary of my mum's, one night. She had a similar story. Running from the war, from both Germans and Russians, they left everything behind. A wrench for a young child, unable to fully understand what was happening.

Something hardwired itself into Hannah's memory, something she couldn't shift. She became a collector. Indiscriminate. Non-selective. Unable to turn anything down. She opened her front door, just a crack. Not because of suspicion or self-preservation, but because of the floor-to-ceiling piles of free newspapers in the hallway. Every room was the same. Free video tapes advertising timeshares (this was pre-DVD) despite her having no video player. At least not in any accessible location. Books. Packets, tins, full and empty. Plastic milk bottles washed out and filled with water.

The house had a water leak, that was affecting a neighbour's lighting circuits. Eventually, after some investigation and light removals, we shut off the leg of the water system causing the problem. We'd already radioed control requesting the duty social worker. He told us the history.

She had been housed in a massive, five bedroom Wandsworth Edwardian house. When the council moved her out, and on, there was a massive number of skip-fulls of her collected junk taken away to landfill, or the SELCHP incinerator, perhaps. She'd signed care in the community agreements, but something was hardwired in her, to start collecting again.

My mum now has no memory at all.

That means she can't read, because by words three and four she's forgotten words one and two, so they float before her, without context or meaning. She can't watch the television, or do the jigsaws she once passed time with. She long ago became unable to knit.

Memory. It plays tricks, and, eventually, lets you down.