SUNDAY IN MEMORY LANE (Episode 29)

BAM! More changes of direction!

At 37 years of age I had created an extremely complex and fast paced life for myself.
Who was I?
Was I the pinstripe spy, working undercover and gathering essential corporate intel for Stop The City activists?
Was I the young mum, providing a stable home and education for my teenage son?
Was I a minor liaison link for Hell's Angel friends in their huge drug empire?
Was I a student of Taoism and natural healing?
Was I a sexually charged hippy, offering, and partaking of, physical pleasure provided that it did not involve love or commitment?
Was I a sportswoman and long distance swimmer?
Was I still burying my feelings for my ex-husband after his overwhelming betrayals?
Was I a success or a victim?

I was all these things at once.
Seldom did any aspect of my life interact with any other. I wore all these hats and exchanged them with eye-watering rapidity.
Nobody really knew me.
They knew only what I showed them, usually only a tiny fraction of myself, a deceptive and blindingly colourful kaleidoscope of a woman.

I would wake very early each working day, shower and dress up in suits and high heels. I would race to the train station and spend the hour and a half journey to London putting on makeup and reading the headlines on newspapers held aloft by silent grumpy businessmen all around me.
I would arrive at my office and spend a mere two hours completing my assigned work. The rest of the morning I would be taking advantage of the empty board room to study archives and files. After lunch I would pull out my course work on Chinese philosophy and strain my brain to understand it. Then I would travel either directly home or to visit my Stop The City liaison. This would involve passing the intel and getting stoned on good Afghani black squishy cannabis resin, which was all the rage and everywhere at that time.

At home, I would kick off my shoes, strip off all my restrictive clothing and change into a loose fitting kaftan or jeans and t-shirt as soon as I could. I would cook, clean and listen to my son's gaggle of friends cracking up about their latest "meaty chas" which mostly involved misbehaving until an irate adult male would chase them around the streets as they hooted with glee.
This small crowd of young teenage boys were the light and laughter in my life. They all had keys to my home and never abused the privilege, but would surprise me occasionally by doing the washing up or vacuuming the lounge. We would sometimes play card games but mostly they would pepper me with questions about everything from sex to subjects they should have been taught in school but were not.
They were Maggie Thatcher's lost generation, doomed to attend pointless Youth Training Schemes, endlessly hopeful of getting a career, but standing little chance in reality.

On Friday evenings, I would collect or receive delivery of a small amount of cannabis resin and cut it into even smaller chunks, wrap them in cellophane and sell them to friends on a first-come first-served basis. It provided me with enough profit to support my own weekend personal needs. I couldn’t afford it otherwise.

I did not go out to socialise. I didn't really need to. My weekends were full of food shopping trips, entertaining friends and trying to keep up with household chores. In the summer months we would hold or go to garden parties, attend free festivals and cleverly bunk our way into places like Glastonbury.
One of my son's friends, Jason, was particularly attentive to me. He was 17 years old and the son of a Salvation Army officer. He noticed that I had a huge collection of books in cardboard boxes or loosely strewn in piles around my dining room.
"Do you want me to build you some shelves?" he offered and I jumped at the chance to accept.

He built 3 strong wide shelves along two of my walls and we filled them with encyclopaedias, Open University study manuals and my collection of books on art, science and precious literature. I was ecstatic. This gift impressed me, maybe a little too much, because from that day onwards he and I became inseparable, much to my son's dismay. I was having a sexual relationship with Jay and the twenty-year gap between our ages was completely irrelevant to us.

One summer we were joined by Dean's older brother who had just been released from jail. He turned up on a motorbike and soon became a regular member of the tribe of young men who lounged around my house. He had a great idea, he said one day.
He wanted to form a softball team because he had acquired several gloves, balls and bats from a team which had disbanded locally.
"What is softball?" we chorused and we were soon on our way to the local park to learn. We loved the game and played until it got dark that first evening.

Our local Sunday league wanted teams which comprised of six males and three women or children. We quickly created our team and became known as the NATs. This name grew from a joke in which we were nicknamed the New Age Travellers by our opponents because all the members of our team had very long hair and we did not drink alcohol in the clubhouse like other teams. We didn’t have the money for that and so we preferred to picnic on the grass and consume squash and sandwiches.

We were extremely successful. Each season saw us rising up the league tables until I won the best female player award, much to my absolute delight and shock, and the NATs were in the premier league. We were very good at the game.
By the time my son was 21 we had been playing for several seasons and loving it. Girlfriends had become either team players or fans cheering us on. Jay had become my partner, living with me and, although he did not say very much, my son Dan, was not happy about it.

My good friend from the old days in Scotland, Lyndia, offered Dan a home while he looked for work in Aberdeen which was still booming with oil and gas corporations. He grabbed the opportunity and set off full of hope. My boy was now a man and I could not have been prouder of him, but we all missed him as soon as he was gone.

One of my closest local female friends popped in to see me one evening and handed me a note with a phone number on it.
"I was at Essex Uni yesterday," she explained, "and there was an advert on the notice board. This guy, Richard Ashrowan, wants a Secretary/PA." she smiled at me. "You will never guess what specific skills he needs!"
I could never have imagined that anyone would ever need a secretary with an interest in Chinese philosophy, but there it was, falling into my lap! I phoned the number immediately and set up an interview for the following Saturday.

I drove to the outskirts of Colchester and found the address easily enough.
Richard read my CV with raised eyebrows, "You work in the City?" he asked, looking surprised. I nodded.

"Do you know the I Ching?" he asked me.
"I love it." I replied.
"What is your favourite hexagram?" he twinkled as he spoke. He was slightly younger than me, long dark hair, dressed in a loose white cotton Indian suit and standing in a beautiful office at the side of a large country house.
"Hexagram 32. Perseverance." I replied without hesitation, gazing over his shoulder at a wall of very interesting looking books. He grinned widely and explained the job.
I would be his PA and apothecary. He was a Barefoot Doctor of Traditional Chinese Medicine who specialised in raw dried herbal formulas.
"Don't worry if you have no experience of herbs!" he said smoothly. "I will train you in the basics before we open our doors to clients. Can you start on the first of next month?"

I drove home in a daze, hardly believing my luck or destiny. Finally I could get away from the tedious, materialistic corporate nightmare, the long hours of train travel and the arrogant soul breakers in the City of London.

I was buzzing with excitement. All the years of study, which had made no sense to anyone but me, were paying off in a way I had never imagined. Putting the metaphysical into practical application, which had the potential to really help people, seemed like a huge privilege, a golden opportunity to grow and combine my skills.

I could hardly wait.