Second Chance

An image of a sculpture that I saw recently unsettled me. I felt as if someone had punched me in the gut. Part of the sculpture’s body was missing, and one could see the sea in the background. This piece, and several others like it by French-Sicilian artist Bruno Catalano, are installed on beaches in France (Marseille) and other cities around the world.

I couldn’t understand why I felt that way. To be moved by a sculpture is a curious feeling. The piece is intended to represent the sense of loss felt by those who leave their country of birth and move to a new environment.

I feel no such sense of loss. Yes, I miss the sweet song of the koel and the bubbling warble of bulbuls, the mesmerising torrent of monsoon rains watched from the comfort of an easy chair, a steaming cup of tea and sweet neyyappams at hand. Most of all, I pine for the friends and family I left behind.

But then I have discovered the uplifting chirp of the blackbird of England coming into its own in the spring and summer. I enjoy the long summer evenings when the day is full of potential. The magnificently fecund magnolias of spring overwhelm me, making me want to stand and stare endlessly. I have, over the years, developed a lot of good friendships with bonds nearly as strong. Half the ashes of my first-born are mixed with the waters of the Thames. My younger son has found his partner in a wonderful local family.

That missing part of the man with the suitcase still bothered me until a little disaster resolved the issue. It was my second chance.

While returning from our recent trip to Belgium, I bought a lot of wine from the duty-free shop at the Le Shuttle terminal in Calais. The trouble with duty free is the word ‘free’. It’s got a delusional quality about it. One forgets the difference between duty-free and free. It’s like the lactose-free, gluten-free, nut-free and sugar-free products on the supermarket shelves. If it’s free of everything, why is it so bloody expensive, is the thought that goes through my head whenever I pass that shelf. I still end up buying such things. Such is the allure of ‘free’. I have lost count of the number of times I have withdrawn unneeded cash from ATMs displaying the words ‘Free Cash Withdrawal’.

They say just because elephants are cheap, you don’t have to buy them. But I had forgotten this wise adage. I purchased 14 bottles of wine. It was nearly half the price there when compared to the supermarkets of England. The irony is that I consume less than half a bottle a week. Anyway, I secured the cases in my boot, travelled all the way across the Channel and to Southampton with everything intact. No breakage.

And then the devil asked me to empty the car upon arrival. No, don’t take a break, it whispered in my ear. And why make an extra trip from the car to the kitchen? The suitcase with four wheels is a doddle to push with one hand, and you can carry a case of wine in the other, it instructed me. So I didn’t demur. The devil has terrific power of persuasion.

I could hear the bastard laughing when he suddenly locked the suitcase’s wheels, and the case—carried forward by its own momentum—flew out of my hand, sending six expensive bottles of Chablis crashing to the floor and shattering two of them. All savings wiped out. I might as well have bought them in Sainsbury’s.

The feeling, as I watched weeks of future pleasure puddle like rainwater on the kitchen floor, was like being punched in the gut, like being winded. This time around, I could put my finger on it, exactly. So, I finally understood Bruno Catalano’s sculpture. More importantly, I realised that every loss is replaced by something. A second chance always comes around. Nothing is permanent. Not loss. Not grief.