Young Howard

by Sean O'Brien

(Cousin Coat - Selected Poems 1976-2001, Faber)

Two aunts in garish rosy prints

Sat waiting in the head man's room,

Intent on their vocation; there

‘To take me home'. They called me in

From cricket to my life, my life.

They worked in shifts. I dreamed

They stroked my arm until it bled.

Their eyes reflected me alone

With the trust fund of grief I have

Never been able to manage myself.

Today the rear window flashes

Summons to its madman, me.

I'm better now. I know they'd say

It's best indoors. It's getting cold

And no one wants to see you there.

Born just postwar, I live there still,

Young Howard with his special pain,

Largactil crust across his mouth.

I watch the dead in photographs.

My drunken flier with his charm,

My drunken blonde with her estate,

Both shovelled off the road in bits

Along with the MG, kept me

In shorts between the knees of aunts

Equipped with love, with metal combs.

I'm sick of all my annuals,

But every Sunday as I count

Each piece of gravel on those graves

I live my life. I stand erect.

They tell me I am feeling proud.

Born just postwar”, the Howard of the poem is a mentally disabled older man. His condition may be caused by Largactil, a chemical cosh used to control the mentally unstable. Administered by his two adoring aunts for his “special pain”, it means that he remains dependent on them long after they take him into their home when his parents are killed in a drunken car crash.

The aunts collected Howard from school where he was called into the headmaster's office from a game of cricket. The contrast between playing cricket and the life that follows serves to indicate the suspicious psychological degeneration of a once normal boy.

He tells us that his aunts “worked in shifts”, so he was never alone. They were so attentive that he dreamt how they stroked his arm “until it bled”. Perhaps that actually happened, because he became the sole focus of their attention, being the only reflection in their eyes. He tells us that he has never been able to manage his “trust fund of grief”, but I suspect that is an imposition made by his aunts in order for them to continue to medicate him.

The window flashes as if catching the light as it opens or closes and summons “its madman”: Howard himself. He says he's “better”, but it seems that he will never be well enough to escape the manipulative relatives who wish him to remain a dependent child. He voices the concerns that he knows his aunts would habitually employ to get him back inside the house, using the idea of strangers not wishing to set eyes on him as a way of extending the power of their request.

I suspect that the Largactil used to stupefy Howard was administered initially on the pretext that it would calm his nerves when he was first orphaned. He must drool sometimes, since a Largactil crust forms across his mouth. He watches the dead in photographs, meaning that he stares at them for long periods; the drunken flier and the drunken blonde. Despite the possessive case they are impersonalised when Howard does not identify them directly as his dead mother and father; Largactil would disassociate him from feelings of any emotional connection.

His mention of metal combs recalls the days when remedies for head lice were combed through the hair with just such combs; there is a punitive and controlling aspect to the use of these. And when he complains that he is sick of his annuals, I imagine that it is because his brain has developed beyond them, even while being artificially constrained by his medication.

They visit his parents' graves every Sunday, and, like a bored infant, he engages in the repetitive task of counting “Each piece of gravel on those graves”. He tells us that he lives his life - after all, it's the only one he's got - and stands erect because he is an adult now and stands tall. His aunts tell him that he's feeling proud, speaking for him as they have always done - and always will. He is their perpetual child (still in shorts) and prisoner. But even in his bewildered state he seems to be aware of anomalies... and that something is not quite right.

frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk