White light

White Light

Clive was in trouble: deep, deep trouble. If this trouble had been an ocean you would have needed one of those armoured diving bells with lights and mechanical arms to reach the bottom. Come to think of it, you probably wouldn't have reached the bottom because of the pressure. And that was the root of the trouble: the pressure of love. Oh yes; that's why he was in trouble. Didn't I say? His trouble was his love, and his love was his trouble. To carry on with the water metaphor, his love had lifted him off his feet like a rip tide about three weeks ago and it hadn't put him down yet: that's how strong it was. If this love had worked out at the gym a bit it could have entered weight-lifting contests. This love had totally fucked up his life.

And then there was the object of his love. Now, on this topic Clive could talk all day, be a pub bore, talk hind-legs off and then back on an infinite number of donkeys. You get the picture? He was in love big-time. Her name was Emma Lisa Jane ' Emma Lisa Jane. He could say it over and over again and it never ceased to raise goose bumps ' Emma¦¦Lisa¦¦.Jane. He had never felt like this; never meet anybody like this. His words ran out, there weren't any words: but that didn't stop him. 'Look', he would say to friends who were beginning to doubt his grasp of the situation, 'she is like this radiant, feral, occluded creature.' 'No, that's not it', he would contradict himself, 'she is young/old, nature/culture, boy/girl.' He would keep going at it, mashing up words and concepts trying to get some new juice out of their dry structure.

Now, Clive's friends had a slightly more coherent view of Emma Lisa Jane. She was, they would say, attractive in a dangerous way. She had dark skin and blue eyes (are you seeing this?), a body that a 10 was baggy on, but she always wore baggy clothes. The sex was fantastic of course because she was cool water to a thirsty man. And that is what Clive was when he met her: a thirsty, thirsty man, desperate to drink from a deep pool of love and sex.

But there was a problem. Emma Lisa Jane was already in love with somebody else. Emma Lisa Jane loved two men ('two perfect loves' she called it). Clive's advantage, at least he thought it was an advantage, was that the 'other' love was 2,000 miles away in Egypt. So Emma Lisa Jane had a virtual love via the 'phone and letters and a present love with Clive. Well, except she wasn't always with Clive because Emma Lisa Jane couldn't make up her mind who she wanted to be with. So she would come and go, go and come. Emma Lisa Jane had dumped Clive three or four times in as many weeks. Clive couldn't really remember the exact total now as the dumping time seemed to merge into the 'item' time and anyway to Clive being dumped just made him love her even more.

You see, inside Clive there was a medieval peasant. Yes, that's right, a medieval peasant. Let me explain. There's was a modern love, perhaps even a post-modern love, and they had daily and copious contact via e-mail. Clive had convinced himself that if he could just decode correctly the meanings in her emails he would be able to answer 'the riddle'. 'The riddle' was why she couldn't make up her fucking mind who she wanted to be with. You see Emma Lisa Jane was very good at hiding and she would write sentences that were semantically open and virtually content free. This is an art-form and I doubt if you could acquire the skill if you were not born with it. Imagine an arc that always bends towards the ground but never touches it. Got that in your head as a metaphor? Good, well that's what Emma Lisa Jane's emails and conversations were like. Clive looked for flaming comets, sheep with two heads, a boat in the sky with its anchor caught in the spire of a church, all that medieval stuff that was meant to presage something momentous. Clive was love-sick, love-dumb, love-blind and horny as a horny thing can be as it sits in hell.

He had tried to resolve the issue, bring it to a conclusion, tie up the loose ends and effect closure. But it was like some kind of clever trap. The more he struggled to be free, the tighter the coils of the obsession closed around him. But, he had decided, enough was more than enough. One last heave comrades and we can sort this all out. They had a date. He had suggested they meet at 12.00pm in Green Park under a tree they both knew well. He even had a list of agenda points:

1. Why you can't be with me
2. Why you can't be without me
3. What in your childhood has made you be like this

It went on like this for some time with sub-headings and scribbled 'don't forget to say X' footnotes. It was an academics attempt at a love note; it was the little boy at the back of the class with their hand up saying 'me Miss, me'; it was a suicide note; it was the last throw of the dice; it was hope saying good-bye to the world; it was all Clive cared about.

Clive looked at his watch, 11.30am: half-an-hour until their meeting in Green Park. He wandered into the Prêt a Manger at the top of Oxford Street and wondered which sandwich would convey exactly the right air of desirability. How about the pine kernels and avocado, or perhaps the giant BLT? Then again, a sun-dried tomato chibatta with chicken and mayonnaise did hint at a certain Mediterranean wildness of spirit. The shop was full of summer people. For one mad moment Clive thought about doing some market research on the sandwich issue but even in his slightly deranged state he realised that this was not a good idea. He glanced at his watch again, 11.45am! Clive grabbed the first packet that came to hand: parmesan shavings, rocket and guacamole. He didn't have time now to think about the subtitle semiotics of his lunch; didn't have time now to think about anything but getting to Green Park and Emma Lisa Jane.

There she was under the tree in the park. Her body sang an old song of curves and hollows and pleasure and pain. There were great arcs of electricity coming off them both and ripping into the trees and passers-by. To Clive it seemed that the sunlight poured out of her fathomless blue eyes and that the sun simply reflected.

They sat. They ate their lunch. They made small talk. Then Clive produced his piece of paper and started to work through his points. Emma Lisa Jane fell silent and sullen. She stared at the ground. The ground stared back. None of this worked. What worked was Emma Lisa Jane started to cry. Clive reached for her and she reached for him. They kissed. She was on top of him. He had his hand on her bare back at the base of the spine. And so they rolled under the tree by the gate in Green Park for the whole of a long summer afternoon. Lou Reed played in Clive's head: 'Linger on, you pale blue eyes'. And she did linger this time: for a while at least.