Chapter 40

Memories?:

Way back in nineteen forty or forty one we lived in a farm labourer’s cottage on a farm just outside Hambledon in Hampshire. Together, my brother who is eighteen months older than I, lived an idyllic existence. Wandering round the local area freely, throwing stones at birds, splashing around in mud, seeing how close we dared approach the beehives, watching the cows being milked, pulling legs off spiders and generally just being small boys in the country. Yes, it was idyllic.

One day as we were playing in the garden an aeroplane roared overhead at low level. It was very low. Low enough to see the distinctive markings on the wings. Three black ‘F’s on a white roundel. The plane had two engines and was approaching us from the direction of the farm. Very exciting for a less than three years old child.

Many years later, when we were both well past our prime, I compared notes on the incident with my brother.

“Oh yes I remember it well. The plane came from the Portsmouth direction at really low level. It had distinctive markings. Three white ‘F’s on a black roundel and it was single engined.”

Fascinating. It was clear from our collective memories that the incident was real and not just an echo of some past dream. But our crystal clear memories are not the same. Black ‘F’s, white ‘F’s. One engine, two engines. Approaching from the farm direction, Portsmouth direction.

How strange that something can be stored in memories in such incompatible ways.

When my wife arrived in England in nineteen eighty nine from Czechoslovakia she brought with her a few dollars and a proud spirit.
Within a year we were married and she was looking for work. She obtained a job with the BBC in Reading as a translator. She speaks fluent Russian as well as Czech and in those days spoke quite entertaining English.
She needed a car to get to work. “No problem” said I.
“I’ll buy you one”.
“Oh no” she replied. “That’s not necessary. I have a job so I can pay for the car.”
In the end I lent her the money to buy the car and despite my protests that it was not necessary she paid me back.

But wait a minute. Things are not always as they seem to be.

At the moment, my wife, who I have not lived with for about eleven years, is visiting me here in Bangtao.

Yesterday we went to Jung Ceylon and the Big Buddha. Watched the sun set at Prom Thep. (Well actually as so often happens the sun having shone all day disappeared behind a cloud bank five minutes before official sunset. In fact I’ve just realised why this happens so often. It’s because near the horizon we are looking through more atmosphere so it has a greater chance of containing cloud). But where was I.

Ah yes. Then we rounded off the day with a really nice seafood supper in a beach restaurant.
My legs were tired and so was I so I guess I was being a little more free with my views than is tactful.
In the course of conversation I quoted the case of the car to emphasise my view that Misha’s proud spirit and independence was a good part of the reason why our marriage could never have lasted.
After a short pause Misha replied, “I don’t remember the incident like that at all.”
That stopped me in my tracks. Did she mean that as she remembered it I had insisted that she paid for the car?

Now we are both happy to be friends and I think would like to remain so. We have both got better at sensing where not to go in a conversation. Some lines just lead to either dead ends or are just not constructive.
Misha suggested that since we both had opposing views on a subject which were totally unverifiable we’d best talk about something else.

She was absolutely right.

In the case of the low flying aeroplane I can use the Internet to help unravel conflicting views.

But here and now with Misha and my different views of the car buying episode I am perplexed.
If she is right then I am not the person I like to think I am. Even if she is wrong then she thinks I am that other person - not me.
Either way that is pretty damned sad!
Even sadder is the fact that I don't think there is any solution to such a problem.
It will probably just have to be stored forever as an, albeit minor, background irritation.


Footnote: Through the joys of the Internet I have tracked down a possible candidate for the plane my brother and I saw way back in the nineteen forties. Mussolini, wishing to demonstrate his parity with Hitler, sent to Belgium in September nineteen forty a small armada of bombers and fighters with which he harassed the east coast of England up until January the third nineteen forty one. Most of the fighters were single engined biplanes (Fiat CR42s) and the bombers were twin engined monoplanes (Fiat BR20Ms).
It looks unlikely, but not impossible, that any of them would have travelled as far west as Portsmouth. But if so then the one we saw was probably a BR20M. However I would have been only just two years old at the time. Rather young for such detailed memory?
On November 11th 1940 one of a raiding party of BR20Ms was shot down and crash landed near Woodbridge. It was subsequently taken to Farnborough for appraisal. I just wonder if it was test flown after that date. And if so why did it still have Italian markings?
I’m still investigating!