Garden thoughts

And now he is sitting in the garden of a small terraced house. In
the molten sun
he leans back and as usual when alone starts the analysis of self. Heat
licks across him leaving him damp, slick, and he feels it; a physical
thing, living, folding itself around him. Like skin.

He has been out with friends and has seen love, being in love. He has
felt it and it
was like feeling this sun; tangible, shifting the air, changing shapes,
familiar things becoming ... just becoming. His life seems to be
refracted through it, that breathing, love-laden air. He understands
with stark suddenness, a blow to his stomach, why people are reclusive,
keep themselves away from others. It's the pain of seeing what they
most desire, the hopelessness of never getting it.

Last night at Lol's little salon Phil felt that pain and laughed
through it. Laughed at
himself. Displayed himself and hurt himself by encouraging people to
laugh at his
madness. And he watched her, his best friend, with her new lover. He
had
never seen her with a man before. Not like this. Rubbing her foot
against the length of his leg, leaning in to touch; a hand here,
lingering over him; loving him in the luminous darkness of the moon.
Nor seen another man look at her like that. Almost as he did.
Almost.

He had sat alone on the step, in dislocated time, hidden, almost
invisible in the
darkness and his mind slipped to another evening like, but not like
this, to that
conversation they had when she had first met him, Adie, her man.
Another
evening, another dusk, other wine; just the two of them. Before he had
taken on this new reality, become real.

"I never thought it could happen to me. You know what I've been like. I
didn't
dare. All those awful shags. Now this. I thought I was dead
inside."
He feels happy that this should have happened to her. Worried that it
should fail
and send her back into her tower. She says she has been in a tower.
Looking out. Untouchable. And he envies her this new feeling. This
mutuality when both seem to love equally. He wants it like air. Wants
to breathe it. He likes being with her, feeling her feeling. He
smiles.

"I have a theory." Says Phil. "Life is like a fruit bowl"
"What. How do you mean?"
"A fruit bowl. We are all fruits in a fruit bowl. Apples, oranges,
bananas, grapes,
sharon fruit and kumquats."
"Kumquats? People are small, pitted and orange with thick skins? You
are quite
mad."
He has been, is, mad. With love. "Very funny. Yes. You have found your
kumquat. Or you might have. I need to find one too."
'What are you talking about?' Indulgent, eager to take the fantasy
forward, the
analogy. To understand.
' We need to discover what sort of fruit we are. Some people are
apples, some are oranges. You know. Some people never know what fruit
they are and try and pair with something else. I married the wrong
thing. Didn't even marry a fruit,"
Laughing. "So did you. Others, lucky ones, discover they are apples and
look for
another apple. When they find one they have a chance at happiness. At
ripening
into something succulent. Sun-ripened. The Marks and Sparks of fruit.
Apples are
common. There are different sorts but at least you have a chance of
finding one.
The greengrocers, at Aldi.'
'Hmmmmmmmm. Go on.' She is laughing now.
'Is it really very nice to think that apples are common?' Teasing. She
is a monster.
She knows him well. His pride and his snobbery.
'Well yes. There is nothing wrong with apples. There are just more of
them. They
are no less good to eat.'
She smiles at his escape from the side of him he tries to hide most.
His feeling of
difference which he denies.
'So you and I are kumquats?'
'Yes. And I need another one. But kumquats are rather rare. They are
hard to find. And an apple would be no good to me. The trouble with
being a kumquat is you get left in the bottom of the bowl with the
apples who don't know what they are, the dissolving bananas. People
don't eat them because they are old, and not very nice. They leave the
kumquats because they aren't certain of the taste. What they'll be
like. They pick them up and smell them. They might lick them.'
'Lick them?'
'Yes. You know. But they are a bit disconcerted by them. They think,
should I peel it or eat it whole? How do you eat this strange exotic?
And in the end
they can't be bothered, unless they are another kumquat. Then they know
that there is something delicious there. A rare treat. Something worth
taking trouble over, savouring.'
'Yes. I know. We are afloat in the fruit bowl of life. We all need to
be with the right
thing.'
She chants, ecstatic.
"I have a kumquat, I have a kumquat."
Laughing.
'You're insufferable darling. Anyway. It's like a terrible nursery game
and none of
us really know the rules. What fruit to ask for to make the set. Or
people keep their fruit close to their chest. Are they an apple? It's
difficult to make the pair.'
"So what is he then?" Glinting, incisive.
'He is a grape... no a raisin ... no ...'
'Chocolate covered?' she asks pushing him to say something terrible
about the one he has said he loved for months, has cried over, wept.
And he does.
'No. He's a fucking M and M. All shiny and bright on the outside. It
looks lovely.
'I've sucked off the shell bit, found the chocolate and discovered
he's a fucking
peanut. What a bloody waste of time.' He gets angry with himself. Well
not really.
He is trying on the feeling of not loving him. Of being alone with
himself.
"He isn't a bloody kumquat anyway."
"Darling you'll find one one day."
Will he? It seems unlikely.'
'But I have a kumquat.' Reminding him of her luck.
Phil smiles. Loving her. Her sense of fun. Her intelligence. They drink
the wine. Let the sounds of the dusk surround them. Chat. About love,
about poetry.About being worthy to love, of being loved.

He re-surfaces in the party atmosphere. The boyf party. He begins to
think he can
change, to leave him behind. To begin his search for his kumquat.

And the morning after the party, the very next morning, he goes into
them where
they lie together on her bed, Lol and Adie, the bed which she and Phil
have shared often and often before; drinking, smoking, laughing and
crying. Him crying, her holding him close. She pats the bed. Boyf looks
a little askance but she is playing with them both. Phil wonders if he
knows this. Looking, sideways, he realises he does and is enjoying the
experience. He likes him the more for that. And she wants the two
people she loves best together, with her in the middle, pampered,
central to them both. He loves that in her, her self-centred lovingness
to others. Her arm-flinging, all-encompassing generosity. She almost
wants to share her lover with her friend. But of course she doesn't
want that at all. He does. Doesn't.

She gets up and footles about the room, laughing, moving the muddle he
knows
better than anyone; ashtrays, books, papers; lifting, looking,
replacing. And all the
time looking back at them. Phil sees her loving the sight of the two
men who mean most to her lying, almost naked, next to each other,
smoking roll-ups, each in his own thoughts, each looking at her. She
climbs back in and they talk, together. Laugh. Phil wonders what Boyf
thinks. He was good last night, responded to being exhibited, on
show.

Now the boyf has left. Overnighting guests have gone too leaving unmade
beds, half eaten pizza and dessicated ciabatta; oily, hardened cheddar
and escaping brie. They are alone.

"Shall we have a post-mortem?" Lol is scraping plates.
"The pretty little poet was very attractive." Phil,says, musing. And
knowing where
this is leading.
"He didn't know what to make of you."
"He seemed startled. Like a hare."
"He was caught in your headlights. You'll go into a poem for
sure."
"So will he. About a little furry animal. A little vole."
"Well he is totally unavailable to anyone. Even his wife." Blocking
that little
fantasy.
And then she says, Lol says;
"Well. What do you think of him?" She has been waiting to ask him. He
has been
waiting for her to ask. She cares what he thinks, wants to know. He is
touched,
privileged to be asked. Sorry that she needed to ask him.
"Of who?" Making her ask properly. Nicely.
"You know." She almost screams at him. "You are such a bastard."
He gives in, not ungracefully.
"He is a shiny person. He is smiley. I think he is at ease with
himself." Envious.
"Is he right for me though, the right sort of person? You like him
don't you? He is
beautiful isn't he?"
He thinks long and hard. Looks long and hard. She isn't secure despite
her words.
"You won't tell me now I've asked. You won't give me that. Are you
jealous?"
She looks at him, into him. She knows him. Oh she's right, he is
jealous; of Lol's ability to love, to be loved, and he is thinking - I
am losing her. But pleased and happy too. Happy to see if this rubs off
on him, this luck. Happy she has wintered through. Found summer.

"Wait, wait. I'm thinking."
He looks judicious, judging, weighing things up.
"He is right for where you both are at the moment. Yes of course he is
right for you.
I think he is completing you. He is lovely. A kind man. I will like
him."
She seizes on that. "Yes. Yes. He is."
She is happy. Pleased that he likes him. And he does. Yes.
Flip as usual he says
"I'd sleep with him myself you know so he must be ok." Smiling,
wicked,
provoking her, eyes looking sideways, disappearing to the smile she
knows so well.
"You are naughty; naughty. Look at you. Your face. You are wicked. You
are a
bad influence. Anyway you'd sleep with anyone, anything. It's no
real
recommendation." Laughing aloud. Transformed. Easy.

And he thinks to himself. I would sleep with him too. He is wonderful.
My type
entirely. Well not quite perhaps. I want one like that. Different from
mine anyway.
One who completes the circuit. But he knows that his head is in the
wrong place.
That he only wants someone because he doesn't want himself. How can he
begin or end anything, being where he is, as he is?

Later;

"What I want" he says to her, "... what I want is that ease. The ease
you two have. I want to see that someone walking up the path, shining,
because they are going to be with me."
She smiles, knowing his pain. She has known it but she will forget it.
It's like
childbirth. If you remembered it you wouldn't do it again. Wouldn't
wait and
watch. Again he thinks she may forget him, he is too strong, too
present, a
reminder of that other time. She has moved on, but he stays in the same
place, the edgy, nerve-racked country. Searching country. Wild country.
Uncharted.

"I want to lie with someone in comfort, silence, knowing we understand
each other. Looking, just looking at each other from time to time. You
know that line from Hardy. 'When you look up there I shall be and when
I look up there you will be.' Do you remember? I used to hate that
line. Now I understand it." He does too. The comfort, the secret
sharing.
She nods at him.
Phil begins to talk of Honore. It's always him. What he is thinking,
what he is
feeling? That self-contained lover who visits, confers a great gift on
him and leaves, leaves him in love, in despair. Who allows him no
space. The one who told him he was just a car-park shag. The one who
told him he didn't love him ... but. Who talks about leaving his
partner but never will. Who leaves him wondering. Wondering what sort
of life he lives without him. The one who completes him and breaks him
every day. And like a jigsaw puts him back together through sex. Makes
him less than he is or should be.

"He said he missed me the other night. He has never said that to me
before. He
must feel something mustn't he? He wouldn't say that if he
didn't."
She looks at him and says nothing.
He ignores the look and crashes on; boring himself now. But he needs to
talk about him. No-one sees them together. If he doesn't speak of him
then he doesn't exist for anyone. For him. He has no reality for them
and the fact is that he is the most real thing in the world for him. He
is his world. He exists through the sex, the
remote contact they have. He can't bear to have no one, to be seen with
no-
one, alone. Always alone.

"He said he worried about me. I told him not to bother, that I was OK.
I didn't
need anyone. He said, whispering, that he wanted to worry about me.
What does
that mean?"
Lol sighs again. She is about to say fuck him. Fuck Honore. He is a
jerk. She has
heard it before, has told him to end it. This time she doesn't but it
exasperates her; he exasperates her, his weakness and desire. Phil
stops himself. Afraid to pursue his thoughts in this new country. He
can't recognise the landmarks here.

Lol starts to talk about the Boyf.
"Of course he is more handsome than yours. You know he is." Her usual
tease.
Look what I've got. You haven't got it. Like a child in the playground
with sweets.
Mmmmmmmmmm. These are lovely. Oh dear, that was the last one.
Of course Phil disagrees, laughing, insistent, but he thinks; ugly or
beautiful, it's of no moment, no matter. You want him and he is yours.
Keep him. Enjoy each
other.

Phil says "I'm always talking about him. Now it's your turn I
suppose."
He means it. She deserves the wonder. The awe. The pride in herself and
in him.
So she talks.

And arriving home and sitting in the sun he thinks of last night when
the softness of a full moon lighting them up, shining through cigarette
smoke; lingering over and silvering friends' features, made his finding
someone, an equal lover, almost
possible. To be wished for. And there was a shooting star. Romantic
fucker.
Adolescent. None of that is real. In the hard sun, the light of day, he
knows how
hard it will be to wait. It may never come and he must accept that. So
hard. His
head spins with the nullity, he is breathless with the
difficulty.

So in the garden, he contemplates endings and beginnings. He tries to
touch that
place in him that will tell him what he must do. Allow this sorry,
pathetic, pointless
little affair to continue? Allow himself to be less? Or be stronger,
the stronger of the two, hold that beautiful face firm between his
loving palms and smiling say;
"That's it. No more. If you want me here I am, here, loving you.
Beloved. But you
must come to me now. If it is going to be then this is how it must be.
I will celebrate you. I have seen the possibilities. Last I night I saw
a shooting star and the moon touched me."

Fool. It is a fearsome, terrible place. He rehearses the outcomes, of
acceptance and rejection of his love. Sits in the sun and listens to
the tattoo of his heart beating and beating.