Damage

by David Swann

Everywhere, I saw Dad in the decaying chapel. A crack tilted drunkenly sideways. Ominous blotches riddled the rafters.

My Granddad, Hammond, sat beside me, clacking mints. Mysterious light had pooled in his glasses. Familiar smells were rising: carbolic-soap and kidneys, soldering-irons and brewer’s slops.

Outside, afterwards, we listened while worshippers discussed the usual topics: angina, drizzle, redundancy, etc.

But our neighbour Captain Lancashire hadn’t time for that. ‘You know me, Hammond,’ he said: ‘I’ll not call a wart a beauty-spot. This lad’s frail. He needs a feed of liver.’

‘Aye,’ said Hammond, squeezing between us, smiling, ‘but he’ll happen leave that for us old duffers to eat, eh?’

Relieved, I followed him home. My grandad was built like a wardrobe, big and rigid, but a wardrobe emptied of everything save its coat-hangers. The hangers rattled inside him, and sometimes he stopped to press a hand against his chest, to steady the contents.

The buildings we passed were knackered, too. Once, they’d made everything here: bricks, brushes, tallows, dyes. Telephone-wires to connect countries. Barbed-wires to divide them.

Now the factories had crumbled, the work vanished. Near home, I breathed it all in. Our town had failed, and the failure was ugly. But there was beauty in the damage. Or something damaged in me that liked the ugliness.

Passing another neighbour, Hammond lifted his cap. Studying me, she said he must be proud, and his false-teeth slipped a bit as he smiled. Then he said the sun was doing its best, and she said, aye, but the forecast’s bad.

We walked on, not speaking, because there was no need. He never put a fence around his silence. You could go into it with him, walk home through it.

So we did. We went on like that, towards whatever was waiting for us.

About the Author

David Swann is a former journalist, toilet cleaner, warehouseman, and university lecturer, now a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at Cumbria University of Cumbria, where he helps nurses and paramedics. His novella, Season of Bright Sorrow (adhocfiction.com 2021), illustrated by Sam Hubbard, was named 2023 Rubery Book of the Year. Dave’s other five books include The Privilege of Rain (Waterloo Press, 2010), shortlisted for the Ted Hughes Prize for its evocation of a prison residency. His poems and short stories have won eleven awards at the Bridport Prize and two in the National Poetry Competition. In 2025, Dave worked as club poet at Blackburn Rovers Football Club, the team he’s supported since he was six.