Hidden Secrets, Hidden Meanings

Hidden Secrets, Hidden Meanings ©

By

Michael Casey

I was sitting in the bathroom, and I wondered what I’d regale you with today, and the thought occurred Hidden Secrets, Hidden Meanings, best ideas sometimes come when you are sitting down in the bathroom. Wednesday 23^rd May 1979, was a memorable day for me, because I’d just got out of bed in the afternoon after a night shift. By 3pm Andy Madden was dead, so that’s 41 years ago, he died of a heart attack and I tried to save him. I was still 20 at the time, so it was a rude awakening and introduction to death, face to face death. I’ve mentioned it before, but now 41 years on, I’ve given his name.

Andy had no family and he was our lodger, him and his wife, she was a cleaner down Dudley Rd, hospital, now renamed City, for some unknown reason, it’s on the Dudley Rd, directly opposite Saint Patrick’s RC Church, my home church so to speak. When people die, their secrets are revealed, well if you have to tidy up after the dead, I’ve just counted I’ve known 5 of our lodgers who died over the years, luckily the local undertaker is a family friend I could say.  Add on lodgers who bailed out, or you evicted finally after so much bad behaviour, that the local Police encourage him to leave after he’d made a verbal commitment, Jock had a birdcage but no bird, then that could be 10 or so. So, with this upbringing I know stuff that some people don’t know, or have not experienced, because they’d had tidy lives.

If I bring in William Shakespeare for a second, you get all these denialists who say he could not have written this or that. One great documentary series explained his education, and wool trade connections, and he may have even been a secret Catholic. Which means like me he had a varied life and life experience, which helps if you end up a writer. Simple really. Now back to the theme, when you die people have to clear up, sometime literally. As you pooh the bed when you die, if you didn’t know, when my mother died, my brother washed all the blankets in the washing machine. No, not something you’ll want to know or ever hear about, but a sad reality of death.

You go through a room with bin bags at the ready and pour the stuff into the bag, as far as Jock was concerned the right verb. Then there was the bird cage but never the bird, he did in fact return for the bird cage. His room was deep cleaned by my mother, as for his mattress it was burnt at the bottom of the garden, without the use of any paraffin. So much soaked in whisky meant it went to blazes so fast, I just remembered too we had been on the family holiday probably to Abegele and he’d been promising to leave, so mum was livid, he was  forever playing catchup on the rent for his bedsit. NO, we weren’t horrible landlords, our price was the cheapest in Birmingham, I can remember my mum nagging dad to put the rents up. Remember we were a family of 8 plus a cat and a dog, how could mum feed her 6 kids, despite dad working up to 16 hours a day in the steelworks.

The accidental purchase of the house next door, had been a life saver. Dad’s brother Dan lost his wife in childbirth, on her 10^th child, dad’s brother Willie was about to buy the house next door. So, when Dan lost his wife, Willie a bachelor went back to Kerry to help raise the family. As for the house next door, dad’s name was put on the deed instead, simple, and that’s how Fate changed all our lives. And that’s why it really is a Casey Clan, so hello to all and any of them should they stumble over this. I think it is Morris who has the Casey family farm now, and yes my own dad was one of 10 too, and mum one of 7 but Timothy died age 7 of rickets.

Time for roast potatoes, I am Irish after all, then I’ll continue. Well I’ve had my spuds, and my mum used to use a milk bottle to mash them, sometimes with the milk still inside. So, if you were late to the table you wondered why the milk bottle had mash all around it. Where was I, tidying up after the dead, yes you find their secrets. And they can be disturbing, the girlie magazines under a cushion, or neatly sacked next to the Bible. A diary filled with hate and bile, or old photos, of long-lost friends. Coupons and cuttings, hidden secrets or collections, he was a Villa fan, or loved science, he had all 100 parts of a science book published weekly in parts. Or just stale old clothes, not even the Charity shop would want, bagged and not even tagged, and thrown straight into the dustbin.

When you go through somebody’s stuff you are not even a burglar, certainly not when it’s single working men who lived in bed sitter land. It’s sad, they get up go to work in the screw factory or wherever, go to the pub, go home, go to bed and that’s the sad circle, and sometimes they wash in the bath. On the other hand, you get to hear plenty of tales, and it could be said it motivates you to do well at school. Though in my own case it did not motivate me at all, other things did, but that’s another story.

With the ringing of Tinnitus in my head, the doorbell rings and my “slot” arrives, so I’ll leave you for today, I could have said more, but I’ll just say this. If I can be a Writer, then all of you can, so write then post it somewhere, even if it’s on the door of the fridge in a plastic wallet. Shakespeare started somewhere and why not emulate him, because I don’t want to be copied, I just want, well if you’ve read my stuff before then you know what I want, so go hunt while I answer the door.