How Greta Garbo helped me to be left alone

I had a stressful and sometimes traumatic childhood.  I was bullied until I left school.  School was something of an ordeal for me and I could not wait to leave. 

Home life was less than ideal and perhaps I should have left home to search for gold on the pavements of London, but I presumed that in larger cities my life experiences to date would increase exponentially.  To move to a smaller town was likewise out of the question for the same reasons ironically. 

So I decided to brave it out on my native heath.

As a child, I was somewhat nervous.  As well as other speech impediments, particularly sounding as if every uttered syllable was soaked in saliva and showering whoever and whatever was within spitting distance when I spoke, I developed a stammer due to all the taunts and ridicule I endured.  It was a rather frustrating period in one’s life.

My secondary school arranged for me to receive speech therapy, which took care of my speech impediments.  My nervous stammer remained which worsened the more frustrated and nervous I became.

One continued with one’s breathing exercises and trying to remain calm if provoked.  One was advised to walk away rather than stand one’s ground if dragged into disputes with one’s peers.  One should rise above them and not react to their intelligence insulting taunts and jeers.  Excellent advice, easier said than done.

When travelling down to Dorset or up to London by car, I had to endure my stepbrother’s musical tastes.  He had a penchant for classical music and opera.  On such occasions, I would amuse myself by gazing out of the back window and into the following car, trying hard not to blink or smile. 

It became a favourite pastime of mine.  I would think of Greta Garbo at the end of Queen Christina, and away I would gaze.  Sometimes I would call to mind the various poems and speeches contained in the Bell’s Elocution that I used as part of my speech therapy, and mouth them silently or quietly.

I thought I was just killing time with an amusing game of blink with the driver of whatever vehicle happened to be behind our car during otherwise tiresome journeys.  However, I discovered that hours of gazing dreamily into the eyes of the general public brought with it some benefits.  I developed a look of general indifference that I could change into one of extreme ennui in a nano-second.  A look of ‘dumb insolence’ as one teacher expressed it.

One day I found myself in a position from which I could not walk away.  The big bad wolves were huffing and puffing, chest beating and giving it large.  I followed parental advice as much as I could and bit my tongue rather than choke on the words I would be unable to get out.  I took deep, slow breaths and struggled to keep calm.  My eyes I cast downwards.  Cicero’s In Catiline came to mind.  I raised my head and eyes slowly and gave my tormentors the full silent, silver screen goddess treatment.  Eventually I had enough of all the huffing and puffing, and very calmly cracked a quip with such insouciance that my tongue suddenly struck confusion and fear into the hearts of the big bad wolves that they withdrew to lick their wounds.

From then on, slowly life began to become less traumatic.