Mike has crossed the border from which there is no return |
Mike Skinner and I
were the same age, both originally from Bulawayo, both incorrigible bachelors, and
of similar build. We shared for some
years a passion for the slightly mad activity of rock-climbing, until for some
reason he more or less abandoned that for the slightly madder activity of
para-sailing. For both of us Rhodes and
Grahamstown had become our second home.
Mike loved the desert,
drawn repeatedly to the Kalahari. I
never got to join him there; but we did climb many local crags, and the
Compassberg, and Mary near Tarkastad; and we 4x4’d with John McKinnell through
mountainous Lesotho. He and I shared
one particularly memorable desert adventure – a trip to Namibia, with our
friend Nikki. We visited Ais-Ais and
Sossusvlei and Windhoek, then headed north for even drier regions. We camped one night in the lee of the massif
of the Brandberg, and Mikey decided to bake some bread, from scratch. This poem relates what happened:
BREAD OF LIFE
The night of the Brandberg
closes about us,
warm as fur. Our fire, fading on the sand, feels
like the centre of
life. Mike rakes away the coals
and unearths the pot
beneath them
where the bread’s
been invisibly baking.
He lifts the heavy
lid, shines the torch in.
There is no
bread. Nothing. A black iron hole
swallowing our
astonishment.
We do find it after
some seconds –
so puffed up with
exuberant yeasty life
it was stuck to the
lid itself.
But now there really
is no loaf:
death has lifted its
lid on a hollow
black as an impenetrable
hunger.
Whatever else we
might cherish and taste,
that is a loaf from
which we cannot eat again.
Mikey has the best view of all now. |
We went on then to
climb the famous Spitzkoppe, spectacularly shaped in yellowing colours but made
of ghastly decomposing granite chutes that skinned our knees. Then it was on to the petroglyph galleries of
Twyfelfontein, and the strangely pristine coastal town of Swakopmund – where we
found that the police were looking for us.
Or, specifically, looking for Mike: his father had been shot in a house
break-in in Bulawayo. We raced him back
to Windhoek to catch a plane home – then Nikki and I continued the holiday in
Mike’s white Toyota 4x4. We felt weird,
vaguely guilty, and bereft of Mike’s robust pragmatism, mechanical acumen, and
genial quietness. But it was what Mike
wanted us to do.
Mike at Twyfelfontein |
He was always so:
unfailingly selfless, gently uncomplicated, keeping any distress close to
himself. He could express robust
criticism of the world’s miscreants, including whoever killed his father, but
there wasn’t a mean fibre in his body. He
was a man of parts – he could play the piano, cook, build stuff with meticulous
care, run his pharmaceutical unit – but was not one for introspection, or
saying much about his inner self, or imposing on one for help.
I saw relatively
little of him these last couple of years, though most recently I think he was
grateful that he and I could share some illness stories – rather as we had
periodically commiserated over our expanding middle-aged bellies. He would shrug and monosyllabically profess
his positivity and hand it all over to God, blinking his eyes like a slightly
nervous raccoon and grinning shyly with his small teeth. I told him to call me, any time, for
anything, but he did not – and suddenly it was too late.
I am so grateful for
having known him, knowing I could do no better than to judge my own life-decisions
by the single criterion: would Mikey Skinner have approved?
ELEGY FOR MIKEY
I am cutting out
alien trees
halfway down the
hill
when the phone call
comes.
A knot in my stomach
has been waiting.
Our lovely Mike is
gone.
So blessed in his
modesty and quiet
almost none of us even
knew he was ill.
Our lovely Mikey is
gone.
The cellphone sits
like a hollow in my hand.
The sun is a hollow
in the low sky.
I think of the world
that Mike has left:
our campuses afire, Somalia
starving,
Syria ruined,
etcetera, etcetera.
Spitzkoppe |
Sometimes it seems
it’s not Death
that is so
intractable and opaque
but Life itself. I should have
spent more time with
him. I should,
I should... But Mikey
is gone.
And now we can only
leave the lopped
branches of guilt
to lie where they
fall, and try to love
whoever we can, when
we can,
as much as we can, for
as long
as time is running
in our veins.
*****
A lovely person. The fct that none of us knew that he was ill made his death even more shocking.
ReplyDeleteBrian Jackson
I feel your pain and loss too Dan. Sometime one doesn't have to be together (or "in contact") to feel supported though. And I'm sure the nature of your friendship was such that Mike did call/contact you in his own way.
ReplyDelete