On our second visit the ‘Everfield’ is the Elderfield.
We agree we’re telepathic. We’re fond of ‘Ever’.
At an open air trestle, we’re at last alone.
We have half an hour.
‘I,’ we say together, and ‘No! – you first.’
In the pause a large man appears.
He lights a cigarette.
‘I’m a Russian Lithuanian,’ he insists, as if we’d asked.
He touches my shoulder.
‘I admire you. I want to buy you a drink.
Is it Stella? It’s fine if it isn’t Stella. You can have Stella.’
He glances at you, then looks back to me.
He tries to make me meet his look.
‘Most husbands wouldn’t do this,’ he says,
tapping my shoulder with a flick of the back of his hand. ‘Take them out.
Did she have your children?
I’m a father. I have a little baby, five weeks old,
but the lady in question… I’m very well paid.’
<
It’s twenty minutes later:
you are still playing vegetative state.
I am improvising interruptions:
‘We’re just here for some precious time together,’
Four black-hatted men walk briskly past.
Their long side-ringlets have their own rhythm.
(Is the hair soft or is it like wire?)
The ‘Russian Lithuanian’, who is ‘a father and very well paid’,
touches my shoulder for the fifth or sixth time.
‘Shalom!’ he calls to the men.
‘Shalom!’ they return, briefly facing us. They don’t stop.
Our ‘friend’ leans into us, forces smoke out through his nose.
‘Would she like another juice?’ he asks.
‘Can your wife understand anything?’