Dear Brain
I recall a votive mass commissioned by your loving mother for the fulfilment of her private intentions. Your father had gone to his grave but six months earlier and if there are choirs of angels in the regions beyond they were surely gathered in their entirety to sing that sainted soul into heaven.
For his likes, heaven if there is one, with its indescribable effulgence and pain-free felicity, was most certainly devised as a just need for his humanitarian activities during his all too short stay in this crucible we call the world.
You were in your late teens and, like all mothers, yours still cherished delusory hopes that you might yet entertain a vocation for the priesthood. The votive candles shimmered in their polished candelabra and no sound save the rustle of the sacred vestments obtruded into that solemn place other than yours and your mother’s gentle breathing.
How is it that occasions like these which are designed to impose pious sentiments on the participants very often induce responses which are far from spiritual, responses alas which are the direct opposite of those intended. I am only your memory and cannot choose what you wish to recall. I am a good memory and I store much that is eminently quotable and well worth visual replay, but you prefer to summon up the less savoury aspects of your tainted past.
Instead of praying for your father’s soul you permitted your mind to wander to a visit of Connelly’s Circus when it had played a matinée in your childhood, and what was it you thought of? The elephants, the lions, the horses and ponies, the juggler, the monkeys? No indeed, oh most lascivious of wretches! Even in the sacred place where you and your mother came to worship you might have been partially forgiven if you had remembered Loco the red-nosed, potbellied clown who had every child under the canvas in stitches.
Earlier that morning I had high hopes for you. Quite unexpectedly and delightfully you recalled glimpses of the snowy summits of the South Kerry mountains in all their pearly whiteness as they strove to survive the warming winds of a bright May morning. There is a godly gleam from mountain snow when the sun assails it. I would have forgiven you if this recollection had persisted throughout the celebration of the holy mass for there is a deep spirituality secreted in the beauties of nature, a spirituality so glorious that God is forever manifesting Himself and his artistry through its magnificent intricacies.
No such lofty pursuits for you, however, who preferred to resurrect the only scene in that particular circus which provoked criticism from the local parish priest, who described it as obscene. That was when Mona Bonelli, the Italian contortionist, wearing only the skimpiest of briefs and the barest of bras danced on to the centre ring under the spotlight’s glare. Her dazzling smile captivated all present but you more than any. Immediately she lifted the hoop through which she would thrust her seemingly boneless body you started to drool and slobber like a starving hound on beholding a string of pork sausages. Granted the girl was sensual and sinuous, even voluptuous when she felt so disposed, but there was a hardness and a craftiness about her which you refused to recognise.
All that concerned you was the way she displayed her shapely body as she twisted and screwed her muscular limbs. There were, I will concede, no angles to her, no warps nor wrinkles nor blemish that could be perceived by the naked eye. With curves she was bountifully endowed and aided by the make-up, the perpetual smile, the shimmering sequins on her scant apparel and the bright spotlights she did succeed in unsettling the less discerning and non-artistic males among the audience.
Long before her performance drew to a close you were completely carried away, and to think that you would preserve this far-off exhibition for the sacred occasion devoted to your father’s memory.
I have forgotten the number of times you have recalled Mona Bonelli and countless other scantily clad and unclad visions to induce nocturnal slumber when by the simple expedient of saying your night-time prayers your conscience would just as easily have entrusted you to the waiting arms of Morpheus.
You could not know, of course, poor, weak-willed organ, that the glamorous Mona Bonelli was in reality none other than plain Biddy Muldoon from the county of Waterford and that she was not the nineteen-year-old titian-haired beauty that she was supposed to be. Rather was she a forty-year-old, mousey-haired, drop-out housewife who had allowed herself some years before to be seduced and latterly taken in tow by the moustachioed ringmaster of Connelly’s Circus. Her deserted husband had ever after made it a point to remember the ringmaster in his prayers, day and night, ‘For,’ said he to a freshly acquired helpmate, ‘he has taken the scourge of my life upon himself and heaven will surely be his lot, for he will suffer his hell in this world.’
Later that evening, the same Mona Bonelli or Biddy Muldoon was seated in the local hotel where your father had invited you to partake of an orangeade whilst he sampled the excellent potstill whiskey for which the hostelry was renowned. Mona Bonelli, the luscious, titian-haired teenager from the land of the Tiber and the Po was now showing every single one of her forty years and deprived of the glamorous aids of her contortionist’s trade she looked a very ordinary creature indeed. You failed to recognise her and even when she vainly tried to ogle your late, lamented father by crossing and uncrossing her still shapely legs you still could not call to mind the body that had transported you such a short while before.
I can never comprehend why you still persist in remembering the more tawdry experiences of your past especially since I carry a large stock of beautiful visions which you would have no trouble to remember if only you made the effort. Among other things I have an excellent range of truly beautiful faces including those of your ageing mother and your long-suffering spouse and, of course, the innocent faces of your children. I lovingly preserve those of your maiden aunts and benevolent uncles and, dare I mention her name, the lovely Lily Lieloly. No memory could be blamed for cherishing that angelic face.
I have an exciting repertoire of sporting occasions from the lowliest of donkey derbies to the heart-stopping drama of the Aintree Grand National, from your own humble contributions on the playing fields to the dizzy heights of the great Olympics. No television set will ever serve you as well as I do and yet you all too often employ me to recall the basest of your activities.
I have a priceless accumulation of sunsets, no two of which are alike and were you to excavate my recesses you would find such an array of wonders treasured over a lifetime that your heart would be permanently uplifted. There are my vaults of cloud formations, cataracts, dawns, twilights, sunbeams and, of course, my seascapes ever ready to reveal themselves.
Remember the blizzards, the cloudburst and the fuming, raging anger of the oceans. Remember the rolling reverberations of the great thunderstorms, the crackling, the booming and the lingering echoes as the turmoil spent itself in the all-absorbing bosom of the sky. Remember the surging, sweeping floods, their inestimable passion concealed in the sibilant deceptive surges. Oh those rampant, riotous waters, dirging and delving and loamy! I can bring to mind the sounds and the pictures in an instant. Just say the word and I will recall for you the first kiss, the first embrace, the first love of those halcyon days when your heart was unsullied and pure. I have so much that is elevating, so much that will bring you closer to the ideal of self-purification, the only ideal which will truly prepare you for the transition from a known state to an unknown. Prompt me, poise me, nudge me to work for our good. Resist the evil pressures that would have me prostitute my talents so that your unworthy whims might be gratified. Let me resurrect for you the glories and the good deeds, so few in your lifetime to date. Upon recalling these you may go forth and emulate, thus inspiring me to renounce the inglorious and the ignominious.
I will conclude now but before I do I would like to recall for you the most heroic incident which might be credited to you. You were but seven then and you were in the company of an even younger girl who happened to be your playmate of the time. As the two of you passed Drumgooley’s farmyard gate, having wandered from a rustic picnic organised by your mother, who should come fussing and flapping from the fowl-run but Drumgooley’s gander, a fearsome creature with a nerve-shattering cackle whenever he felt his flock was in danger.
Bravely you ordered your young charge to run for her life while you manfully stood your ground and diverted this bloodthirsty barnyard braggart until she had run clear of danger. Allowing for your age and size this was a monumental feat of bravery, of selflessness, of knight-errantry. It was, however, never to be equalled in the long years that followed but in recalling it I may perhaps remind you that there was a brief but glorious while when chivalry was your long suit.
Finally I would ask you to use me for the betterment of your immortal soul while conceding that I must also be spiced a little now and then if I am to be entertaining as well as exalting.
Sincerely
Your Memory