It Does You Good To Be Told Off On Your Birthday
text © Nicola Field 2007 soundscape © Fari Bradley 2007
voice: Clare Cameron
She is not really the one they want,
not if they had the pick of
the whole world’s good behaviour, but it’s
Today’s the Day! and for breakfast
she piles lemon curd on thick,
Ryvitas breaking from the strain.
They watch her, wishing, but
she is she today,
and they look at her
As if she is good.
Get ready for the main parcel,
burst with excitement! Roller skates! Spirograph!
and patent boots! Kisses on both parents,
kisses on both cheeks!
They smile to say: ‘we are glad, we love you,
We love you as if you were lying down
Nice and flat between two sheets and
never shouting when the light goes off.’
They have Hygena magazines, full of
athletic, soft-haired girls,
grown-uply taking round plates of
Ritz crackers for the visitors.
And she dreams of outfits for
sitting on the edge of wine and cheese
parties, passing along the stabs of Danish
Blue, Pan-Yan poked on Cheddar cubes,
liver sausage applied like grouting.
Parties which they will never have, because of
how stilettos gouge crescents in parquet and
the marks men make in kitchens and
you can never replace pottery and
people will go upstairs and catch sight
of all the disgrace strewn about.
But it’s today’s the day!
The date’s so sharp it won’t keep still.
Polite men, with their buttons tight, have it written
On their newspapers, but they carry on
as if being her is not written down in glittering mauve
and pinky-red and bluey-green.
She opens and opens and opens, and then
pins on the badge of being alive.
The teacher puts your name up the night before, so
In the morning everyone will sing before they pray.
Even the smelly girl would get looked at
As if she was shiny and doing well, and
outside everyone parades her cheering on chairs of hands.
Certain girls
have their best dresses in paper bags, and they
peek in like fairies
at each other’s weddingy shoes
It’s today’s the day and
Her maroon pinafore stands out smooth.
Mum and Auntie have lipstick on their teeth.
Dad and Uncle rub their hands together,
while statues dance to music, and
iced gems break in little bowls and
hot fingers press down on the prickly carpet.
The home-made sideboard stretches all along one wall, it’s
Hard against the head and, up close, under
Splintering veneer, is the smell of
Sawdust from the butcher’s floor.
Round and round, the candles saluting brightly:
Six. seven, eight, nine ten
Eleven!
It’s today’s the day and
Everyone opens their eyes up really wide
Mum points the knife and
A vast secret wish turns to sin
The slope is slippery again, well it
Is the middle of winter, and at
Seven o’clock she screams, she
Claws, she runs like a sheepdog.
The day rips open and
her dark and sticky self falls out.
It does you good
To be told off on your birthday.
But she is one day nearer to goodness
And another year of waiting for
Next year
Begins.
