Galaxy

22 Oct 2013

DON'T EVER LET THEM IN



I am terrified of the dark. My grandmother, on the other hand, had an affinity for the dark. She loved and enjoyed the dark so much that most windows in her house were walled shut and the few that remained were, except for rare occasions like family visits, blacked out with several layers of black curtains.

It was only when I was about 16 that I realized that those two, her love and my fear of the dark, were connected.

When I was small I was, supposedly, very hyperactive. My mother never managed to control me and my father only did so on those rare occasions when he threatened me with punishments. But I loved my grandparents and, as my parents, said, I always behave right when my grandmother was around. Accordingly my parents dropped me many times at my grandmother’s place so that they themselves could have a calm weekend.

I was 8 years old when she died. At that time I was already scared of the dark – except, of course, when my grandparents were around.

Those eight years I stayed many times over. I remember vividly how I played with my grandfather and uncle Owen in the darkness. We had our special games, like a noise-based version of hide and seek which only worked when the house was particularly quiet and my grandfather taught me how to carve wood into spoons and flutes with just my sense of touch.

I remember it exactly – the way their faces were lightly visible in the dark but their eyes always penetrated through the thickest curtains of darkness. They were bright white, as if they were glowing from the sindise – with just a black pupil at the center.

My grandmother was always working around the house – cooking and baking for me, cleaning or tidying or preparing the beds for the night. The room always felt warmer when she was there and so, usually, i asked my grandfather and uncle Owen to play with me in the room that she was in.

Those weekends I never missed the light. Even my dreams were, often, just noises and smells and textures and shapes – never colors or visible objects. Still today I can navigate perfectly in the dark. And still today I can see very well in the dark and around my 16th year of life I concluded that my strong vision at night was the cause for my paralyzing fear of the dark.

The fear had been there as long as I remember and on most nights I slept with a nightlight. On those weekends with my grandmother the darkness had never been a problem. Cuddled up to her warm body I never felt fear and I never minded the figures that seemed to stand in the room, all around my bed.

They only came with the darkness. Never when there was a slight flicker of light, just with the absolute blackness of a night in a room without windows.

My grandmother called them the ‘Outcasts.’ She said that they were family and friends, former close ones, that wanted to return from the other side. She taught me again and again that I should never let them return.

I remember the way she said it. We were lying in the bed, my head cuddled up to the warmth of her shoulder. Somewhere behind me my grandfather was snoring and when I turned I could see his face glowing in the darkness, with his white skin it was even more visible than that of my grandmother.

“You can see the difference in their faces,” she said. “Their faces are darker. But if you really want to make sure then you have to look at their eyes. If their eyes are as black as their face or even darker then they are on the wrong side; they are dead and and they should stay that way no matter how much you miss them.”

“So they can’t come?”

“They can’t come unless you allow them to come.”

“What if I let them in?”

“Don’t ever let them in.”

Black on black, but I still saw them as clear as a pencil line pressed hard on a piece of paper, the type of pencil line that doesn’t just color the paper but rather pushes itself into the paper.

That night my grandmother fell asleep quickly but I, in the safety of her arms and with my grandfather behind me, watched the figures. They were gesturing and moving, voiced words and sometimes fought against one another; they pushed each other to the side and backwards, fighting for a spot on the borderline to life.

I saw their figures and I recognized their sizes and hairstyles, often I even thought I knew which clothes they were wearing. I never asked my grandmother about that, but for myself I concluded those were the ways they looked in the moment that they stepped from life to death.

With my grandmother I was safe. But without her the nights were terror. They came closer and they seemed more energetic, more violent, more likely to break through that barrier. Maybe they were closer because I was closer to letting them in, half out of fear and half out of curiosity.

The nightlight was my savior, but in those nights when my parents forgot to plug the light in there was no salvation. They stood above me with their dark figures pressed into the darkness and those eyes so dark that they seemed to extend deeper into space; as if they were hollow.

With 16 I tried to cure myself off my fear by “shock therapy.” I threw myself into one dark night after the other but rather than improve the situation got worse.

There was one figure particularly pushy. A smaller one with wild, curly hair and the darkest eyes of them all. I always knew who she was. She had only been there since I was 8.

The conclusions of my 16th year made too much sense to be overturned. I gave up my defense and accepted my fear and eternal dependence on nightlights. When I moved to university I even chose an apartment with a street lamp outside so that the light would certainly come through my window and keep the figures at bay.

With 23 I learned the truth about my fear.

I was at my mother’s place. We were at our second bottle of wine and a soothing melancholy, the type that you can see in a French actress’s eyes, had enriched the air. Somehow we came to speak about my grandmother.

“I miss her,” my mother said.
 
“Me too,” I said. “Sometimes I still dream of her cookies and when I wake up I can nearly taste the vanilla.”
“Oh,” she said. “Your grandfather loved those.”

“Did he? I don’t remember him eating any?”

My mother laughed.

“You were probably too young to remember that.”

“Not really. I remember playing with him.”

“Oh, you do?”

“Yeah. I played with him all the time.”

“Really, you remember that?”

“Of course.”

“Wow,” she said. “I’m really happy for that.”

“Me too.”

“I always thought you wouldn’t remember him because you were so young.”

I took a sip from my glass and let the bitterness fade from my mouth.
“I don’t remember going to his funeral.”

“Of course not,” she said. “We left you with a friend and went alone.”

“What? Why?”

“We thought you wouldn’t understand it. You were just 2 when your grandfather and uncle Owen had their accident.”

When I was 16 I thought I was scared of the figures standing at the borderline to our world.

Since I’m 23 I know that I’m not actually scared of those figures at the borderline. I’m scared and wondering how many others were allowed back inside.

Top Tenner: Fergie fall-outs

Top Tenner picks out a selection of bust-ups involving Sir Alex Ferguson during his trophy-laden career.


10 - Peter Schmeichel

A lesser-known tale, but all that success, all that brilliant goalkeeping, the blonde Danish wall that occupied the United goal for so many years, none of it might have happened if a row between the pair had not been resolved. During a game at Anfield that United were winning 3-0 but ended up drawing 3-3, Ferguson blamed Schmeichel for the goals, the goalkeeper disagreed, and a row ensued.


"Obviously I stepped over the line," said Schmeichel. "The next day he [Ferguson] was in the office. I was called in and he said: 'Listen, I have to sack you. I can't tolerate my players speaking to me like that. It goes against my authority'." Schmeichel eventually apologised, and kept his job.

9 - Aberdeen players


You didn't have to be against Fergie to incur his wrath and devastating tongue. You didn't even have to be with him but disobedient. You didn't even have to be with him and lose. One of Ferguson's most memorable and excoriating pieces of criticism came while with Aberdeen in 1983, after they had just beaten Rangers in the Scottish Cup final.

The win in itself apparently wasn't good enough for Fergie, who was asked by a slightly baffled TV reporter for his reaction. Ferguson said: "We're the luckiest team in the world. It was a disgrace of a performance. (Willie) Miller and (Alex) McLeish won the cup for Aberdeen. Miller and McLeish played Rangers themselves. They were a disgrace of a performance. And I'm not caring, winning cups doesn't matter. Our standards have been set long ago and we're not going to accept that from any Aberdeen team. No way should we take any glory from that."

8 - Jaap Stam


You don't question Fergie. It mattered not how good you were, or how many trophies you'd won with him. You especially don't suggest that he tapped you up when he recruited you, which Stam did in his 2001 autobiography. Of course, Ferguson claimed the motivation for his subsequent sale to Lazio was that £16.5 million was too good an offer to turn down, and that he thought the Dutchman was finished, but he has since changed his mind on that one. Given Stam would go on to play another 150 games for Lazio, Milan and Ajax, it would have been a tricky assessment to stand by, but still...

7 - The media


Quite a large group to take on, but take them on he did. From refusing to talk to the BBC for years after objecting a documentary they made about his son, to banning one journalist over a book Ferguson hadn't read to casting out another for accurately reporting news of a Rio Ferdinand injury, the old boy's relationship with the media has been pretty, well, confrontational, at times. Actually, scratch that -- he was a bit of a git to them for about 20 years. Still, that didn't stop them greeting his retirement by giving him a cake shaped like a hairdryer.



6 - Brian Kidd
In his recent interview with Charlie Rose on American television, Ferguson offered an important piece of advice to would-be managers: "Never hold a grudge, that's very important." Many, not least his former assistant Brian Kidd, would presumably scoff at that. There was more than a little of the Mafia to Ferguson's methods, the sense that you were with him or against him, and if you fell into the latter category you might as well be dead, no matter how close you once were to him.

Kidd helped Ferguson build his first great team and was around as the second one was under construction as well, but decided to strike out on his own, leaving Ferguson's side to become Blackburn manager in 1998. This was seen as an abandonment, a betrayal of sorts, as Ferguson made clear in his first book, and when the ever-humourous hand of fate dictated that it was a draw against United that sent Blackburn down, Ferguson claimed not to be aware that his team had just demoted his former right-hand man. "Perhaps he feels the need to put on a front following his momentous decision to walk away from the success he enjoyed with us," he said after Kidd reacted to the game with some dignity. Ouch.

5 - David Beckham


There was more than a little of the stern but protective father and the bright but vaguely errant son relationship between Ferguson and Beckham. The father didn't really understand the son, but knew he had something special. The son respected the father, but wanted to do his own thing. Then came the hair, the clothes and the unsuitable girlfriend, and it all went a bit south. Of course most fathers don't welly a football boot into their son's forehead, but different people express their disappointment in different ways. "He got drawn into that celebrity status, you know?" Fergie told Charlie Rose. "And for me, I'm a football man. He lost the focus."

4 - Kenny Dalglish

One of the many, many complaints Liverpool fans had about Roy Hodgson was that he was too pally with Ferguson. It's hard to imagine a man as affable as Uncle Roy not being pally with anyone, but that he spoke with deference and affection towards the United manager was a source of much ire. That of course changed when Kenny Dalglish returned to replace Hodgson, an age-old feud rekindled, and the Kop were much happier for it.


Glaswegians of a similar age, Ferguson would often give a young Dalglish lifts around town when they were playing for Rangers and Celtic respectively, but when Ferguson arrived in Manchester, intent on knocking Liverpool "off their f****** perch", the old friendship withered. "You'll get more sense out of her," said Dalglish when asked about his old foe. The 'her' in question was his six-week-old daughter. Of course, it wasn't total hatred, and a mutual respect remained, so much so that Ferguson wrote the foreword to Dalglish's autobiography.

3 - Arsene Wenger

"They say he's an intelligent man, right? Speaks five languages! I've got a 15-year-old boy from the Ivory Coast who speaks five languages!" That was one of many, shall we say 'caustic' comments directed at Wenger when his Arsenal were a genuine domestic threat to United. In more recent times, when their title challenge had usually disappeared by February, Ferguson would speak in warmer tones about Wenger, a sign for most that he was no longer threatened, and that newer foes needed cutting down with a well-chosen jibe. 


2 - Rafa Benitez
Many arguments in football have more than a dash of pantomime to them. Passions rise in the moment, you call the other guy something horrible, he calls you something horrible back, you have a drink after the game and say sorry, all over. More often than not, it's the desire to win, combined with pressure and tribalism. Feelings tend not to run too deep. However, these two really didn't like each other -- the antipathy was genuine, and not just for theatre.

Ferguson constantly goaded Benitez, including accusing him of 'disrespecting' Sam Allardyce when all the Liverpool manager had done was vaguely wave his arms a bit. He of course succeeded in winding his rival up so that he eventually exploded in a flurry of paper and 'facts', although it's well to remember that Liverpool only actually lost one league game after this 'rant' (though they did fail to win for three league matches), so how much tangible impact it had on the 2008-09 title race is open to question.

1 - John Magnier


For United fans, this is probably the most significant, because it ultimately led to the arrival of the Glazers. It started, as many things do, with friendship. "Nobody could wish for better friends than them," said Ferguson of Magnier, a hugely successful Irish horse owner, and his wife, with whom he was listed as 'joint owners' of Rock of Gibralter. When the horse was retired to stud, Ferguson felt he was entitled to half of the earnings from the offspring, which could have totalled €50-70 million, whereas Magnier saw Ferguson's stake as more of an honorary thing, and not worth nearly that much.

All of this wouldn't have had much impact on United had Magnier and his business partner JP McManus not been steadily building up their stake in the club, so when the dispute over the horse reached the courts, the investors started asking some pointed questions about how Ferguson was conducting business, in particular in reference to his agent son, Jason. The dispute was eventually settled, but Magnier and McManus had one last card to play, and that was to sell their shares, with Malcolm Glazer only too happy to take them off their hands for an estimated £230 million. All leveraged against the club, naturally. 

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