Lo lay London Liverpool Street I am getting to on the train. Legs fair jigged from halfway there. Dairy Milk on this Stansted Express and cannot care for stray sludge splinters in the face of England go by. Bishop’s Stortford. Tottenham Hale. I could turn I could turn. I cannot. Too late for. London. Look. And a sky all shifts to brick. Working through its tunnels, now walking on its streets, a higher tide of people than I have ever seen and – any minute now – In. Goes. Me.
Worm in their wormholes. Versts of stairs. New eyes battling posters and escalators I find my way to Kentish Town – wind-slapped in the face as the tiles lead round. Up though, yes and to the house. Tall. Taller than I knew and an old Irish landlady with no T’s by now. Maybe in time that’ll be you? No. Maybe that’ll be me. Her – on her top floor – rules, only one: Absolutely no strange men, show me no lies and I’ll ask you no questions. Oh yes of course. But at the pad off of her slippers, I rattle at my lock. Then turn about to open wide and touch the room on either side. Three-foot bed of freedom. Beauty board walls of delight. Streaked nets of the escapee. Four floors below, a London street. Unpack knickers and unpack tapes. So the first weekend begins like this, here in the homesickless new. And later, under condensation drip from the wall, I still think here is for me. Even when auld langers row in the hall. Even incandescent piss on the toilet floor, even so. Here I am and here is for me.
Weekend then to Monday.
Nine brings the day. Dampened to fresh-cheeked I go up the stone steps, in amid the already-belonged. Laughing and smoking they verve from the start. Darling! Coiffs flying. Surveying each other. One welcome enough to point the Registrar out. Alright there? I think I ushered the day you tried out. Lank silver streak down his hair rings true. Oh yes I remember what year are you? Third, and pulls the door to, allowing me in for the start. His lassitude and longitude like rebuke to my nerves. Thanks. No worries, hey you’ll be alright. One of them now just the same.
Hum walls of the well-known once I’m in. Is it only me? No. Must for everyone. Don’t we all wonder whose head, hand touched there? After registering, which famous foot ground the grooves in these stairs winding up to the balcony? Up to this top. Costume racks and plank floor. Boys right. Girls left – some already stripping off to their lovely English skins. Upright in their bare bras with crisp-type speaking while I’m ducking in a locker to cover mine up. Ah, amn’t I here to get over my body’s stops. Well? Time and more to come.
Tss. Shhh. Get in quick. Don’t be late or. Definitely don’t take the piss. He can’t be as bad as. That’s what I heard. He is the most. He’s like the dad – if your dad kicks the shit out of you.
Ten.
So if he laughs at me? So thinks I am young? He’s the one offered my place into this room and ring of the mesmerised, ready to care. I do too and am impressed by his stalk across, and eventful stare, as he gees us towards books and plays not yet read. Wills us to fend off the swine philistines who’d have us all kept in the kitchens of life. If we let them. We won’t let them – jobbing actors or stars – sat on paint that I pick at and click at with fingers. Yes I’ll be fired glass where stray sand has been. Sifted and lit. Here you’ll make what you’ll be. Broken mirrors are waste in a broke society. Well there’s not much I know about that. But straight off, envisaging strife For A Cause, turns running away into running towards. And horror-storifying prior life things lets the future be what London brings. So glory Bye to the left behind. Smiling right at me then, as though divined. No coming here wasted, he says That’s strictly for the weekend and for those of you who’ve just left home, remember to use a condom. It gets like a hothouse in here and we don’t want anything going around.
Jesus. Jesus he never. Jesus he really did. No teacher Never, nor anyone else. Bang out blatant about going permissive. Noting, I note another face laughing just like me. Trying not. To be mature. To keep the rict from boiling over. Of an age she also seems so I Hello when I’d not usually. Then she, sloe-eyed with slowest smiles, says Cuppa? In the canteen? And so wriggle in. Slip in. Remember people are blind to under your skin or. Under my skin now.
Vaudeville she, drawing all around. Funniest. And good to found a friendship. At least she’s a side to go side by with to class. Vault the day then with its procession of self. What’s your name? Whereabouts are you from? Live close? I hate the announcing but new futures demand new reckonings so I shuffle around what I have. Not much, not much, only me. Far from exotic when there’s Spaniards and Greeks. And here the first Dane I’ve ever met. Australian girls. Not white or Irish. You mean English up North? I only crossed a sea. Speak French then? Amazing. Fluently? I’d love to slip my homogeneity but. On to the next class. Go.
On the night bed, I ache with foretelling the term through. Who to sit by? Or’s bench to amble to? Where I am in the ranks or might belong? With the younger, yes. And if I’m youngest? So? I’m not of the glick-tongued university set. Nor those opting in as an out from office work. Not with the encyclopaedic-knowledged of every ever staged show. Or the paying rent by modelling. Or the money’s all from home. No. I can’t align myself. Odd one out, but intentions the best and I don’t mind much because Fuck Off fitting in – not that I’d refuse a spate of more usual fun. At least here I’m in, rather than waiting on and. Fishes in the water fishes in the sea might we not jump up with a one two three?
In days:
In your mind’s eye stand at Chalk Farm tube, then walk from there to here. This morning’s walk. As it was. Recreating what you saw and heard. Traffic. Birdsong. Fumes from a bus. Notice every little thing and if you go blank, restart. Is it clear? Yes? Alright. Begin:
I fa. I. Step into. Ticket in my hand. Lift. Memory lifting. Concrete wet. Muck tiles. Memory lift to. Queue to. Bank machine. Roadside. To. Bus. Beggar. Back. No. Lift to ‘No Begging’ sign. Ears to the tussle traffic. Mini-cab rank. Cross I here. Salvation Army Hall and. Lift. Marlon Brando Guys and Dolls and. Pub called. Pub called. Turn to and see. Frill and I. See the. What? See the. City. City. Ah fuck. Fuck it blank. Start again.
So time moves, out in slow spins. To the first of life – keep your fingers in. And my head turns drowse in its lazy rings at the starting pull of gravity. Push me through to a different eye, to this world of pearls polished up for I don’t take for granted I. Not a single gasp of air. For here’s the spot to cover my tracks, where my butter-wouldn’t-melt slams shutters down. You’re God so young. Youngest one. Youngest in our year. Like the sinless one in Babylon despite hacking at my naïve. Free to singe my wings though on others’ likely tales – my own knowing, knowing to stay well away – I do learn a little how to be. Hithering out on fast Fridays. Go out go out whoever you are. Slip in with the cliques – if estranged from their midst – at the Enterprise, Crown, Fiddler’s Elbow, I burnish myself on their glut of chat, though mouse-trapped or snapped by snide schoolboy rat-tat that I can’t quite and cannot use – Wiggins, we are the clever clogging clever while you are only you – but. Even with, I dive into this. Gaudy myself with cigarettes. Daub my soul with a good few pints til my mouth swings wide with unutterable shite. Laughing lots too, like it’s true. Worldening maybe, I think. I hope. Certainly serving to get me bold and fit for whatevers come. Truth or Dare then? She laughs Dare! Show a nipple. Nipple? There! Unseen I ripen behind long hair at her cool-eyed show and scoff. Now you Irish! Truth, I cough, faithful to my fear of stripping off. Weighing, he waits my cigarette stub then The first time did you bleed much? Ground butt ground. I bled enough. Like I bet you did, she rescue laughs and my lie ate, they banter on. But come the hour Back to mine, she says All of you.
And we’re a forged crowd round hers, locked to the jaws, rattled with chatter and choke on worse as the night undoes its lace. I don’t hold with the Fuck! Fancy digs you’ve got here! and the What does your dad do? brigade. I am all for the spell of her elegant room – white tulips in a vase. And the shop talk, I can only half make, working place for itself in my brain. Swim swim, maybe you’ll find in to the life they apparently share. So my rule, when offered, is to partake. Tinkering ashes as spliff rounds the place. Tink too of beer bottles. Odd ends of wine. Music from her new cassette going riot to loose and loose the tongue. Float up of stories. Legs gone serene. Second years tattling You’ll see what we mean; they’ll kick you to bricks then desert to rebuild. Deconstruct you, they say It’s no lie. My brain puckers with these, then – surprise – divides and the room begins to spin. Very like and nice verl. Easy now! Someone help her. Better step outside. Better I will and will someone with? Yes.
Topple out to her sill going chill against the stars. Take a deep breath. I do. That’s right. Rub my fingers much tread-on this carpet-cooped night. Humful her room seems now, from outside. My flake throat ow but swirl’s whirling down. Feeling any better? A bit. Goose bump our arms. Bit airless inside, he thumbs. I nod. But my chin’s in his hand. I. Get my chin palmed. Pulled. Cheek palmed. Neck back scarlett o’h. Click! My mouth with a mouth on. My mouth by itself letting kiss and kiss draw in. Soft with the addle. Wine in the crease. Skitter I little and traitor knees. And knees. Touched. Knees. And kissed at more. Loddle of his tongue making flesh go No. Sorry and No and Shit! Slank my body. Are you alright? I am. I am Sorry. No I’m sorry, he says Just pissed and whatever. I go back on myself. I am I think I better go. Don’t because of me. No no. I am no. On my heel. To the end of her road. Sorry, and ’Night, and can’t.
What a stupid useless baulk. I curse to the traffic and its tooting horns. Why couldn’t you? Jesus. He was barely there. Even now could you tell him from a privet hedge? A mouth and something to get across. And anyway you’re dying to be a looser-limbed doll. Wrong at the first post. Ah there’ll be again, claims mortification, re-attuning itself. Before long you’ll diffuse in the city’s fuzz and after all, I recall, footing traces of chips, tomorrow is another day.
Other Things.
Morning freeze. Market. Downed I at dawn. One foot in rubbish. One in Camden. Suckering up unctuous noodles now for lunch and no longer listening out for birds. It turns lonely though, shouldering in through the hordes. All the speculative friendships I, jealous, observe. It’s just space but I have so much distance to make and this seems such a wilful world.
Glazed under bath water I go seven to eight. Drip moments remaking last night’s puce mistake. Dream I am turned slender and high as an arch. Glibbing and joking, reserved and smart and faraway eyebrows – not soaking here, under scum. Not landlady screaming You’ve used my hot water up! along with How much washing does one person need? Depends, I shout back. Don’t you ‘depends’ me. The rate you get through it you must be piggin. And I remem Shift. spit ert from slinged knees at dirt nursing finger hair grips clips and downdard spurtling clink through the byre floor don’
COME BACK.
MAKE back.
Here, from those votiveless margins of past.
Await await some blousier you and know her day will come.
Weeks.
Goes on time so. Every day. Hours spent opening lanes of ways on which I might set forth. These are your oysters, boys and girls. Here are your worlds of pearls. I remember it as I sit in dust. Put on tights. Stretch on mats. Lean with hot drinks on stone steps where the throng pokes holes through shy. Her shoving up a bench Do you want a fag? Grateful, I arrange beside but wishing I was less flesh and much more air. Still, isn’t here the right place to discover: don’t wear knickers, always thongs, without a flat stomach all the world is poisoned and no serious actress will ever eat cheese. Really? Really, I mean Jesus reeeaaallly. No, I didn’t know. At least I reek of new less and less. Now at night, uncurling stretch-sore self, I conjure farther futures from the ceiling cracks – in glorious technicolor – what this pleasant present lacks. I will it, hope and dream it. Fine my life’ll be when it comes. When I am right. When I have made myself. When I have. When I
By morning I’m returned to day’s black-and-white flick – flute-throated but learning to reach first for cigarettes. If the earthbound early clogs me in those dreams I’m soon enough back at a moderner me. Inhale. Blow. Lick splits on my lips. Permit cursory gawks at where my body’s remiss. Relent a little sometimes. Recall I am here and think where can’t I go? What else might I be? Besides, on the street, while the moth-life makes its way to bed, someone waits for me. She is my friend and this is Saturday.
Damp on the footpath in my furtive skin I slant at passers-by slipping in through Kentish Town. Like me, or natives? I can’t yet tell. London’s utterness making outers of us all – though this morning, mostly, elbows to be missed.
Morning! She’s at the ticket machine, face frayed with smiles, our eyes already gossiping. What were you up to last night? Slow twirls her foot. I root out my purse, sorting coins from fluff. And clink. Ticket. Tell me? Roll of the eye Sommmeone staaayyyed oooverrr. Oh God! I die from my innocence and her thrill lack of it. How much can I ask without without. Tick. Who? No. No? Train’s in, quick! Off and through running down the steps. In the doors before they close. Pant collapse on seats. So now tell me? No names, but alright. Nipping auld nosiness I say Go on. Well he kissed her at the Fiddler’s so she took him home and then and then. Eek. Details of fuck. The trip bed and kicked glass and her, throughout, left rubbing the wine stain with her foot. And worse – the shame – next door banging the wall. Her anticipating laughter. Her thinking I know. I do laugh too and do not say. Just play normal, pouring out cod-shocked He never dids! across the stations until we’re halfway choked. Me hiding in her skitting all my basic don’t knows. Even her So. So? You? Anyone yet? No. Me? No. Sharply I revert to her prior boyfriend woes that this new fella will surely not repeat. Once hedged past my innocence I keep straight on, wringing her for minutiae like He shouts Christ! when he Stop. This one’s ours. Get out at Barbican.
Her first into the salient wind, fists of grasping hair. Me blinking the grit over the bridge and after her. Brick and towers. Lour and paint. Here’s nowhere like any life I’ve learned. Even going under, it goes on up. She saying how it’s ugly and I think not. I think it is Metropolis.
Still and so we’re here for Art. She has the tickets while I have a heart that I hope art will burn. But her shrug au fait keeps my mouth shut and I map my gait on how she walks. Blasé with the sculptures. Stooping to the glass. Paintings mostly lingered at the same amount of time. So this is how I do it too and when the crowd gets hard for art to squeeze out through I chase after. Encourage it myself. Seek to feel but think instead and wonder if that’s wrong –I’m a God’s fair innocent after all when it comes to galleries too. Toe heel to her toe heel down the rows. It’s not til she’s gone round the corner though that art inclines to quicken itself. First particles only – split seams in its side – making gateways into bodies that are not mine. Then gyring off to anarchic sublime. Then congealing to form some other eye I can’t focus into use. Sharpen sharpen sharpen, it hisses I’ll teach you how to look, then always be there to make your cupboards bare and breed you with loneliness. DON’T. Back my back to the picture. Too soon and far to see. It’s only from lying alone in this body too long, I should get someone to lie in it with me. I will. My will. Something will be done. When? Oh for God’s sake one thing at a time. She psssts me back, nudging That one’s just like his dick. I inward groan and outward snicker. Come on come on, let’s get a coffee, I’m dying for a cigarette.
So rosed we flee back to Camden, laughing on the air and pass again into where London roasts. Earthlier than its solemn-eyed Goths, livelier than its New Age Travellers too. Not cataclysmically friends but enough for now and plenty for the World’s End.
Here’s miles from other Saturdays I’ve had. Traipses to Kwik Save and Help the Aged. The market if I’m flush – McDonald’s if I’m bad. Speed line-learning running into smoking fags or dog-earing Solzhenitsyn on my bed. Landlady’s lodger cabbage tea at half past five. Making free with her telly til she’s back at nine. It’s this or upstairs manhandling the time into stretching over itself – only so many times before you get depressed. That’s the ledge too and dangerous. Gloam into staring at the net slide of lights. When the batteries go and my Walkman dies. Waiting, behind the distractible time, a little bit of pain. Just to tipple. Hardly a thing. Almost pretty pink petals cigarette burns on my skin. Bouquets exist, rosiest at the shin, contemplating though up my thigh. It’s a pull rope, for the wade of hours on my own, and matches slice for slice all diversions I know. Tonight I’ll not be at that garden though because Look at me, I’m out with a friend.
Five inch hours after and drink-ate bones, she’s collecting men who woo. Eclipsed by the gilt of her toss-hither mane I smoke myself a pool, drawing only out to dip in their flames. Yes thanks, or It’s lit! College together, she explains with a kind of liquid negligence I’d like to dab on the backs of my knees. Wheel they for her languor. Wheel I for it too and, if I were them, would easily choose her funny ha ha over my funny peculiar no real eye-opener there. Besides, my drunk eye’s once again seeing itself but swooped back from art to more clayish complaints: unflat stomach v vociferous wants. Cheer up love, might never happen, one taunts. And what if it already has? God you! she says, so I do up a smile. Hidden depths, she repairs while I cross my mind to engage more aptly with the room. Success hits on Look. Where? Some lads from our school. Oh? Oh! and – well caulked – she signals them to. Nod they, up glasses and make their way through. Ladies. Gents. Jesus, above my ears though, every thought heads to sex. If I had to choose one which one would it be? Don’t know but some galled-virgin loop in my body’s going Pick so something might get done. Pick and begin to be a person who always gets to pick. Alright then, studious, choose your best. Him. From my audition. Wrong choice. Right away. But recognising why makes it okay, even interesting, to divine for from opposite ends of the table I see she and he at a cautious elide. Oblique referring, offhand offered cigarettes. She intent with his friend but he stares at her neck. Palpable in this smoke-clod air a weft that neither can eschew. So it’s he was last night and her mouth gone tight makes all earlier piss-taking undo. She likes him and he? I don’t know. Sits in my blind spot, along with all men, I suppose. What did he take of her body? What’s he like without clothes? In on their secret but out in the cold, me and my bodiless eye.
Hop out a swear. Fuck my leg’s gone to sleep, and I start up going foot to foot. Have you to piss? No my leg is sore. Well stop it you’re making me want to go. Sorry. Fuck’s sake get off my toe. Fuck’s sake yourself. Hey leave her alone. Never mind anyway, I’m going home. No don’t go yet. No I’m wrecked. Then I will too. No you stay put. Ah look, a few of us were about to walk up so why don’t we all make tracks?
Enslithered by pints I follow her lead. Sweet Ta ra! to the courtiers who do not leave. Then out in the mangling crowds on the street we make our clump move through. Four or six. I take their steer. Completed evening for me but not for her. More modest in her drunkness too with him here. Is that true? I wonder why? Seems with drink even pulling off panels of self, I can’t escape the audience of one I make, so resign to my private view of their fun. Them still playing it friend-like. Still not touching. For why? If I had. If someone. Shut up, you’re just much more drunk and can’t carry it off like they do. At her gate I surrender. Night and kiss. What a nice day, did you enjoy it? Yes. He’s just coming up so I can lend. Of course. Then they’re off upstairs to her fully fledged bower while I and the remaining other turn ourselves to Kentish Town.
Shall I walk you home? No thanks I’m grand. You’ve had a few. So have you. And? And? Don’t get jippy come on let’s walk. First of the autumn. What are you on about? Really the chill, don’t you think? I think you are really drunk. Well aren’t you such a gent to say. I think you are really drunk, m’lady. That’s more like it. True. Stocious so, but friendly, turn we up Anglers Lane. Shop glass by my face making farce of my brain. Some boozed Alice going in through panes while he’s at theatre chat chat chat. Oh! What a lovely not to be, just between ourselves like a birthday party. Crutch-kneed, stick-kneed. This way and yon. My eyes curbing upstream to well beyond the balance of body. Far as stars I see and let the world go sway. Whoa there now, don’t bash your head. Wisha the night and wish this way of floundering could be every day. Is this your road? Yes. Hand on my waist. Gate grate. Handbag. Keys in my door. Somewhere gauging he’s no worse than any other and all my nets go Twitch. Dividing the space. Dividing again. Do you want to come in? Thanks but not this time. I turn my eye back to sky. It stands me in good stead. Some other time maybe? he. No, I say Sure my landlady would kill me anyway I’m just too drunk to be thinking straight thanks for walking me home. No problem. Night. Intacta. He’s off down the street. Were and am intacta yet. No problem. Don’t panic. Intacta to bed. It’ll be fine. It’s not like men can see.
It’s not like Sunday yet either and. Sunday is not worth the price.
*
Monday. Is every eye knowing? Hers, even in fun? Everyone now appraised of the edges I cannot make to round? Worst he says Are you alright? and How fucking drunk were you Saturday night? Lying by the sin of my teeth I’m fine, and Sorry, I’d forgotten to eat. No worries, you were hilarious, totally out of it, he says. And so I wish that he was dead. And I wish that I was dead but neither of these deep wishes come to be, or are true.
Pick a scene for two. Twentieth century’s best. Two scenes per class so fifteen minutes max. Put a list on the board. We’ll start in two weeks so you’ve no excuse for showing up unprepared.
She nods. I do. Any ideas? No. Will I ask my Him about it? Your who? You know – scutter us then down to the toilets for such squeals as required by a lovebit neck. God he’s lovely and a Third Year too so he knows what’s what and he didn’t go home until this morning, imagine, I can hardly stand up! Lipstick on the tile and the wall above and Hussy! I know but oh I’m in love and I think he might be The One. Purple bang of left right in my chest. Good for the gossip but bad for the friendship. Now weekends’ll be for giddy-up on her bed while I. Ah fuck. Ah so.
In the week though.
I smell the coffee, the gravy granule, always is to me. See it in its thick white cup, stub and quick to disappoint, a pleasure surely for only grown-ups? Ah. Concentrate everyone please. Make its hot spread in my hand – tolerates thumb, intolerant palm – disdaining to demonstrate like others around who prick fingers and tssst tongue to teeth. Instead I bear – as I would in life, and maybe private too. Good you’re not faking but feel its weight. Don’t fake weigh so. No. See myself sat on her floor, cup in my hand, hoping my Drop of milk? didn’t offend. Feeling it sag in its burn while I wait – careful now – mind her carpet. Her back from the kitchen saying Sorry it’s finished, and the whole roasting load to down. Its smell in my face. Crick in my neck. What would I not do to please my new friend so. Raise it to your mouth. I suffer it up and. Don’t pretend to choke, that’s the worst hamming up. True too, for I swallowed it really. Alright folks, let’s call it a day.
And for some weeks.
I play a game of walk, up Lady Margaret Road. Still inside, when the eyes reach focus. Here garden walls. Here starker trees. Adhering to my footfall but inured to the leaves and the rattle-tattle skip-up they suggest. It is forward and only. Nothing else. Thigh to ankle making tread in the light night, or the early day, no more in my body beyond its moving me. To have slipped it, purely. To go up so high. Witness all these windows from which I hide in my red coat. In my black boots. These are worth the going through of sirens and of rain. They torture me with comfort in these weekends on my own; spewing sheen on the matt of this longed-for life that’s becoming lived alone. Why am I. Why am I not. Where’s even the way to could? I’m not lost. Or not lost much. Lonely. It is that and I don’t know what to do.
So I move. Cars move. And it’s almost life. City operating on my mind. Here’s to be, even if not quite right. But not long before the fun begins.
Ninety I it, the afternoon we’re set to rehearse. Necessity prising her Saturday to, for we’ve lines to learn but. He’s moving flat too so. Come in and on to the neat peace of her room that soon dwindles to laze on her floor. Scripts and buns. Coffee. Tea. Lullish the sun through a scant cherry tree threading meek in and out of the blow. Her though, finickity. Is something wrong? We had a fight, he stormed off. What happened? Who knows? Some fucking man stuff. All I said was Should I expect you back this evening? Sounds reasonable. Well, so you’d think, but the next minute he’s shouting You don’t own me and slamming the door and. Fuck him, I say shit. Pause she, then Sally Bowles Yeah I already did! And I spit laugh. Cross-eyed, she adds, cross-eyed herself. Oh Jesus you’re terrible. Well that’s not what he said! Then I’m into the kink and she falls in too. What a fuck-up. Which? Him or you? Both! Ah don’t worry, he’ll be back in the end. Probably something mournful between his legs, it’s just, you know, don’t be a dick. Or at least not until dick’s appropriate. That’s it! And laughing to the guts, floor, we stretch endly out. Cherry shadowing the ceiling, bowstrung then upright. I wish I could be more like you, she says You’re so independent, especially about men. I let the nice lie slip settle against and wonder how I might make it fit? Or is it possible to say I don’t work properly, without giving away anything else? Instead I sigh I don’t know, I wouldn’t mind more sex. She crack claps Well then, so you should! Let’s get Piss Off by Chekhov done and dusted, then I’ll do your make-up and we’ll go for a dance down the Palace, what d’you think? That maybe your frilly valance put him off? Oh shut up, that’s my mother, are you up for it? Alright, but these Beats first though? Yes. Hurray!
Drink time. She makes me. Curls my hair. Mascaras and sticks me but does say Nice dress while I smoke and feign how much I don’t care that she thinks I could do with the help. It is us though, and exciting, setting off for Camden Town, clipping quick into the buzz around. We being young here and so we can. And fuck him for not calling. And who knows I. I might. But won’t. But still. It’s a tad early for the Palace now, let’s stop here for a drink.
Old boy I’d say and awful Irish. Royal College Street. Space though and I’m not mad for the heave. She goes to the bar. I get us a seat. Marlboro Lights and lagers and we with some gossip. Not much of it kind. And after only one she’s fidgeting over maybe she should call because, you know, perhaps he has and. Don’t you dare, just wait him out. I’ll get us another then we’ll set off down. Weeeelllll, she reluctants Okay.
Squeeze at the bar thinking Don’t let her call, give me the night out. Drum my fingers. And stop, so the barmaid won’t think it’s at her. Hurry up but. Then she does and I order and see, any moment, that cigarette will spill. On my hand too – if its smoker isn’t careful – and that blink minute, very second, it does. Ow! I Ow! though really not hurt and its owner goes Shit! Are you alright? long fingers flick dusting ash into my coat while I – circumstantially too close – blush Fine. I didn’t burn you? No. Good sorry about that – and book indicating – Bit too engrossed. Ah you really shouldn’t do that, you know. What, read? Fold it back, it’ll break the spine. It was broke when I bought it, but he straightens it out and I go The Devils? That’s right, just at the end. The confession? You know it? ‘I killed God’. Impressive. Why? No reason, you just don’t look the kind. Oh? Boobs too big? Hair too blonde? Jesus! his eyes wide and laughing Not at all, I only meant that you look kind of young. What does that mean? muttering a fuck at the puce I’ve gone. Nothing, I just thought all the kids were into lightness and being, I apologise, I didn’t mean to offend. Well I’ve read that too and. Want a cigarette? No I should get this back to my friend and. I’m going to finish off these last few pages, he says But after that, as reparation, can I buy you a drink? I doubt we’ll still be here. But if you are? Well we’ll see. Then we’ll see, he smiles into his Penguin Dostoyevsky and I mortify my way back to her.
Oh my fucking God! she Oh my God what was that? Don’t just don’t you won’t believe what I said Oh God I wish I was dead. She just kicks at me Tell? And friends are made this way so I spin it out, laced with plenty Don’t stare’s. Well he could buy me a drink, she smirks at the end He’s older too which equals good in. Stop that, besides which, he’s probably already forgot and even if he hasn’t anyway what about your fella? She nips up the bait and off we go, me careful ducking his eyeline until Hey Dostoyevsky girl? Same again? I ahhh yes. He points to her You as well? She shakes her head, I have to make a call. Don’t, I Please? Begging ignored and the scruffy Devils stuffed into his pocket. It’ll be all wrecked now, I think.
It’ll be all wrecked now, I say. Library school is it? he asks. Drama school actually. Which one? Does it matter? It might. How come? I’m an actor. Oh. He long-angle lights a cigarette Are you always this bad-tempered? And my cheeks go shame So then what would I have seen you in? Now, now, you should never ask an actor that, he says. Why, in case you’ve mostly been ‘resting’? Exactly. And have you? No, I’ve not. So what’s the last thing you did? This month I started work on a script. That’s not. Sorry to interrupt, but can I get my coat? No! Eye beg her as he sits forward to let. She tugs it up and while buttoning, merciless mouths Good luck! then gives the goading eyes Come round tomorrow alright? Alright. Left bereft so, I watch her now going going gone.
Irksome slowly, I turn back. Don’t worry, he says You’ll be alright, canines showing in his English smile. Eyes a little tired but features fine. God, to be a parrier not I know I, being all I can get through my lips. Him, tapping his own, takes pity I think, long legs eased out asking When did you read it? The Devils? Yes. Two years ago, three. Did you like it? I did. Why? Stavrogin. The child-molesting nihilist? He’s not a nihilist, really. Smoke sheets from his mouth I’d say the child-molesting is the more concerning part. At least he acknowledges what he did wrong. What does that matter, once the irreparable’s done? But he’s sorry. Even if he is, so what? Forgiveness. He’s not entitled to that. Why? Because the child’s still dead. He didn’t kill her. He nods his head But there are more ways than literally to make someone die. So then just waste another life? That life’s already wasted. Is it? Isn’t it? he says. Well he did something that he regrets and isn’t needing forgiveness common to all of us? That’s just being alive then being dead. Don’t be cynical, I say What about hope then? Or love? And have you ever been in love? Not yet but I will. Faith indeed, he smiles. So what about you? I pin him. Have I been in love? No, what do you believe in? The lifelong struggle to remain indifferent. That sounds sort of sad. Oh you think so? I nod. Just wait until you’re my age, he sighs. Don’t you patronise me, I say. Then don’t patronise me, he replies. Silent us. I bite my lip. Oi mate! somewhere at a barman, and hot to the gills. This my worst by far and You know, he says, through his cigarette You’re the only girl I’ve ever said that to and still wanted to keep chatting up. Are you chatting me up? I thought I might how’s it going so far? It’s going alright. So if I go and get us another pint you’ll still be here when I get back?
Turn turn the blood in my cheek. Eyes accumulate his universe, whatever he is. I daren’t even guess at the cut he must see – unshaved leg and old bra on – while he’s half a head up on the pub’s other men and. What you thinking about? he asks, sitting again. Nothing and don’t look at him strange are you from London? Up North, can’t you tell? I don’t know English accents well. Have you travelled much anywhere else? And I steal into her, what would she be? More than clay. Go on. It’s only this evening, sure when will you see him again? Weirdly, more exotic places, I say. Naples, interrailing, boats stretched out in the bay. Age eight, with my father, foothills of the Himalayas. A friend’s parents’ house in Crete. Thailand, me and a boyfriend sneaked. Got caught and killed but. Was it worth it? Yes for the sky burning in the night. And these lies like me, tear out of me, ring almost as fact. And they’re pristine copies of someone’s truth, I’m fastidious about that. But he listens like I’d never lie and seems amused enough I cast shyness aside. Praises a boldness he doubts he’d have managed then charms away for more. And at some point I know if he asked, I would. What? he says. What? I say. What’s that look? Don’t be paranoid, nothing. He holds his hands up. I go red and so we carry on.
To flickering lights. Shouts of Time! How was the chatting-up in the end? Pretty good, well done. Thanks, he smiles Good enough to warrant taking me home? Here it is then. Here I am. Oh God I would but I’m up in Kentish Town in this bedsit and my landlady. Oh right, never mind. Sorry I’m sorry. Don’t worry, it’s fine. No it’s the truth, it’s not that I wouldn’t like to and I. Okay, so come back to mine? Oh, I Nearby is it? ask, like distance is the thing. Yeah, five minutes up the road. I feign indecision but he is so easy in the wait, like he already knows. Alright, I say. Alright then, he says Come on, get your coat.
In the metal clang night talking films we walk. Fish my hand near his but he only smokes. Maybe he’s a murderer? Fuck’s sake. He’s a fuck and, look at him, he’s probably done this lots. But oh my body opts out and in. Flesh scraping fear against the Do of my brain. So slice my fingertips on every railing to keep by him up the Camden Road.
See not far, he says brushing round the hedge Just along, number five, with the broken gate. God! this is your house? I gasp. Floors high and white. Not mine, he laughs Where I rent a bedsit, up there, first floor. Have you lived here long? He mulls his keys Ten years, give or take. So since I was seven or eight. Jesus, don’t tell me you’re as young as that? Why? He shakes his head Never mind, then thumbs his fag end back down the cracked wild path.
No hall lights, sorry, follow me. I follow up the stairs. Silver key and Let me turn on a light first, just wait there. So I lull in a dark ocean of motely air as the traffic beyond here calms. Motorbike and lorry alike hold all I know about tonight. To do and then to be. Click and glow and It’s a mess but you might as well come in, he says. Choose him. Choose this, and now.
Higher but smaller than Jesus what a state! Hence the suggestion of your place first – him down at the fake fire striking the gas – I wasn’t expecting to bring anyone home. Sink in the corner. Bay window jammed with desk. Books going topple. I pick by old letters, ash saucers, scripts, half-filled mugs. Give me your coat. His single bed. Dumped on the armchair where I could’ve myself but. Politeness is polite. I’ll just clear these plates. Goodbye dried mince. May the kissing go better for the Pinter beneath it. Will it? Orange peel on Valle-Inclán. What might have been a plaster on Howard Brenton stop it stopit. So Let Love In? What? Do you like Nick Cave? I don’t know, I say. Well let’s find out. Dum. Devils tossed and his long coat slung. And I see it then, quiet tense in his mouth, how now’s getting past time for more. Come here. But the nerves make a faff of my own Actually it’s not that bad a room how much is it a month? About two hundred. That’s pretty good but the way you treat your books. Bollocks to the books, he says touching my face. It is the first time we have and I go quick to the thrillpleasuredread. Terrible mouth though, keeps on saying Is it annoying always having to bend to kiss unless she’s as tall as you which I’m obviously not and. He is so tall he must bend a lot. But he does, saying No, then kissing me.
Fright I. He holds to. The make of his lip, turning into my own, turn until I kiss back. I think he is smiling but means it the same. Kisses to bit breaths and touch of his tongue making fast me, does he notice? Doesn’t say or doesn’t care. Just amuses his mouth and flips all my blood over. So here’s how grown men kiss and this one knows how. I know it’s a fine kiss but gird for what follows as, in the depths of his curtain, some dying fly sings. Hear it go against the glass and. Put your bag down, he says stripping it, tossing it, kissing again. Gone fuck to forbearance. Mouth on my neck. Then deep with mine. Open. Working out something else like under his worn shirt his whole body is. And his skin is so live and likes being touched – even my barest morsel of palm on his stomach. My skin shifting too, if not quite there, scares to his search for a zip on my dress. There isn’t one either, he gets that quick. Instead ups the dress, up my thighs, past my tights. Up my back. Arms up, he says, pulling it off and I am I’m. Getting bare. Bra. My old bra, the red marks it makes and. Oh God I am blood thud at the hand on my breast. Beg off the moment he might want to look. Undoes his shirt though. Thanks reprieve. Shrugs it off and swings far with kissing. Lovely. But getting precise with his hands. My grey straps simple tugged down. Then where he slides one of mine so I Jesus! I eyes wide. This isn’t a game. This is already well underway. And I’d like to look at his body but he doesn’t know that and I am miles too shy to ask, for now the kissing’s more biting. Now it’s Show me your breasts, and the bra’s off like Voilà! He steps back. I fold up. Too late for modesty, he laughs, yanking my wrist. I can’t though. Just clench in. He tries again. I double over. Hey, is something wrong? I don’t reply. Are you sick? Shake my head. Have I hurt you somehow? No I, eyes pricking wet. His voice turning anxious What’s just happened? What’s wrong? And I know I must any minute NOW say I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m shy.
Silence in the courtyard. Silence in the street. His low laugh. Don’t laugh. Well don’t be shy with me! Jokes won’t go for now though, not with ignominy to the eyes. I’m not laughing at you, sorry, he solemnifies, then hides me with his body. Touches my hair. Whispers You don’t have to be shy with me, pulling up his duvet. But Oh my God, I just Oh God, exhale. Ah now Ireland too much shame. And he covers as much of me as I’ll let. You know, we don’t have to if you don’t want, right? I do want I really do it’s just Alright then, he says Let me have a think. So the fly and Nick Cave get their wicked way as he ponders my state, and I cringe.
Okay, he rouses Here’s the plan: I strip off while you look on. One good gawp at my skinny white hide should cure all that shy, don’t you think? Hot-faced I imagine what I might see, and he gets smile-narrow eyes Alright, sit. So I do, clamped in duvet. Now look up at me, he says That’s all you have to do. I force my eyes up, though not to his. To his slim shoulders. His pale chest. The curve of his arm and strings of veins. Ribs showing a little through. Darker hair on his stomach than his head. More? I nod. Trousers pushed down long legs. Thin, not skinny. Sorry really old pants, and he flaps at his shorts Still with me? Yes. Excellent, because this next bit’s the best! And he inches the waistband to his pubic hair. Fuck go my guts and squirl. He bends. I. Oh. Rips a sock off instead. Ah ha! Caught in the act! he says What a filthy mind! No I just. Then he just takes them down and
I’ve never seen a whole naked man.
Bits only, in isolation
but
that’s not the same and
Here you go, he says doing a turn and
the thrill of him goes right down my leg.
Stop catching flies, he says, then – air-hostessing himself – Time for the guided tour. Head with own hair. Face. Neck. Collarbone, once broken. Shoulder dislocated – painful that. Chest. Left arm broken. Right, intact. A few fucked fingers. Ribs cracked, three. Stomach. Legs. Left foot fractured. Jesus, what happened you? I fell off a roof. Ow! I say. Ow is right but it was a long time ago. And this – presented in finger and thumb – is my penis, at half-mast now but I can promise better later on, circumcised too, for your delight. Are you Jewish? No it was too tight or something when I was young. Why ‘for my delight’? Women like that sort of thing, he says Or so I’ve heard. And I don’t know if it’s planned but all his chat feeds time to familiarise. So, feeling less shy or more sure I’m a freak? as he hunkers down in front. Both! Well no pleasing some people, then he leans in and kisses me again. Soft this time. Like coax with his tongue. Persuading though that what he wants, I want. Implicating me in first incursions to my breasts. Then in his suggestion I open the duvet to let his mouth touch as well. And I do, just enough to admit him in and for me, not him, to see. Plenty though for me to. Fuck. Neck clicking back at the little of his teeth and I must red nod when he asks Nice? It is. Good! Now how about the knickers and tights? And my fingers unprise from the cliff.
First – Duvet from between my knees.
Second – Mid kiss, his proposed I’d like if you touched me.
Third – My quick Oh! That’s big! Great news, he laughs But it’s about average, mind if I touch yours?
Fourth – So if I let him?
Fifth – Enjoying that?
Sixth – Yes a lot
Seventh – Then you know what’s next. No! I’m not taking this duvet off! Come on, sex through a sheet, maybe, but a duvet? Anatomically no way and besides, it’s freezing out here.
Eighth finger – Fucking hell, you came here for this.
Ninth – His thumb runs the length of my face. Listen, I think I know what the answer is but is this your first time? Oh God! I look away. Don’t worry, he says We all have one. Why don’t you lie back?
Tenth – And let’s just get it done.
So here we are. Here I am. Naked, in bed with a naked man. Under his body. Matching his kiss. Tangled legs. Parted lips and daring myself to the furthest furthest til What are you doing? Going down on you. No! No! I’m not doing that! Well, technically you wouldn’t be, I would. No. Come on, you’ll like it. I would not! Just try me, I’ve been told I’m pretty good. Thanks, I say I’ll do without. Might help, he says. How? With the getting wet. Oh Jesus – I sit bolt up, crucified – That’s it! I’m going home. Don’t go, he says, plying me back. No, this is a disaster. Don’t say that, I’m actually having a weirdly good time. Really? Really and if you don’t want to that’s fine I’ll just do something else. Like what? Well you’ll have to stay and see.
So tempted enough and shame defied, I let him elaborate where he’s allowed. And he gets me as ready as anyone might, almost to wishing he would. If this game’s touch he knows it well and where to find what of me understands. Getting breath getting quick against his mouth. Sync timing hip til I’m gripping his side. God I could really be inside you now, ready to have a go? And his fingers and going and Alright, yes. That’s the spirit, I’ll just get a thing, he says, patting a hand about under the bed. Finds. Rips and rolls it down on himself. Oh God it’s really now isn’t it? And he’s so ready it’s true. You know this might hurt a bit? I know. Just say if it’s too much. My eyes go open at this, to his. Close up I think they’re grey. Flecked with concentrating on mine as he finds to the place. Little spit on his fingers – Just in case. Kissing then sloping me, shifting his weight Ready? Yes. And he. Jesus Christ! No don’t pull away. It hurts. I know but it’s not quite in yet. I can’t. You can, just let me, he says It’ll never be as bad again. How do you fucking know? Educated guess. Then Oh fuck, he goes That’s it. And he is all against me. And he is inside. Attempting to kiss through a pain running wild from his body far into mine. I bite my own lip and stare above. Ceiling swirls there. Cracks. Worlds beyond the pain not improving. Now. Or now. Or yet. I wish I hadn’t. I’d never done this. I wish he didn’t know. Oh God. Hey, look at me, he says. I don’t. I’m being gentle as I can, do you want me to stop? No. He tries to kiss again but I won’t. Come on, don’t make it like I’m here on my own. Humiliation immaculata though sprouts its own tongue. Just get yourself off, isn’t that what you want? Don’t be like that, he says Do you want me to stop? Just stop fucking talking and come and be done. The look in his eye then, what does that mean? Fine, he says – voice all turned down – What the fuck is it to me? And he does it then. Jesus. And again. And again. Until I cry but now he’s not asking how I am. Just fucks like I said. His breath showing work and some gratification at what he does, in and to me but only for himself. I can’t tell how long until – so far in – the gritting and fucking starts becoming every sex sound I’ve ever heard, all at once in my ear, while his body works through every single thing it wants. And mine, in his best moment, silent, accepts the mess it’s made.
There you go, he says breathing hard and, quicker than I expect, pulls himself out. Straight off the bed and condom. Snap. Tossed at the bin. Bit of blood there, he says showing a streak on his palm. Then, all lank impassive, lifts an old bathrobe and goes on out the door.
I lie in the pain. Climb his cities of books. Hand between my legs. The wet, true, blood. So that’s done and something wrecked, what should I do next?
Where’s your toilet? I ask. End of the hall. Here take this, and he slips the robe off You never know who you’ll meet down there. No looking at me either, just for his underwear, and not finding, takes his trousers instead. And the toilet roll, you better take that too.
Murderous landing. TV lights on the floor. Go in. Hover. Piss and blood in the dark and wish I’d never have to face him again. Clothes though. Bag and girl aren’t you a woman – sore woman – now? But still.
I knock. Just come in. He is cigarette lit. Tap in a kettle. I couldn’t find the sink. No there isn’t one, use this, let me get out of your way. Strangers were and strangers again. He’s only over there but we are back in his wild room and I am vanished punished. My blood on his bed that he kicks the duvet over before making tea. Wash my face. I’d like to more but not so near. Redd out my knickers with the tights rolled in. Quick unpick and put them on. Bra. Dress. Thanks for the dressing gown. No problem, sugar? Actually, I’m going to head. And this the what turns him Do you know your way back? Sort of, I’ll find it. No I’ll walk you it’s late. You don’t need to. It’s not a big deal, I’ll get dressed. No, no, I Irish insist. Fuck’s sake, he says It’s after one and this is Saturday night in Camden. I’m not leaving you to wander about on your own, have the tea then we’ll go. And calm again as quick as he wasn’t but has kicked all the spit from my row. Alright. So clear off those books and sit, sugar? Please. Milk? Yes. Strindberg hits the floor and me his chair. He passes the tea, sits on the bed, lights then offers a cigarette and stares at the smoke between. All in the air though, new music What’s that? Schoenberg, he says Transfigured Night. Are you taking the piss? Certainly not, he laughs. But laughs. It’s beautiful, I say. Yeah I think it is, I often play it here when I’m by myself. So sit we. Separate. Years apart while the night turns itself, in his forty watt, into waste and into past. I tip tongue to questions but he is closed eyes and I know what I did. Here’s the room though, where done though. Remember everything. And I do not expect his Just stay – at the end – It’s so late you might as well. Hmm in my manners, and really still for a flee but it’s knackeredness overrules any thoughts of my blood on his sheet. Alright, I say. Standing up and lamp off.
He at the wall. I the edge. Back to. Sheet damp. Far light bleeds on the litter floor alongside. Gas bud glow. How long until he sleeps I wonder? And if he wonders that about me too? Him that done – stranger of a man who perfectly knows I have failed the perfect game. Where was stoicism? That much I’d relied upon but had not, in the end. Useless you are useless. Sting the eye and fill it up. He shifts. Don’t notice. Please not that. Then I abandon my eyes to keep heaves from my back. I almost hear his eyes scanning above. It’s alright, he says touching my arm. Adds no more or else to that, for which I am grateful, as soon after for his gentle snore.
Sometimes this night I sleep as well. Sometimes contrast my Was that usual? with I’m only the latest after all and maybe next time? Shut up. I’d turn but can’t because he lies there and how deep is his deep? So hours rise heeding curtains and the roustabout street below. Heels clacking, laughing You tight cunt! So if I am? I’m still waiting. Well you’ll wait a long time! Shrieking now, then laughing until wee wee all the way home. And sirens belting to, or speeding fro, like London’s alive in another time of its own. On towards five, banging at his door. Next one mate, he shouts until they go. Fucking Saturdays, he says back asleep before the weed smells or bottles bash in the street. But all this cheers me, picks me up. Slips me to my new world. If sleep would only come and against me, the long thin man. Alive. A-sleeping. In. And I drift in under where
She walks the tongue of the world, narrow as a road.
Far below where earth is and where fire goes.
Unrippled now.
Weeds.
Dry and frei.
But the weight of.
Banished poor famished eyes
lake music
Fuck!
Morning.
Fuck! he wakes like a scare. What? Sorry, I forgot you were there. And I lie by him. Shy by him. Sorry, he repeats but ingentle, unpersonal, prying himself cock from bottom, toe from sole. Sweat where he’s laid against me although the room burns cold. Christ I ache, he yawns This bed’s too fucking small for one never mind about two. Can I use your toilet? I ask. Yeah, you know the drill.
He is lovely indifferent when I come in. Leant on his desk. Steam and smoke wreathing. Cigarette? No thanks. Tea there, hot mind. Thanks. Sit and slurp. Are you alright? Fine. No, I meant after last night? Fine, I maintain for what can he want? Bulletins on bruising or how there’s still blood? I just, he says God I’m wrecked. Yawns it. Shears it. Bye to the night. I stare at his Chekhov but can’t help asking Who’s that? Who? The photo on your desk. That’s m my daughter. Oh, I say Are you married then? Does it look like I’m married? he laughs, offering the room. No but were you? No, what’s the time? Half eight. Shit! I’ve a meeting in town sorry to rush you but. Don’t worry I’ll just get dressed. He picks up the towel I used last night then makes on out the door. And I steal a look at his daughter up close. Like him I think. Eyes and mouth. Three? Four? Who knows how old children are? Sneak a drag on his fag. No. Get dressed before he’s back and you’ll be. shy. So to the end. Clothes again. Uncover his underpants but it was last night he looked for them. No matter. Old fag smoke against the new, I race my clothes back on.
Do you need the sink? No. Then I’ll have a shave. Dripping hair. Towel round his waist reaching for his fag in such one-track haste I’m an emptiness fastening her shoes. Button my coat. He lathers up. Well, good luck with your audition. Just a meeting – to the glass – But thanks and also for last night. You’re welcome, I say. He smiles to my reflection then starts to shave. And I wish that I was someone else, a girl with words behind her face, not this one done up like a stone in herself. You won’t see him ever again. Fuck it, this, and all anyway. Before I can’t, I go wrap my arms round his waist and say, nose into his damp shoulder blades Thank you for not being a bastard last night for being kind to me. Silence. He and. I. Have I bad chanced? Peek round his shoulder but in the mirror his eyes take up mine, most surprised. Gentle of day forgetting the night. That’s alright, he says, touching my fingers to his mouth Thank you for choosing me. Then, self-disgust over-running my everything else, I grab my bag and leave.
Into the world from out of his room I blink in the light of day. Will I look back at his window? No. That’s done. If I turned around even the house might be gone. Let his soap kiss devolve into scum on my hand. Relinquish. Extinct it. Go. Hedge again. Road. Schools and railings. Train up on a rail bridge ahead. Cheap second-hand fridges lining the path. That turn’s where we were. My turn is right – so I would have found my way back, mid kebab salad gossamering to puke. Sun of the morning. London day. The banjaxed exhuming themselves from doorways. Buses and music. Spivs and Goths. New Age Travellers and leather coats and too-tight jeans and diamond whites. Everywhere heaves of fighting in the streets. This is the finest city I think and, no matter how awkward or bloodily, I am in it now too.
I go straight to hers. Good morning. Good night? Come in come in, we’re just woken up. Into her room and her fella stretched out asking So did you shag him or what? She Tea? and Sit! indicating the bed. I plomp back, maybe on his legs, and tell my tale. Well not all. Well some. Well anyway the bit about sleeping with him. She going I knew it! Him going Fuck! You do know who he is, right? And I don’t, but he does, so rings him in. Theatre mostly. The occasional film until that one last year had everyone raving! Now he’s the dog’s bollocks. Oh, is he? Yes! God you’re such a div! Then follows various smart-aleckings before tinkering for truths. What was he like in bed? What did he do? These I proffer as Transfigured Night, The Devils and filthy dishevel of bedsit. Incredulous they but sniff my palm for his soap. And I can still smell him on me under my clothes. Seeing him again? Probably not, no. Why? she says. I chuck forth an embroider and love my shape in its light: Why ruin a perfect night? Bravo! he bravo’s offering his joint which I slide down with, saying This is the life. Knowing that Yes it is.
Do you have to use my hot water up? I have to wash. Every day? Too much lady, too much. Get a shower, I think but keep to myself and wash my expedition away. Fare thee well purple foothills of sex. I clean a man off my body. I clean a man off my face. Lick from breasts. Spit between legs. The sweat and. Where mouths. Thigh dry blood what’s he. What? What is he doing now?
Up Lady Margaret Road in the wintering air. The trees and distance and closeness, the same. Evening, to you, town. Evening, to me. A little light think amid bus staunched breeze and he’s really only streets away. Somewhere over maybe there. Did he wash his sheets? Is he with someone else? Or his daughter? How he smoked his cigarettes. Three or four draws down to the tip, is that a telling thing? Back in my room I practise it. And smoke far on into the dark, until dawn goes white over Kentish Town Road, the Assembly House, the Forum and beyond to? Don’t know. All London then, I suppose.
We are rat tat pull and snigger. We are drinks and draggeldy home. I am chips and she’s pickled egg. Always for the tale and tale again. And it gets heavy with the lies I make but I like them. She does too. Thrown on the bed type three times come. Interlocked fingers or wrists held down. Why she doesn’t notice the new every time is beyond me. But I lie well. But not inside. That, unhitched, goes flail about. Wheedles its sticks into You let me down. Sorry, Mind says to Flesh. No matter no matter, get over – though Camden stays shoulder checked. Revoke that memory. Forget the face. Just be in on the joke. Part of the tease. These are not things barred to me any more. These are me as well. And the. But the. Fleadh wears down. Knees from kneeling. The time on my own, until my once becomes like not at all. This the lamest fun of lonely that she can drip feed to her Him. So the cigarette gets to like the leg. The arm wonders what it should do with itself. Nicks with a razor but then gets a band-aid for for fuck’s sake what are you at?
*
River run running to a northern sea. Thames. Needle skin brisk and the eyefuls of concrete. Lead by the. Strip for the. National Theatre. Go on. Get a ticket. Go in.
Here the vault and not Hawk’s Well. Smacks of the hell-less or at least of the sensible. I’d be. What I’d be. Is this the Olivier? Yeah, on upstairs for you. Through and oh to its canyon. I never saw so many chairs. On beyond uncurtained stage – You may take and have me, please. But Saturday matinee. Sole in my row. Where is everyone else?
In the dark comes spiders out of art and first I’m sleuthed away. Measuring up the vying worlds. Meandering into the emphasised words but under neat speeches are oceanous platitudes and so I slide and slide. Up. Don’t sleep. Don’t. You do not. Settle my head back on my neck but the veining of boring expands and contracts until I’m left to myself. And soon I’m judging a hupped toupee. Then predicting a spit trajectory. Right down, I’d say, to that redhead asleep. Too far from here though. Over there would be Over there ov is it? With black specs on? Really? such a dead cert knit, and for London. Him. Of course it is.
And the air makes whistles.
And my brain makes hay.
Guts to gorge. Look at him. Be sure? It is. oh god. But if I sit still. Live for the stage. Focus on the actors and glorious fake and. Look again is he looking at me? Read at the programme.
Then he definitely isn’t.
Then it’s the interval.
Look again. He gets up pray for poise. More as he excuses himself across. Yet more at my aisle. Please poise at my step. Hello, I thought it was you, he says and I remember and I remember and make some word like Hi. Enjoying it? Yes I. Really? he says I thought I saw you nodding off? I wasn’t it’s just my first time I mean you know I was looking around. He solemn nods but somewhere smiles So how have you been? I scaldcheek Fine and you? Fine, he says Coming out for a smoke? an unlit in his fingers. No, I No thanks, and go at reading biogs. like War and Peace. He loiters further but I am shame sealed. Well, I’ll leave you to it, he says Nice to see you again. You too, I say and don’t look up. Do not watch him climb the steps. Nor think at all Why were you rude? Only Bladder, why have you forsaken me now? Just wait til he’s gone, then go.
Right, stick on that nonchalant smile don’t buy an ice cream like a child and get what urbane I possess into line as I go back in. But at the bottom of the steps he’s all chat to some girl. Close and smiling. She giving laughs. Him too, or thoughtful, pushing his hair back. Gets kissed on the mouth too at the bell, and offered permutations of See you soon then, before he heads back to his row. And so what of it? What do I care? I am here for the Art.
And the dark swims over. And the play winds on.
In twenty minutes, he’s up again. Maybe leaving? Should I wave? No. Oh here. He crosses aisles instead, comes up to my row then drops in the seat beside. You pissed off with me? he asks, leaning his long self in. No, why would I be? Don’t know, that’s why I’m asking. Well I’m not, and glare at the stage. I had a good time the other night, he says I know it got a bit weird at the end but Don’t, I say Just don’t. Alright, with his eyes wandering down my face So let’s go. What? Let’s go, this show is shit and it’s not going to improve. It isn’t. It is, you liar, he says Come on, then gets up and leaves and I, for only trouble it seems, get up and go as well.
On the stairs down he says The designer’s a mate so I have to say a quick hello backstage but I won’t be long. Won’t he be offended you left? No, I made the effort, besides he said it was bad.
Bang out. Sky gone to winter but still fanfares of sun. I’ll just have a look at the books while you’re gone. Don’t wander off, he says. I shrug. No, I’ll be five minutes that’s all I mean it, don’t go home. But I turn on my heel. Into the book stalls and the so many books. What is he after? What am I up to? I think it’s called adventuring. So shuffle on in with the shufflers then lose myself in spines.
And tick on the moment he reappears where I pretend not to see. His friend as tall as, not as thin, dark-skinned, older, earnestly discussing, the pair of them. His fingers negotiating something imaginary but stops with a loud Yeah, anyway. Then he looks up for me into the end of the sun. Pick me. There she is, over there so til next weekend. There’s a form of an arms round and his friend laugh calls to me Watch yourself with this one, sheep in wolf’s clothing my dear! Terrible English! he shouts, walking backwards from him After all these years, you should be ashamed! then turning around warns Ignore him! with the concrete halving under his feet.
Anything good? he asks. Lots, I say. So what do you want to do? What? You’re the one who wanted to leave, what do you want to do? He hmms at the river, casts about Okay ever walked across the Hungerford bridge to Embankment? Not yet. Then I’ll show you my favourite view of London, he says as we go into the weeding dark. Where’s your friend from? Algeria, and France. Do you know him from work? That, and he was with my oldest friend. Not any more? No he died. What happened? Cancer, he lights up Pancreas. Like my father. Really? When was that? He died when I was eight. Horrible thing to see, he says and I nod because it is.
Up to the walkway under hulkish sky. Breeze licked and nerves cracking fissures inside as he points out Big Ben. Parliament there – look through the grating. At halfway he says Here’s London spread out for you. In the murk cold Thames still curling away. Lights just beginning across the city. All the stone world of it. Its stone face. Showing its towers and flanks and shapes, purplish in this light, and grey. And I stand, strick, by its great space, watching the boats til St Paul’s there, he says the Oxo Tower. Barbican. Pointing out places I cannot see, then can, because he stands behind Look along my arm. No there. No. There. Do you see? When I still don’t, he bends to see it how I see and I see all of it then. This is the most beautiful view I’ve ever seen, I say. Really? Better than Naples with those boats stretched out across the bay? Ah fuck. He remembers my lies. Sorry, those were all lies, I say I’ve never been there, or anywhere else. His elbow on the rail Well you’re a surprise, what did you make all that up for? I don’t know to be interesting I suppose. How very calculating, he laughs And I thought you believed in love? I do but love isn’t what that was. True, he says But what if I’d been a lonely soul looking for it? Are you? No, I’m not, and you’re not much of a liar – I guessed. This I concede, I’ve never been. Oh well, that means you’re probably quite good at the acting. I quick look up to see if he’s joking. He’s only watching though and in a moment says So, you just used me for your sexual gratification then? Well, I say It didn’t turn out to be that gratifying so perhaps I got what I deserved. Didn’t you get what you wanted? Didn’t you? I say. Sort of it started out well enough but. You were hurting me, I whisper. You were a virgin, he whispers back I’m not responsible for the laws of nature. I know that but I thought at least I wouldn’t have to see you again. Ah, well you shouldn’t have shagged an actor then – but by now he is laughing and I almost am, over my chasing brain. So throw my breath to the Thames and the strange of the day as we strangers stand looking out on the city. Quiet then but for its sound – that noise it must make for its life to go round. Slow aftershave smell of some passing man. Loud of the train as it clanks behind. Me watching the river. Him watching me. What? I ask. You know well what, he says and stoops and kisses me. Fresh inclination and the blood goes up Bends me like a body puts inside into my mouth and we deep and open where is no mistake, where are only runs of thoughts of next of kissing him in that short past, naked and He stops I stumble forward in perfect dazed unfurl his breath on my hot cheek then kissing me further. And I might fall over but he has my arm and we kiss like he drags me live from under the Thames and where was allthiswant when I needed it? I don’t care I don’t and I could do Enough! he says This is getting ridiculous now, do you fancy getting something to eat? There now legs but disgraceful knees. All his impulses working inside out too, it seems, for even as I nod, see him almost go again for me. And I am all for that. But he turns instead, wiping his mouth on his hand, leaving me tapping the prickle of mine, to trail him over the bridge.
We walk up the Embankment by Charing Cross Oh God please take my hand. But deaf to petition he on the Strand asks Do you like Chinese? I do but. But what? I’ve no money. You’re a student, he laughs Don’t worry, dinner’s on me. By St Martin-in-the-Fields I’m lagging his gait Could you slow down? I can’t walk as quick. Sorry, he says Sometimes I forget, how’s this? Better, and is. Soon walking gives – bus-lunged – to staring at the road-load of bookshops and that. God there’s so many, I could live on this street! Up twitch of his mouth. Are you laughing at me? No! I wouldn’t dare! I’m just enjoying the wonder, he says. When I Oh Les Mis! though, he tilts his head Musicals? Really? It’s not that, I say It’s the being here. Thank fuck for that, he says Chinatown’s this way.
And the smell comes out to get me as I follow into Gerrard Street. Look at the ducks in the window! Look! Do you like duck then? I’ve never eaten it. Okay, well go on in there to Harbour City and let’s try to rectify that.
He picks a table by the window so I can see out. Beer or wine? What goes with Chinese food? I wasn’t allowed to drink at home. Jesus, are you really only eighteen? I am, I say How old are you? Mmmm, he swallows Older than that I’m actually thirty-eight. Twice as old as me. And then some, he says Fuck so a beer I think and quick. Feeling like a dirty old man now? A bit actually quite a lot yeah thanks.
Still. He eats prawn crackers and smokes in chains twisting quotes from my first term play. ‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscrib’d in one self place, for where we are is hell and where hell is there must we ever be.’ Cheery! I chew Have you done it? Not yet but I live in hope, I’ve a few more years before I’m too old. What did you do last? ’Tis Pity. Where was that on? Here, in the West End. Did it go well? Think so, he says But can I ask you about something else? If your father died when you were eight how well do you remember him? Pretty well, better than people expect, are your parents alive? My father is, much married and living in Bradford. Is that where you’re from then? No, Sheffield. And your mother? Dead, a long time dead. How long? Don’t know I was in my early twenties. I’m sorry. I’m not, do you want another drink? Alright, I say Thanks. And the food goes over and I watch him eat, liking long fingers manoeuvring chopsticks thinking God I fancy him something wicked. What? he asks. Nothing, I say.
Once he’s paid we go to the street, salt dark now but hot with seething. Tube? he asks Or a bit more walking? I could walk a bit. So he’s off and I’m after. Charing Cross Road. On it me saying My friend’s boyfriend knows you. Oh right, does he? What’s his name? No I mean, from the stage. Small pool, he shrugs. So are you famous? Well am I famous to you? No, I say. Then there you go, let’s make a stop in Foyles.
Upstairs in second-hand, he finds it – I knew I’d seen it here. I’m going to get this for you. What is it? I ask. Book about Marlowe, you’ll like it, it’ll help with your play. You shouldn’t, I fluster Anyway, isn’t there some weird paying thing? Yeah, Soviet three-queue system, I’ll be right back. So I follow him with the track of my eye, cheek to the shelf and tired by the weight of all I don’t know.
You alright? he asks, handing it over. I Thanks, go to kiss his cheek. But there it is in the turning dust. Oh no, he warns No kissing in Foyles. Maybe though, just because I am already close, he kisses me anyway. And more, until Excuse me, we’re closing up! I Anthony Burgess over my mouth. He offers the intruder a grave Of course, me a significant eyebrow and Alright jailbait, let’s go.
Quick down the stairwell together and out. Cross between traffic on Oxford Street. Past the Virgin Megastore. Up the Tottenham Court Road. Past sex shops. Electric shops. Let’s cut down. So Torrington Place then. Across Gower Street. I went there, he points back. Posh! Not really, scholarship. Nips into Dillon’s for a new Time Out. Over Malet Street. Byng Place. Gordon Square. Out by Wellcome building to the Euston Road. And we go across it, glittering, in buses, cabs and the race of things. Night upon us and I must quick to keep with his long legs. As he lights up on Eversholt Street, I ask Will you tell me what your script’s about? It’s about someone falling off a roof. Is it based on you? Ah! he says You remember that? Is it? A little. How come you did? The usual, a problem of balance, and drugs. So because you were high? No, because I usually was and things a little got out of hand when I stopped. When was that? I ask. Oh years ago – probably when you were two. Do you miss them? The drugs? I nod. Sometimes but not enough – Royal Mail depot – to go back. And won’t you miss acting while you’re writing? He says I might, acting’s been a lot of my life but it’s time now for something else. Walk quieter then – quick took looks at him. Tall and straight. Proverbial thin. His face showing different in the light and dark. What? he asks. Nothing, I shrug as the drunks go fight up Oakley Square.
By Mornington Crescent, legs wore from wear, I ask Can we get the tube? Sorry, eternally closed for repairs. The Palace pumps to our right though won’t get going until late. Oh we’re in Camden, I see. High road spilling up for the night. So weave we through serious clouds of spliff. If you’re tired we could stop at the Liberties for a drink? I’m alright, I say, divining junctions ahead and the hope in me wanting him to be explicit. He, oblivious, only moves us through so by the World’s End I stop. In here? he says It’ll be a meat market tonight. No, I point to the Kentish Town Road sign. Oh right, you going home? Guess me guess me with your grey eyes. Shame, he says I was hoping you’d want another go on me tonight. There it is, on a plate, and he only giving smallest smile. I suppose I owe you for dinner, I say. You don’t really think that do you? And what if I did? If you were that stupid I’d make sure I got my money’s worth, he laughs. I don’t owe you for dinner. I know, he says Come back anyway.
No this one, he grabs me as I go the wrong gate. Careful on the stairs too, still no light. Here again for what new night? Were you expecting to bring someone back? Why do you say that? It’s all tidy. I tidy sometimes, he says. Yeah but there’re also clean sheets on your bed. I get a look but continue anyway So, if we hadn’t met would you have gone to the World’s End tonight? Might have done, he says Pass me your coat. As I pass it to him If you think it’s a meat market, isn’t that a bit grim? Well not liking it and not doing it are two different things, aren’t they Nancy Drew? And he kneels at the fire letting the air go thin. I scrabble back What’re the boxes for? Keeping my stuff in. I never noticed them last time. Well you were somewhat preoccupied, he says With what you wanted to achieve. Quiet bite. How wrong’s my foot? So – he leans back on his desk – What now? Sorry how do you mean? Well we’re both here for sex aren’t we? I just thought, given your insightfulness, maybe you’d like to get things going this time? And his eyes say nothing so I die inside. Don’t make me make the first move. Why, would that be unkind? I mumble I think it would. So you see, he says – surveying his shoes – I also have insight and, if I wanted, could be unkind as well. Sorry I it was a stupid thing to say. No, it was a clever thing to see but I don’t need to be caught out so what exactly would you like to know? Nothing. Really? Nothing. Adversaries it seems but I don’t look away and he is the first to smile. Well, in that case, he says I think we should get back to the kissing now.
From which, on to mischief. By the time of the bra he’s joking Still coping without the duvet? And wrangling the waves of myself rolling through I let him cramp up the small space between. Good that the smell of his body’s not new. Helps he remembers small what’s of mine also like God those freckly shoulders again or. Laughing Your tights are the bane of mankind. Kissing to strip off, to lick of my palm then sliding it sliding it down. God! I God! Do you mind? he says. No but I don’t want to make a mistake. You won’t, just do whatever you want, if I don’t like it I’ll say. So, and pact made, fall in with his mouth but what is it he wouldn’t allow? And I let him do all sorts now, modesty flying everywhere. It’s only him backing me back to the bed, suffering Fuck you do that well, that re-catches me old sight of myself and opens the anxious eye. Wrestle. Be easy with this stuff said – not as if it never has. But this is not that, here with him. He kisses like he means it, like he’s with some person who can be liked and kissed. Who is not bits of body, floating parts, there for a finger in the mouth or What? You know what things. In the atom though his fancying must be a lie and I go so far from my body now. Left, from his skin to the switching off. Turn it down. Turn it Stop! I Stop Please Stop. And bolt my arms across until the air goes lock. Why? he asks. No reason, just stop. He stands back Whatever you want, but his eyes stay right on mine. Shy again? I shake my head. Something I did? No. Something I said? but rathering chaos than answering questions I panic Stop talking, shut up! He drops his eyes Okay, let’s not have this again, this is when it stopped being fun last time, remember? And I see he is now calm annoyed, showing only to the carpet, but I am Oh God filled with remorse. I’m sorry, I say I don’t know what’s wrong. He, as though I’m lying, shrugs Never mind, some other time, stooping down for his shirt. Don’t do that, I say. No? Why not? There and has me on the spot decide decide on him. So turn I braille eights on his long hand. Prise the shirt from him, tug and down. Please don’t put your clothes back on. I won’t if you won’t, he says. I won’t. Promise me that! Why? Because, he laughs I nearly had to take you back to the Gents at the Festival Hall before. Really? Really and as for Foyles well. But then. Then he. And he makes it so easy for me. I’m glad he wants to, still.
Elbows and laugh stumble bed again. His body – it seems – liking everything while mine still doesn’t know what’s going on but tries so hard to please. Catch it watching him follow the pleasure though, then – where he expects – starts finding its own. That’s it, he says and farther goes than I would think to give. Straight to manhandled knickers and every inch he can. Can I go down on you? No! Little baby Jesus won’t mind. Oh my God no! That’s a shame, how about? haAh. Oh you like that then? Likes it himself when I Yes. And get close now so close with him. All the clicks and licks and, by the time he says Do you want to fuck me? Yeah, I say I do.
Best day night life. I am all for this – him getting in a condom like one-handed trick – and wanting to. Wanting it. Free for the fucking til he puts it in and Fuck it hurts. Fuck it. Why again? No. I refuse that. You alright? he says. I counterfeit Fine, while silent abjuring whatever part of my body hasn’t yet learned how. And instead breathe the pain across his back to spare him more of my trouble enough so do you owe him, after all? Just take it. Fake. You you can. Replay revive Betty Blue for sounds, for how they went at it he I am. But But. Duse myself undone. Are you faking? No. Is that a lie? A little bit. He leans up Why? It’s still hurting me. Fuck’s sake you should have just said, him getting straight from me, then the bed. Where’re you going? To sit in this chair so we can try something else. Like what? Get on me and find out. No, my God, I’m too fat. What? No you’re fucking not, get over here. Do then, covering myself up. Ribs enfolded. Pubic skimped. Him yanking me onto and in between kissing saying Now you put me in and let’s find out what works.
He tries to, but can’t quite, disinterest himself. Just as well though for my mule body won’t – inciting itself only at his obliging my hips. Bit harder? he wonders. I. I. But the mouth on my breasts then – tickle and strange delight of being seen – surprises me, if not to everything, to something. Like first foot inveigle toward what this could be. With the look in his eye. With his body in me. Going and going and harder until Oh fuck, he says Hold still, I’m way too close, any chance you are? Not this time no. Can I help you? and his hand sliding down. No, I like it but I won’t tonight I want you to though. Just as well, he says, body going tight. Going barely barely. Can’t bear to shift. Go on, I say. Then his legs go and. Lights he. Pain turning white inside me. But. Even in this moment, even as he takes, he is the one getting killed.
That was really fucking good, he says still kissing and not like on the afters of sex. You’re so warm inside. Is that weird? No, it feels great. His blood slowing under my hand. Sorry it was all interrupted and that. Don’t worry, it’s good not to be a lazy bastard. What does that mean but he asks instead So how did you find it this time? Much better the second way. Well, that’s a start. I say I think that’s a lot. He Hmms, unconvinced, but Does that count as my second or third time having sex? Second, why do you ask? Because we did it two ways. No I think that’s still second, he says Unless there’s been someone else since? There hasn’t been, has there for you? Don’t think so, he says. Ow! I Ow! My leg’s gone asleep! Hang on, let me get hold of the condom first or all the good work is for nowt. Slide off him. Pins and. Hop and Don’t look. Bit late for that, he laughs – standing up – Right I’m off for a piss. Bin goes the condom. Swats my arse on the pass, all naked unbothered getting into his bathrobe. And how I envy him that; the looks and not giving a shit.
Silent in his room. Cigarette. Sit or shift? I halfly dress. Stay or leave? What do men expect? What would I like? To know exactly what he considers to be the right what now.
Dressed already? Yeah it’s getting late. You off then? Suppose so. Oh right, he says Don’t you want a tea or? Well if you don’t mind? Why would I? I don’t know, does that usually happen? Usually? Afterwards. That depends. On what? Whether or not she fancies another round. Do you fancy one? Yeah, I reckon could. I’m kind of sore. Well then, we should probably leave you be. So I should go? Do you want to go? Not really. Oh my God! and him laughing now Just fucking stay and I’ll think of something else to do with you, alright?
Barefoot I then, through his lamp lit room. Tip touching his boxes Is it clothes in them? More books and scripts, that sort of thing. Why don’t you get some shelves? I should, just never get round to it. But it’s been ten years. Actually more like Jesus, is that true? – his eyes calculating above – Fuck! Fourteen years and I don’t even like it here. So then why’ve you stayed? At first it was all I could afford. After that I I don’t know I stopped thinking about it I suppose. And passing the tea. Such blue in his wrist. Mouth shifting his fag and an intricate quiet he crashes with Anyway let me lend you this, and he’s into a box, elbow deep. Black Snow? It’ll make you laugh and, by all accounts, where you’re studying, you’re going to need that. What do you know about it? What everyone does; that they love to kill people up there. Oh thanks very much. Pleasure, he says then Wait, isn’t that Dennis Potter thing on tonight? I shrug but he’s already down on his knees hauling an old portable Kayvision out. Untacking dust and used tissues Sorry about that. Up on the drawers and aerial twitched, he lies down on the bed and offers me in beside him. So I, head by the tamp saucer on his chest, lie soon yawning while he stays rapt. Fine though, all of this I think, and like it, before falling right off to sleep.
Two-ish wake, bursting. Roll out of bed. You leaving? No, toilet, I say. Mm, him, sleeping again.
Eyes pull in what light there is and someone backing the door. Is there a queue? There is, she drunk. I, hopping the hop Are you Irish? And? Nothing just me too. Oh? How long’re you over? Two months, about. Well let me give you a word of advice, never read the Irish Times. Why not? On the tube. Why’s that? Why? I’ll fucking tell you why. I was at Warren Street the other night, minding my business, reading my Times when the train gets held, only five minutes like, and this fella starts going I know what this is, fucking bomb scare, fucking IRA. I said nothing, no one did, everyone was like Just shut up, in their head. Then oh my God, he starts going Do you know what it is? I bet you fucking do. Don’t bother starting on me, I said which was the wrong thing because Jesus fuck he went apeshit, roaring Paddy bitch and your Paddy rag. We’re all stuck here ’cause of you lot. I said There’s a ceasefire, which you’d know if ever opened a paper yourself. Anyways, the train started then but he kept going Thick Paddy tick Mick, all that. Eventually this wee Paki lad says Enough mate, enough. You’ve had your say. Soon as we got to Euston though I just legged it. I was shaking, you know the way, when you’re fit to be tied? Twenty years I been living here, paying my tax. The toilet door opens so she swaps the man sliding out. Anyway, for what it’s worth, that’s my advice. Thanks, I say and let it dander my brain as she pukes away, suffocatingly.
Back from the world in the stuff of his room, I strip down to knickers and no bra. Slip off his glasses too. Him waking just enough to help me back into the warm space of his sleep. But maybe later, passing three, I wake to, in the long deep, him. Sat at his window. Smoking like breath. Staring off into the street.
*
Morning. Light. Him asleep on my hair, legs patterned to mine. I search hurts out and where, new laying his print on his print from before. Each pass brings clearer. Turned out more right. Is that sex or him? Which would I like? Be glad for the night and the what next I. It’s not everyone you’re not lonely with.
Hair caught under Ow, as he sucks the air Morning are you awake? Yes, did you sleep alright? I did, you’re like having a hot water bottle in the bed. Stretch and click. Are you wiping your nose on me? Itching only itching, he laughs And you smell so good fancy making it the best of three?
Last relics of old pain work down to his up. Sparse though, palled by his damp on my back. Thigh pinned. Reached. He has me every which way but still it circles just beyond my body. Where I see and want. Where it’s certainly him. Where his long fingers perform while I long to give in, way, gratify. But the skin and what’s in it can’t let yet. When I tell him so Fuck it, he says Really? What can I do? Nothing, I like it, bit sore, that’s all. He goes Mmm, in the grip of his qualmless own, making its way to the well-traversed close. Even where and how he touches me in the moment seems re- and re-rehearsed. Many times I’d say. All but the bite. Back of my neck. Sorry, don’t know what that was about – he says after – Luckily I didn’t break the skin. War wound, I say. Now that’s more like it! as he lets himself slip out of me.
And he opens the curtains in the spiral of day. Body white in the light with his cigarette. Have you work to do? he asks as I blind in the dazzle. A scene to learn from Richard III. ‘Was ever woman in this humour woo’d’? Yes, I shade my eyes. Shall I be on the book for you? he offers. Oh, okay.
Stare up for concentration instead of at him. He knows it already better than I do. Makes tea and prompts from all round the room while I stumble and untether text. What about your RP? I can’t do that. Have to learn, he warns Might as well from the start. So I hide in the pillow but the words make blocks, hard, with no movement in them. Despair-ING, he corrects Not Despair-EEN. I think it sounds exactly the same. He repeats in my accent ‘And by despaireen shalt thou stand excused’ Great accent, I say. Irish mother, he mumbles. From where? No, you can’t distract me – but consoles with his own student tales of Mercutios sounding like Hepburn Doolittles and the slaggings he got for that. Eventually though I am saved by the Toast? And hang over the bed, over his shoulder as he passes back triangles to chew.
I love that play, he yawns into Time Out. You love lots of plays. Don’t you? I suppose, dot dotting my crumbs from his shoulder and neck. So fancy a film or are you in a rush? No I’d love to, if it doesn’t interrupt? Interrupt what? he asks. I don’t know, your writing? Family stuff are you seeing your daughter this weekend? No I’m not. Will you next weekend then? No, she doesn’t live here. In London? In England she’s in Canada with her mother. Oh you must miss her, I Fuck! he gets up I can’t believe I nearly forgot, Nostalgia’s on in Belsize Park we’ll make it if we run.
Coffee smelt cinema no kissing here. Long limbs crooked to fit. Balled coats kicked under. Darkening. Music there. Quiet here. Then it comes, in its light and white-light. From the start, it has me. I am unprepared. Paralyse in its image. Forward to breathe as birds fleer from the Virgin’s dress. The stamp of it. Weight in me. All down my neck. Going farther than I know how to be. Rain. Pool and bottles. Soft book in flames. You want to be happy but there are more important things. I’m not only lost though. I’m unmade by the intent. Scalded by the too beautiful eye of it. How the far side of despair is reached by faith but not life. And there, beneath its great cathedral arc, let its loneliness be all of me. Relinquish the bounds of myself to become just a girl, another person in this world, who life is running out of now. He, letting my hand slip into his hand, says nothing but looks also burned now. So in this – belief or no belief – find we two are the same.
Still and stay it, as all the others drain. Each in our own life but palm to palm. I do miss her, he says then lets go of me and gets up.
Silenter walking down Haverstock Hill. Hands in my pockets. Cigarette on his lips. Me growing pink-faced in the chill while he stays white and fine, staring off into the winter light, higher and further than I can see. Looking up, I’d like to ask him things but he hasn’t the face for it now.
At the Steele’s he says How about a drink?
Thanks, I say as he puts down the pints. Sip and smoke til the tongue unwinds. How many times have you seen it? I ask. Four or five maybe. Do you like it a lot? Yeah, he says I like how it takes a while to adjust but once you shift yourself into his time Jesus what you get to see, was that your first time? Yes. What did you think? It’s beautiful but do you think there are more important things than happiness? Yeah, of course there are, he says But it’s pretty hard to do without or face not having again. And his life opens a little to let me look in. I want to ask more so badly but say I’m glad you took me. Thanks for coming with, he smiles.
And it’s almost five when I say So I’ve got to go not cool enough for any Ask for my number, won’t you? Well, if you have to. I don’t have to but you know I should probably wash. You smell alright to me, he says. That’s because I smell of you, and I catch his eye but he only goes Yeah well I smell of you too. Will he ever ask? Ask. I – reluctant – get up. He also goes to with I’ll walk you back. No, no, you stay put and Irish myself from what I most want thanks for a lovely weekend. Yeah, he looks into his pint It was great. Jesus Christ. Well bye then. He stands up now, to give me a Shit! You’re bleeding! What? You have a nosebleed. He dabs and Fuck I haven’t had one in years. Sit down, I Put your head back. He obedient does and quiet wiping ensues with what I find in my pockets. He is so white though and dark under the eyes Should we go across to the? No no I’ll be fine, he says and God how stupid is this? But it’s a bad one. It takes an age to clot. On both our fingers by the time he says Look, if I promise not to haemorrhage all over you would you like to do this sometime again? Jesus, I thought you’d never ask! Slow starter, he grins Always was, but showing the blood on his teeth. I write my number on a beermat and one for the school. Go on then, he says I’ll give you a call, and we try not to kiss goodbye too much because of the blood. Beyond the door though my bottom lip licks of rust. So lick it out into the chill on Haverstock. And that is the end of the day.
*
Who’s been doing the mauling? she asks, in the changing room, as I don everything unedifying for ballet. No one, I say but with hair up high a fine dog of teeth marks are plain and press the blistered memory of his room. I’d give her all of it later but, for now, have it mine – just as lustre on bad pliés or lepping about like fake Fonteyn. She’ll have it now though and I knew its! loudly when I say who. Didn’t I tell you you’d see him again? Then Where? When? How long did you stay? Which film was it and is he dirty in bed? Remember, brief, him licking my palm but cannot think of one dirty thing. Giving to what she means though, I say He knows what he’s at. She, mad for a mystery though, plagues for Origin of the Bite? Kitsching now I When he came! hand fanning myself. The Bounder! she adds. But I like of his upon me, whatever marks he’s made. So smoke away and drink my tea and read Black Snow, this Monday after him.
Just one moment Lady! the landlady calls up the stairs. Yes? You were seen, she says. I was what? One of my working gentlemen saw you in Belsize Park with a man, an older one at that, apparently. I burn but a lie comes quick That was my Acting teacher. He was also at the film. London’s awful godless, she says I may not be your mother but I feel responsible so I hope to God you’re telling the truth. English men have no morals, you bear that in mind. I will, I mumble, scarfing the embarrassment down, then legging it upstairs soon as I can, for relentless reliving. And godlessness notwithstanding, the rest of the week is the same.
And I wait. But there’s nothing. A long silence on the phone. Any messages? No. She asks after? No. Why doesn’t he so and hasn’t he called? One week slides to fortnight and reliving palls amid tints of my mistakes. Then dawn of thinking about who he is. How easily he can get hold of someone else. And this I see. It claws itself in my brain. Some glossy real actress, bones in her back on display. They’ll speak interestingly of the Royal Court at some elegant restaurant where he’ll footsie her up. Then go back to her flat. Pet her Siamese cat and spend the night inside because he’s the type knows what’s good for him – women who give men what they want. Not me, with a band-aid on the hook of my bra, unable even to fake it and no idea. All the women he must’ve slept with. Why would he call? And my own gullibility galls. But then. Then again. Didn’t I get what I wanted? Bloody virginity banished, and more. There, you see? Rise and fall. Party this Saturday at mine, she says Come, it’ll cheer you up.
*
Slop riot here. Music. Drinking. Passing things around. Cheque guarantee cards chop unwrapped talcs. Ponytails like tidal waves slap tabletops and nostrils butterfly. This is new but I am fixed and press his memory to some hard place. Just smoke whatever I am passed. Getting stoned and stoneder. Getting much more stoned and stretch myself beyond myself out into the crowd. Smirking. Snarking. Little jig. Up in her room Here have some of this. She and me and the back of my Jesus. Yow it burns. But not too long before it turns my brain. Bright and dark at the self-same time. And the night, it seems, begins again. To the sitting room! she cries. Running through hours like water then. Losing track of everything. Drink, lines, blood in my brain. Talk to him or her. People I know, or not, the same. Fine to be out of my brushed-off skin. Anyone can dance with me and I can dance with anyone. Saying only sometimes This fella I knew And who cares anyway now? Hither me, thither me. Smoke on that. Drinking drinker. Vodka. More of. Gone to play and such distance made that when some fella says Sit on my lap, I do.
Numb mouth mirror and roaring eyes, we go reeling down her path. Take my hand, he offers. You a funny guy. What’re you on? he asks. Lots of miles an hour. Better than drunk I’d say and quicker and faster for the sharper world I see. Trees black under a blacked-out sky. Cutting cut out stars over black bits white. The grass and wind. Has my hand now. My heart going go go go. I can’t tell though, stop from go. Just this big fella with new smelling hair. I’ll see his Pericles Prince of Tyre. I know I know his name. Sure he’s all lips and muscles – what more do I want? Where’re we going? To get a night bus. I’m whirling. Slip. He catches me. Sit down, no sit down there. I a-seat myself. I agree with his kiss. I love an Irish redhead. Can you see I’m not? Well, and were you raised by nuns? Convent girls are best. Best what? Conquests, apparently. Go on with your conquering, but fall in with his way. See me. Skirt high on Adelaide Road. That’s a party. The way I want. Taste this man, but see the. No. Come down you sweet little roses, I sing Come down you little rose in the garden. Bus stops. I slip. He pulls me up. Transfigured night ahead. Wild one convent girl, come on. The tug of him and the brawl in my mind. Don’t, I say Leave me alone. Sister, I know what’s to be done.
*
England? Camden? Kentish Town? Turn like someone’s snapped my twangs. A man’s blond hair. His broader back. Mouth raw. Jaw stiff. Hey, wake up! Was I snoring? No, fucking hell! Relax, he yawns It’s only me. Blinks of dancing. Where is this? Finchley. Really? Jesus Christ. Nothing either of any sex though pretty sure there’s been. In fact, none of the night I see. Just being there, being here and empty in between. Fuck! What happened? What do you think? Where’d I get these bruises? You fell on the bus. Really? Several times. I don’t remember. That’s weird, he frowns But then, all that vodka when we got in. You were a right laugh though. How’d you mean? Well the guided tour. Oh God! No, he laughs It was good, especially all the ‘head, own hair’ part. Scan for iotas but all that’s blinded out and the nothing’s rushing fast. Then like playing Dallas, I sheet my breasts Did we use something, at least? He picks at a tissue Yep we did. Not as handsome. Not as tall. Relief but laying itself across what’s certainly, seriously disappeared. I should go. Bra skirt shoe shoes knickers top. And when I’m dressed, he says Cheers for that. Yeah, I say You too.
Out to the out. Bang the front door. City blast in my ears. Pigeon shit on sycamores. Don’t panic. I already am. Panic like a mad one the whole way home. London crossing before me, preoccupied with itself. Content I’m the girl who does this for a laugh, but later, alone, bats an eye.
Good party? the landlady asks. I offer my best occluded self and Didn’t get much sleep on her sofa though. Oh, she guiles I’m sure the drink didn’t help. I smile to let her in and keep her out. Any nice boys? No, not at all. Ah, time enough for that. Exactly. Go on so – I am dismissed – have yourself a little lie down.
Still. I can. I make myself still until I hear her leave. And into the bath to scrape skin off. Rubbed under bubbles til I’m pure gold butter dripping from my tongue. No. Never that again. But everything else? I might have. I can just about guess by the aches and pains where his larking was. Think. Don’t. Think of. Him. Just go to my room and as the day goes down, light a cigarette. Then let it find its own information, for pain knows what it is. Better there where I can see. Better than his mystical fading. Landlady later screaming You used my hot water again!
Sunday
Door opens on the scrat of party debris and her howling at the sink. What is it? I got here quick as I could. She Did you see him on his way out? Who? She means me. You duplicitous shit! He lights his rollie Anyway I’m off. Wait, I say What’s going on? But he’s already out the door. Oh God, pink marigolds hit the floor. Her sliding after them down on her arse. Come here, I say Tell me what’s wrong? as hicks and kinks go mad. Pick by bit though it comes out He just told me only now that after Christmas after Christmas. What? He’s marrying some Czechoslovakian bitch – shrouds of crying and sheets of snot – It’s a visa thing. It’s a what? So she can stay. So it’s not for real? He’s really marrying her alright. Is she paying him or something? It’s for his fees! Well that means it’s only the money. Oh come on, she says We all need that but I’m not marrying strangers for a few thousand quid. I touch her lovely haircut But. Don’t defend him to me. I’m not, he’s a gobshite. He is whatever that means. Another rumple of awful tears. Ah don’t, I say Sit up here, I’ll make you a cup of tea.
Weeks roll over to December. Room and school the same. A month of holiday meeting every eye and today is the last day.
There’s a message for you on the notice board. Just a number and ‘Please ring him’ below it. It’s got to be your Him, she says Who else would it be? Will I? Or Fuck him! It must be five weeks, never mind what else I’ve been at. She says Forget about that, he has no right to know.
Hello? Hello there, how are you? Fine. What are you up to? I’m off to Ireland tomorrow. For good? No, for the Christmas break. So are you around tonight? Actually this afternoon’s our Showing, then we’re all going for a drink. Right, Doctor Faustus, I remember well break a leg maybe catch up in the But I could do later on? Okay, Prince Albert again? Round nine? Half past, I say – to be the final word.
Clearly none of you have a clue what this play is about. Do you know how it feels to be in the grip of evil? To have a desire for which you’d sell your soul? To have sold your soul and owe the devil? The Principal waits, pacing, until it’s clear we don’t and then he really starts. Guts spill and – though it’s no surprise – we flinch against the music of our own tearing sound. Bloodless. Sexless. Stick insect. Blank card. Beat to low by the end. But afterwards, shoving flats back into the furniture dock, hanging costumes on rails, packing, we laugh and think of drinks ahead. One or another peel and pick off to the Fiddler’s Elbow or Barnacle Bill’s for chips. I, slow and almost last, love the dust of the day closing off. No more Song Exercises. Drums. Madding about. Night showing itself beyond the canteen light and forgotten water bottles on its floor. Past cutlery dumped by the serving hatch door. Tide-marked jockstraps on the sofa. Scripts. London’s Calling fliers ripped for a roach. Spotlights with our favourite actors’ pictures torn out and mugs on the tile tabletops. One white sheet on the notice board reads: School reopens 10 am 9 January 1995. And I choose these months – for everything – as the very best of my life, so far.
Later
Breath of winter on me, brain crawling little from drink, I sit where he was with The Devils that night and read my book like pub doors are quiet and will not look up for him. Then at my shoulder Women in Love? – stoops to my cheek but gets an earlobe – Thought you’d be long past the Lawrence phase. Well, hello to you too, I lifting my eyes to him, damp and cold-faced from the wind. Have a few in you already? I do. Better catch up, and to the barmaid – rubbing heat into his hands – Two, when you’re ready, and a salt and vinegar please. Come on, that table’s free.
Stretching his legs out When are you off? Tomorrow afternoon. And when are you back? Sixth, I say So what have you been up to since? Writing mostly, he smokes I got into a jag – which is why I haven’t called sorry about that. Oh right any more nosebleeds? No touch wood, and leans to kiss at my lips. Oh God. Terrible, how pleased he is to see me when I did what he did to make hard things easy with someone else, for a laugh. Alright? he asks. Why? Funny look in your eye. I close them There is something I. Okay go on. I well I slept with someone else. Out in the innocent world a cash register dings and a woman whinges I asked for change. Oh I see, and how was it? he says. I don’t remember, I was a bit out of it. Probably not the best idea that. Then why are you smiling? No reason, he smiles You’re lovely when you’re feeling guilty is all. Aren’t you angry? No, why would I be? I’m not your boyfriend and you’re eighteen, what else would you do with yourself? So this is the way of the world it seems. Catch up. Quick shed my guilt to match worldly with him Does that mean you’ve also slept with someone else since? The cigarette rolls in his mouth. Nod. How was it? Fine. Are you going out with her? No. Are you seeing her again? No. Why not? He shrugs Why would I? Now, another round?
Watch him pass a tenner and the barmaid take. Laughing together. Skitting I’d call it. She knows him and knows him better than me. I see that all over them. And the devil shifts. Don’t say it. Don’t say. But the drink running through me has its own vocation so when he comes back, I ask straightaway Was it her? Peanuts down. No. Pints too. You have though, haven’t you? Why are you asking that? You know those things about me, what do I know about? Alright, once, ages ago, happy now? And the girl at the National? His frown goes scowl. Come on, let’s not start this. I’m only asking. His narrow eyes Okay I did, now let’s leave it at that. But the drink has grips that make questions of their own How many people have you slept with? He Jesus Fucking Christ! quite loud. I shrink from his temper and he’s immediately calm Sorry I didn’t mean it’s just. He opens and empties the peanuts out, lining them up one by one. Time crucifying me on the mark I’ve hit. Stupid girl stupid fucking eejit. Ignore me, I say It’s not my business and. The answer is a lot, he says. Sliver. More than twenty? Not this year, but it’s been unusually quiet for me so Trail of it trailing off and I watch him, cool-mouthed but his eyes at the edge. Sorry, I mutter. Don’t be, he says What does it matter? It’s not something I’m proud of but it is what it is. Then he sits back. Lights up. Shifts himself. Shifts again to find more comfort but can’t. And I know in this moment he would make me laugh but I am not funny or clever enough to prise this weird weight off. Unprompted then, and into this Friday night, he says It’s just there was a time in my life when I didn’t behave very well that way. What that sort of thing makes you isn’t great so I try not to be it any more. Problem is was it gets like a game like everyone’s possible, like nothing will ever stay and, once you’ve got that knack it’s so fucking easy to do which is not a good thing to know. His face, so silent with these words coming out, becoming completely strange to me now and, although I still don’t ask, he goes on There was this time No I was killing time, in town, when this woman in a shop asked me to reach something down but the way she said it it was just like I could see inside and I knew exactly what it would take. Not much but the right thing and five minutes later we were up in the Ladies in the Lamb and Flag. Twenty minutes after that I was walking down the Strand and couldn’t even remember her face Sorry I don’t know why I’ve told you that it’s horrible. Not really, I say Not if she wanted to. She did, he says I’ve never done anything I wasn’t let. I wouldn’t want you to think it’s like that but Fuck – he shakes his head – The things people let you do. And there’s something in this story I’ve not understood, I know, but don’t know how to get to it. He though just lights a cigarette then swipes the peanuts onto the floor. And I’m left swimming and drowning here. Nowhere for feet. Too far from shore. Seems I can only hold onto him now and go wherever he goes. So I stand up. Are you leaving? he says. No, and wrap my arms around his neck. I’m sorry for all those things I asked. It’s okay, he says – taken aback – Hang on, you’re strangling me. I don’t stop either, so he gives in. Puts his arms around me too and I’m so glad to see you, I say kissing him with all the weeks of waiting rising. And too bad too if the barmaid’s watching – until I see she is. Is she jealous? I whisper. Married, he says. Was she then? Enough, he begs – shovelling me back onto my chair – I could do with a real drink now.
So the rest of the evening goes into the drink. Him smiling and fooling my fingertips. Talk now kept to decent amounts of Why’s there greasepaint in your hair? or How do you find working out dialogue? or My friend’s boyfriend’s getting married because. Spin and chat and flickering lights by the time he asks Coming back to mine? Depends, are you behaving badly with me? I am yes, he nods Absolutely, but not at all in that way. I’ll come, I say though langer-kneed. Him getting hold of me Right then drunk arse, let’s us two go home.
*
Coat and coat. Shirt shoes caught hem. Rolling in under the weight of him. Back bare to the grit on his rug. Gas fire scorching my thigh a little as he kneels up to unlace my boots. Laughing Those were a mission. Belly flat to the curve of mine. Long fingers encouraging half-taken breaths. Mingle struggle the last of underwear off while he kisses me, that way he does, til we are only mouths. Then all over each other in this red dark. Salt of his skin. Bruise on his neck. Did she do that? I don’t know, I suppose. Did you bring her back here? No. Where did you go? Leave it, he says – tearing open the condom – I don’t want to talk about her. So defer to the body, unlocked from shy. Falling together. Ready? I am. And he climbs me. Goes to go inside. Goes. Doesn’t. Tries. Can’t. Tries again. Fuck! Sits back. Fuck! What’s wrong? Jameson’s mixed with the twenty questions, he says. Can I? No, leave it. And I’m disappointed. I thought tonight would be the one. Instead I’m lying in all my new-found want, watching him peel the condom off. Right, he says Time for you know what. No! Yes, and don’t bother being squeamish about it. I stare at the stains on his ceiling and suffer but the twirl of his fingers. Let me, I really want to. I really want to too, so I do. And he does. Soft first. Kissing it. Opening it up. Touching. All gently. Then he opens his mouth and I I understand what all the fuss is about if I let it I let it. And my body corrupts. Pangs of it going to every part. Don’t do that! Really? No actually, do. Or Or Where did you just put your tongue? His barely raised eyebrows. You’re filthy, I complain. Yeah, that’s one advantage, he says. And whatever he is, he’s so complete with me now. His tongue finding feeling until I cannot avoid where I am. Late restraint ebbing. Him saying Go on. I try to not but, in the work and rise, in the mad of it then, I do. Shame biting my lip down to blood and all the pleasure rushing through.
Straight after. Jesus. I cover my face. Sift through surprise for the way my blood beats. Fragile in the wither. How should I be as he – tidily – wipes his mouth on me and asks So how was that? It was it was good – trying to arrange back into a body that only wants his close. Then let’s go to bed, he says Before you get cross. Why do you say that? I’ve met you before, he laughs Vulnerability isn’t your thing. So I let him lead. Lie with him in his bed and whisper in his ear Don’t say that, I won’t be cross. Good, he says and strokes my hair til he sleeps. I should but can’t and for the vaulting night listen to the city outside.
*
City sound makes morning too. Post hitting the floor downstairs. He moans I should never drink whiskey, then crawls over me out of bed. Where’re you going? Shower, it’s the only way. So alone I lie reliving events and solving how I’ll ever look him in the face again.
He faces me though, saying Get in before the hordes, without a trace of strange. And when I don’t move, pulls the covers off laughing Go on, this is all the time we have, lazy bones.
So, under the drip of his shower, I wash my hair with his shampoo. The rest of my body with his soap and, in his towel, make my way back to his room through his wet footprints in the hall.
Tall and shaving in the early light. Bit better? he asks. Bit, I nod. Well, come put your arms around me, like you did that first time. I do and. The smell of him then, damp shivering against his damp back. I don’t want to go to Ireland. He says I really liked last night. I say I liked it too. Can I do it again? What now? Why not? I won’t be able to for another month. While he rinses his face, I prevaricate but what need here for No? Turn and tug his towel then get myself dragged to bed. And soon I’m rolling back through the pleasure again as though it is brand new. Cold drops from his wet hair trickle my thighs. Mint from his toothpaste mouth tingles nice and long fingers locking through mine. I give in to him. Resign to his tongue, to every single thing he does, for it’s good to have this thing we do as the hangover breaks my heart. And take his lips on my stomach breast. Biting my shoulder. Into my neck. Kissing completely until I look up What is it? I want to be inside you, he says and I am ready, surely ready for him So Yes. No I mean without anything on. What? Just for a bit. I won’t come in you and I’m completely clean. What? Nerves hitting lungs with the thought of what it is. But not come? Not come, I promise you that. So and watching each other I say Alright. Jesus, he says as I, for surprise, cannot even think to say how it feels. Just open myself to his body in mine. Stretching to the want of him all over me now. This is it and I am like normal like. Like that? I do. I know, he says I can tell. Given over to him and the creak of his bed, racket of both until Close? he. Yes. Well do, I can hold on. And far beyond shame my body longs. And him doing all he can to drag it down. So I hide against him. In his neck. Let it go through. Like a burst. Like a hurt. Clung to him clinging to gritting his teeth. Tiding me, though pulling out after so quick to sit on the edge of his bed. Leaving me in a body clicking inside like it never has.
I curl in to hide my delight. Blushed with it, or shower and no face cream for after. Come lie with me. But first water’s splashed down his front. Getting a condom. Lighting up. Kneeling beside to offer a drag That was bad but, fuck, you feel good inside. And I think Am I not my own self now? Can’t I do too what I want? I can. So. I take his hand. Lead him across like it’s my turn now. His long legs naked and my knees shake. What’s this? Sit in the armchair, I say and when he does, kneel down. You sure? he asks. I’d like to if you would? Well I’ll just lie back and think of England. Any tips? Nope, far as I’m concerned you can do no wrong except bite and you won’t do that, will you? I hope not. Jesus, that makes two of us, he says as I put him in my mouth.
Fuck, his whole body goes to it and I wait for the impatient Open it wider. Instead he takes what I give and only strokes my wrist. Concentrates on the ceiling. Sometimes holds his breath. Sometimes pushes my hair back to watch but I like how he looks at me. Easier this than I thought until. His breath catches in his throat. The only sound I rrr. Not here. Not this now. Don’t freeze. Make your way through. Talk, I say. What? Say something. What about? Whatever a poem anything. Him looking down strange at me now. I’m nervous, I say Please it would really help. He puts his head back Alright well Now is the winter of our discontent how’s that? Better, I almost laugh Go on. Mmm made glorious summer by this son of York. And all the clouds that loured upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean buried Jesus now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths our stern alarums no our bruisèd arms hung up Fuck more? Yes, I say. Ah what the fuck is it? Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings our dreadful visaged war hath smoothed fuck I forget Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front I don’t I You’re a bit distracting, you know? Then goes to go silent but I cannot. Please keep talking and don’t stop. Alright. He wets his lips then goes to the words at a similar lick Nowisthewinterofourdisconte ntmadeglorioussummerbythissonofyork and allthecloudsthatloured upon our house inthedeepbosomofthe ocean burrrrieeeed nowareourbrowsboundwithvictoriouswreaths right I’m right I’m there I’m. I pull back quick. He presses it onto me as his body gives up. Wet on my chest, ends of my hair and my breast and the heat. Goes everywhere and him smearing it all down me as I, touching the threat of bruise on my lip, lay my head on his knee.
He eases himself off with my hand a while. That was lovely Thanks for that. Sorry, I say For not letting you you know in my mouth. Don’t be, he says I think it’s rude to expect. And I look all about at the mess made by our versions of sex. I’ve been naked, embarrassed, touched and kissed and brought the whole way like any woman might. So after that what is it to say When I was little someone used to and now I don’t think I can any more. And the past sits forward and the cold comes pouring in. He looks down at me What did you say? I do not say it again. And he. Slides down beside me then. Takes me in to the lean of his chest that rises and falls in time with my pulse. The tight of his grip keeping me safe until I am calm and recalled to the smell of his neck. Until my soul re-finds its place. Listen to me, fuck him, he says He’s nothing to you now. And it is as if he always knows the very best thing to say.
I’d like a cigarette. I bet you would. He lights one for us both. Lies on the rug. His damp hair resting on my thighs and blowing smoke rings to make me laugh. I do too, dipping them, twisting about. Do other shapes. Rings not enough for you? Stretch yourself! He laughs but only stretches his legs. Fancy a walk to Regent’s Park? Some fresh air might do us good.
So we go down through Camden. Market now under way. Slack queue for cash at the Midland bank, though it’s early in the day. He gets sandwiches in Cullen’s. Bag of Minstrels for me. I watch for agitation but he doesn’t do a thing. Just eats his like a hungry dog then has a bite of mine. Somehow light with all that’s in us now the night has rolled away. Only tired from drinking – and other things – treading up Parkway to Gloucester Gate. And this the first morning I can see my breath clear as smoke from his Marlboro Red.
Regent’s Park is freezing but we walk on and on. My arm dandling in through his. He even takes my hand. Eventually settle on a bench. Cigarette? Please. He lights. I take and there we sit, breathing smoke across all dead flowerbeds. You alright? he asks. Fine, I say Was it a bit much, that? On contrary, it’s good to keep your speeches up to scratch. I scrape my heel through the gravel and nudge No really do you mind? No, why would I mind about that? I’m not sure but instinct backs all those secret years when it burned down holes through me. Soiled goods maybe? Wow Holy Catholic Ireland, he laughs I’ve been soiled goods too long myself to care about that old crap. He watches me though, with those eyes of his. I can’t see in or past the grey until he smiles Just as well you’re off today, I’ll need a month to recuperate. You’re just hungover and shagged out, I say Can’t be easy at your age. You shut up, he says, beginning a kiss and he is cold to the lips but quick with smile and soft too from his shave. Remember this moment. I will remember this because, even though this morning’s not much of his life, it’s very much of mine. Whatever happens, nothing will be the same after and nothing will be like it again. Right, he says It’s getting late. We should go or you’ll miss your train.
In the cold and dark of Ireland, I burn my month away. Tell friends about London. What wonders seen. Where I’ve gone. The fame in the street. The way we’re learning to make the world make. Art and all of that. But he is a secret worn down deep in the seams and thought. Does he think about me? Or is he away to the next? Real life’s not all romance and I should remember that. Still I send him a postcard to gentle note when I’m back, and hope he’s doing well. Fairly nonchalant tone I’ve struck, if rewritten again and again. While, on the other side of myself, think of him all the time. All he said. What he did and I did, to reciprocate Not that. Go to sleep.
She floats face down. The world can do anything to her. Under here she is fingers and the weight of water piled up over her head. Under here with the empty torch of her breath she opens an eye and a quick fish I
Open mine to the bright, bright day. And the land and the life comes in.
Letters too, from her. Exclamation mark mazed! Did you see your man’s in a film next week Oh My God Channel 4!!!
Smoke cigarettes round the gable then. Eat many Minstrels, in honour of him. Read some books. Try to see that film and wait for January.