My Inaudible Music

I'm here until four. That's when the gallery closes. I suppose it's
the time of the year but, god, it's quiet. Not a soul about. Even that
new collection of photos, 'Secret Life', hasn't raised much interest.
So, here I am, trapped, waiting for an opportunity to serve tepid
coffee to a few dull looking strangers, unprepossessing folk with
pinched faces and windblown hairstyles, in anoraks or faded slacks.
It's not much of life, standing here, polishing the teapot or
rearranging the almost stale provisions. There isn't much of what I'd
call glamour. No excitement at all really. But I don't let myself feel
bitter. Get your thrills where you can, that's what I say. Not that
thrills are easy to come by. Not here. Not at this time of the year.
But I'm creative. I always make the best of every situation. I pride
myself on that. Thinking positive. Stiff upper lip. That sort of
thing.

Occasionally, someone interesting pops in, to take a look at the
erotica perhaps, or to shelter from the incessant rain. They might want
a quick cuppa and a chat. Or a bowl of something wholesome. If they sit
at one of the tables nearby, I like to listen in. Not eavesdropping,
you understand, but just taking a healthy interest in the lives of
others. And the things I've heard. Really racy stuff. I might take a
chance and tidy up around them, get in a bit closer, just so I don't
miss anything. They never notice me. It's almost like being
invisible.

I have two favourites, a man and a woman. She's a bit odd, thin brown
locks and a strained expression, always smoking in spite of the
regulations. Small hands constantly moving, agitated and uneasy. She
comes here to meet him. Now he's interesting. I've an idea he's some
kind of actor or he was years ago. Charismatic in a neglected sort of
way, all dark clothing and hollow eyes, an air of slightly outmoded
success. I watch his long, piano players fingers toying with strands of
his coal-black hair. He never greets her, just waits for her arrival.
She always turns up at the same time, tense and a little expectant. I
hand them their coffees, try to smile, make their acquaintance. They
don't see me, just sit down and talk.

I love their conversations. So intense , so full of emotion. She's
loved him for years. There's something religious in the way she looks
at him. Her low voice, words tumbling out of her, filled with
re-crimination and regret. It's like praying. She never touches him.
Looking at him is enough. And he can barely bring himself to respond. I
think he's cruel, you see. His expression never changes, impassive,
almost blank, his eyes straying from hers as if he's grown bored of
what she's saying. And yet he still finds time to meet her, still
tolerates her apparently unwanted attentions. I've become so curious. I
wait for them to come in. I know people who've become involved with
soap-operas, or serials on the radio and I think they're stupid. Why
waste your time with actors when you can have the genuine article? Why
be interested in phoney situations when you can get into the Real
McCoy, happening right in front of your eyes? Unfolding. Real-life.
It's an education.

Wednesday. They were sitting a little away from me, near the
bookshelves.. They both looked tired, haggard even, and the
conversation seemed more overwrought than usual. When I saw her tears,
I knew that something important was going on and I had to be in on it.
Polishing tables and collecting crockery provides a good cover. So I
approached, quietly, hungry for every word. I was right, she was crying
and for one exquisite moment, I thought he was too. Her voice was
insistent. Demanding. Had she wasted seven years of her life? Did her
love count for nothing? I couldn't quite catch the drift of some of
what they were saying. Their voices dropped sometime to little more
than whispers but I could piece things together from what I could hear,
all those fractured sentences, angry exclamations. Betrayal. He had
betrayed her. Or had he spurned her? It was so frustrating. I needed to
know the full story. A sudden craving to just walk over and sit down
with them gripped me. And they must have seen me staring because they
suddenly fell silent and I thought I saw him glance in my direction.
Such lovely, sad eyes. Looking at me.

I watched them leave. Disappear through revolving doors into the cold
day. My eyes lingered on their after-image for several seconds when
they'd gone. Where did they go to when they left the gallery? To some
luxurious apartment or firelit townhouse? Or did they separate? Did She
retreat to a lonely sittingroom lost in contemplation of him? Or did he
just become part of the rain, dissolving into the air without looking
back? As my attention returned to thoughts of dishes and tea-leaves, it
occurred to me that they didn't really exist at all. I'd made them
up................

They were hear again today. Sitting at the same table, she talking,
talking. He, quietly listening. She took a drag from her cigarette and
passed a trembling hand through dishevelled hair. She hadn't slept, the
skin around her eyes was dark, vulnerable. Face wet with tears. The
prospect moved even me. Like one of those old romantic films, only
better because these people were flesh and blood. Breathing. If I
wanted to I could join in. But I didn't. I just wanted to watch.
Abruptly, she stood up, abandoning her endeavours, and walked towards
the exit. He did nothing to prevent her leaving, just peered into his
cup, stirred in some sugar. He was alone, now. There was a vacant chair
at the table. If only he'd look up. I thought of sitting down with him,
asking him who he was, what had happened. Thought about taking his hand
in mine and saying something profound, like they do sometimes in plays,
or at the end of cheap novels. If only he'd look up, meet my eyes,
beckon me over to him. But he didn't. And soon his table was empty
again and I was washing their cups, putting them back into the cupboard
and waiting for four o'clock. And outside it was still raining,
raining,
raining......................................................................

Later, when the rain had stopped and the wet air was filled with an odd
cloudy light, I stood for a moment at the top of the gallery steps.
Inhaling freedom. The working day and all its confinements behind me, I
waited for inspiration. Waited for my thoughts to clear, for the
flotsam of the afternoon to dissolve, make space for the calm to come
in......Here and there, around the open expanses of Parliament Square,
people moved with enigmatic purpose, going home perhaps or on to
crowded bars for drinks with friends or interesting acquaintances.
Something shifts inside me when I see them. Constricts. They remind me
that I inhabit a different world, a colder place.

I walked towards the station , hoping the train would be on time,
thinking it might start raining again and remembering that my umbrella
was still hanging in the Staff Cloakroom, glimpsing faces vaguely
familiar to me as they passed me by on the pavement. And memories moved
in and out of focus, were arranged into patterns and I could trace the
trajectory of my descent. Does the sadness show on my face, manifest
itself in frowns or preoccupied downward glances. Or do I appear as
button-bright as the next person. Running along the platform.

There's a woman who sometimes sits near me in the compartment, stolidly
middle-aged but with some mystique, nevertheless. I've sometimes
wondered how things might have been, had my mother been like her, a
little of the Matta Hari about her, even in her fifties. Would that
have made a difference? Coloured in the grey? Would things have turned
out better for me? More bohemian, with poets in the house, their louche
lovers trailing behind, all wretched and heartbroken. Extras in arty
sixties movies. Films with scandalous sex-scenes and Julie Christie. We
sat opposite each other, this woman and I, avoiding eye-contact and
pretending to be interested in the local news. As she flicked through
the paper, I studied her, covertly. Catalogued every pore and wrinkle,
made inventories of her clothes and jewellery. And she likes jewellery,
nothing valuable, of course, just flashy bits of stuff. But she uses it
to great effect.. You'd always think 'striking' rather than 'tacky'. It
was a honey-bee today. A brassy little thing. Diamante wings on a
delicate, rolled-gold body. It's little legs clung to the deep green
fabric of her jacket, almost fearfully. I felt quite touched by it.
Needless to say, I desired it immediately and the sudden thought that I
might steal it flashed across my mind. A pretty, golden honey bee. I
could almost feel it nestling in my pocket, a secret to bring me some
luck. God knows, I could do with some. But I didn't steal it. I just
looked. And remembered. And my mind travelled far on those sparkling,
fragile wings, far from the train and the weary afternoon, to somewhere
unthought of for decades.

When I was small, I was always afraid. The world seemed a wildly
dangerous place filled with the possibility of sudden peril. In the
spacious garden at the rear of our house, the most perilous of all
places, the fiery source of danger, were the hives. Houses of the bees.
I watched from afar , attracted by all that buzzing and mad activity,
but terrified of being stung, of being stung so many times that my skin
would boil and blister and the poison would stop my nervous life in
its' tracks. . My grandfather, keeper of the bees, had no such fear. He
nurtured and marshalled them, watched them dancing in the summer air
and gathered in their sweet clover honey. As the warm evenings drew in
and the hives were secured for the coming night, he might tell me
stories in his quiet way, tales of places and customs quite alien to
anything I had experienced in my short, childs' life. Other horizons
would burst into being, luscious buds surrendering to the sun in his
words. Other lives. With fingers still a little sticky from the
honey-combs, he spoke of Himalayan bees, and how, in the taking of
their honey, many men have lost their lives. In the moving shadows of
our English garden, breathing the warm promise of the August air, the
crags of remote mountain ranges seemed a little less unreal. The
oddness of those foreign bees, a little less strange. Their honeycombs
are hidden beneath the projecting rocks of dizzying ravines. Hungry for
sweetness, men drop frail ladders for hundreds of feet, and climb down
into the abyss. Made furious by smoke from bundles of burning rope, the
incensed and dangerous insects swarm and attack the honey-seekers as
they swing precariously in cool mountainous spaces . Those who are
stung often fall and are not seen again, their bodies lost in the arid
wilderness below. Those who survive, however, capture the precious
cargo and clamber, insect-like themselves, up the ladder to safety and
a good meal. In those regions, honey is more than just a sugary
foodstuff. It is a gift from older gods whose ways are brutal and whose
motives are frustratingly inscrutable.

He would pause, my Grandfather. Then knocking the bowl of his pipe
against a stone, scattering ashes and remnants of his fragrant tobacco,
he would lay his callused, gardeners palm lightly against the back of
my head. It always felt like a blessing to me, a rare moments' safety
in an ominous world. And, at some far distance, passing unseen through
the silent countryside, a train, its rhythmic signals, the almost
unnoticed heartbeat of the night.

The train jolted, disturbed my reverie. I experienced my return to
reality as a sluggish, almost sleepy, rise to the surface of some still
body of water. The sounds all around me seemed cacophonous in
comparison with the serenity of my submarine daydreamingy .
Inadvertently, I met the eyes of the woman with the brooch. They seemed
to understand,, were possessed of a softness I had not noticed before.
I wondered whether I should speak to her, tell her about the
connections I had made with my own life and her little golden bee. She
returned to her newspaper and I gazed through the window at the dreary
urban landscape slipping by, playing with the notion of a new-found
friendship. I looked at her again, peering secretly from under my
lashes. What would things be like? Would we dine together in suburban
bistros, eat well-cooked pasta dishes and laugh over our choice of
wine? Did she like the cinema or would we take in unusual plays,
travelling to other towns, perhaps, on the strength of a good review?
We might plan holidays over cappuccinos, oblivious to the cafe-life
bustling all around us.

When she got off the train, she didn't look back. Just disappeared into
the crowds milling around in the station, another unknown person among
so many making their way through unnameable streets, in insignificant,
in-between towns like this one. I quelled the sudden, sharp flowers of
betrayal that blossomed in the pit of my stomach and turned my thoughts
elsewhere. Perhaps I should have made a grab for that brooch, after
all. A woman like that could never be worthy of something so pretty, so
meaningful. I felt irritated and eager to be home and my mind was,
again, filling up with thoughts of those Himalayan bees and whether
they carry pollen in little baskets attached to their legs. Just as
English bees do. Or were they quite different in nature? Foreign.
Alien. Creatures reminiscent of bees but otherworldly and capable of
otherworldly crimes, of making honey of exquisite sweetness laced with
unspeakable venom, of concealing behind a facade of charming
familiarity, the most ruthless of stings.

......................................................................

Sudden fires make patches of cinders where once were snow and frost
covered leaves. Their savage, conflagrations make mockeries of a
million delicate, crystalline structures, pillage the intricate work of
other elements. Heat destroys cold, wrecks so many careful alignments.
I often imagine how things would be if I allowed the fiery side of
myself to come out, give my destructive nature some freedom, a little
rope. I'm not, by nature, a troublesome person, but sometimes things
get too much. There's too much frustration in the world. I think,
sometimes, that the odd explosion, furious outburst, sudden fire, might
relieve some of the tension. I ran these thoughts round my head as I
walked towards my home. My flat's in one of those large Victorian
villas, all faded grandeur and bins where there should be a shrubbery.
Not great but it just about does for a person like me. One bedroomed
apartments for the independent minded. I don't know my neighbours. I
might mumble 'hello' to that woman downstairs with the fondness for
Mahler, but that's about it. They simply don't inspire me. There's
nothing overtly heroic in any of them. They just couldn't live up to my
expectations, fulfill my ideals. Not like those two in the Gallery or
my friend on the train. The irony is, of course, that the ones I am
interested in never even notice me. Barely perceive my existence. I'm
sure I could shout at the top of my lungs and they wouldn't even glance
in my direction. Hell.

I was pouring boiling water into my mug and stirring in the instant
coffee, trying to ingnore signs of incipient damp creeping over the
kitchen wall, when I had an idea. What if I really did something
drastic. Put some of my thoughts into action. If I've thought about
killing someone, why not allow myself to do it? Take a life. Someone
innocent and unknowing. A stranger. People would notice me then, that's
for sure. I might even make the evening papers or the Six O'clock News.
Thinking like this exites me. There's always a rush of blood to my
temples which can be almost erotic. But mixed in with it is a subtle
disappointment, the knowledge that I just can't do it, that I can't do
anything. I haven't got the courage, and rather than killing a woman on
the train or a man in the gallery, I'm more likely to offer them a
something hot to drink, cake perhaps.. Timidity has a great deal to
answer for. I've always understood that 'fortune favours the bold' but
boldness is difficult to squeeze out of the fearful spirit. Early
experience has exposed me to the treacherous nature of our world. I
have been programmed to be terrified, meek and unseen.. We're hanging
from threads. Dangling over dark pits. The concept of a benign universe
is an abstraction, a deeply unfunny joke. My life can offer hard
evidence that what I'm saying is true. From the moment I was born,
things were teetering on the brink.

When my mother decided to sell our house she came up against a
marvellously unexpected difficulty. People were simply not interested
in buying a property whose very existence was threatened by the erosion
of the chalky limestone cliffs a couple of metres beyond our garden
wall. In time, the ceaseless attrition of stormy waves and restless
weather would fatally undermine the land on which our home perched and
in a matter of a few short years the whole lot would collapse into the
sea. In my early teens, I had become dimly aware of the precariousness
of our position but, in my naivet?, it seemed inconceivable that such a
sturdy, resilient-looking building could end its' days as heaps of
rubble and shattered wood, scattered on the pebbly shale far below.
Anyway, the views of the sea from the window of my room took my mind
off things, made the whole erosion issue seem unreal and part of some
far-off adult world. Certainly nothing to do with me. Problems,
however, have a natural aptitude for staying put. The sea continued its
battering campaign and the cliff edge inexorably retreated. Tiny
hairline cracks appeared in various outhouse walls. Something had to be
done and, one crisp, spring morning, a gleaming 'For Sale' sign
materialised.

Prospective purchasers were to be deceived. If someone were to ask
about the proximity of the cliff-edge, they were to be informed of its'
perfect safety and told how it added a great deal to the value of this
handsome dwelling. Who would be able to resist a house of such
character complete, as it was, with panoramic ocean views? I had always
known that my mother was a liar but in this situation, she really
excelled. . Her dissembling was disturbingly perfect. She was fighting
for her life, I suppose. Without a good price for our home, her
circumstances would be considerably reduced. She might even have to
take a job. Somehow, as the weeks passed into months, the intensity of
the erosion increased. When a large section of our perimeter wall
slipped ,one morning, quite gracefully, into the sea, we realised that
the game was up. There was no-one stupid enough, mad enough or kind
enough to take what we had to offer.

There's nothing like a stiff drink to stave off your troubles and I
have an abiding memory of my mother pouring out another pernod just at
the moment when our sheds and a charming summer house disappeared over
the edge. There hadn't been much warning, just a kind creaking and
groaning, perhaps a little vibration , them a disturbingly satisfying
sensation of subsidence. Of course, we'd been advised, in no uncertain
terms, to leave, but she refused, wanted to be in at the end. I even
suspected that, on some subconscious level, she was exhilarated by the
thought of all this destruction, of our lives reduced to driftwood
before our very eyes. It didn't take long. Once the final demolition
had begun, its progress was rapid. After the garden, all its trees and
the lawn had gone, the house succumbed easily. We'd moved into a small
caravan by then. Parked it on the front lawm and had ringside seats.
Me, pale and horrified, my mother reeking of aniseed liqueur, eyes
wide, expressing unheard -of torments. Huge fissures appeared in the
superstructure and, at 2:30 on a Wednesday afternoon it crumbled,
fragmented and dissolved onto the ruinous shore below. Waves rushed to
meet it. We stood quietly above with our caravan. Not speaking.

Later, I came to realise that, in some way or other, we're all waiting
for the sea to take us. That our homes all stand at the cliffs' edge,
battered by unforeseen storms. That it won't be long before we all find
ourselves falling headlong into the foaming water. Being casually swept
away.

On rainy evenings, when I'm alone here, reading perhaps, with the TV on
for company, I may catch sight of a scurrying spider or one or two of
the other creeping things that occupy my flat along with me. They move
quickly from one dim cranny to the next, avoiding danger at all costs,
their little lives dominated by twin passions for sex and survival. Are
they aware of me? That I could crush the life out of them in an
instant, press down upon their frail bodies with one arthritic thumb or
flatten them between the pages of my paperback? I am touched by such
vulnerability. Their situation has an element of the tragic about it.
Like our own. For are we so different? We too eke out dangerous lives
in twilit places and are subject to the twists and turns of a sometimes
merciless destiny. And it occurs to me, sometimes, that we may also be
watched, scrutinised by something far greater than ourselves. If I'm
anxious or fretful or desperate for change, I might glance skyward and
offer some kind of prayer and hope that doesn't go unnoticed. Like all
those spider prayers do..

The view from my window at night, across the dark garden, the
straggling branches of a few ravenous trees, the more opaque
shamelessness of the sandstone wall, fascinates me. Lights move out of
the semi-obscurity, bright and optimistically clear in the fug of
polution-enfused mist that settles over and in everything. I love to
watch them. headlamps. Barely perceptible, the drivers in their cars
speeding down the highroad to who knows where. Characterless starter
homes located charmingly at the more desirable edges of nowhere.
Illuminated mass-produced lifestyles for the upwardly mobile. I watch
them passing on the evenings when I can't sleep, when even upping the
dosage has no effect. To amuse myself I might alter my focus, make the
view of the outside disappear, turn the subtly smeared window-pane into
an inefficient mirror. Survey the dimly reflected image of my room,
its' woebegone furnishings and bedraggled familiarity. And my own pale
face staring balefully back, eyes empty but for the sporadic flashes of
memory and other, more sunlit sadnesses. Sometimes I catch sight of my
mother.

When most of what remained of our home was gone, swept far out to sea
and lost, we would stand, my mother and I, at the cliffs' edge and gaze
thoughtfully down at the beach below. We never said much, just watched
the grey waves crashing in, heard the keening of some distant bird
carried skyward on salty winds. I would look at her, her blue eyes
buised and fearful, all the colours of the cold Atlantic, and would
know. It was all over for us. The thing that bound us was broken. I
called this time and the times that followed 'The tribulation'. Made an
odd kind of joke out of it. Laughing in the face of adversity and all
that. The situation was complex, so much to be sorted out. Men in
odd-fitting barathea suits would talk seriously, professionally, to my
mother about 'options' and policies', 'processing' and 'completion' and
sometimes I would listen in. Most of the time, though, I would fix my
eyes on the flickering, badly tuned-in television screen. Monitoring,
absorbing a multitude of distant events. Take an interest in the latest
tragedy. The interviews and press-conferences. Raised, questioning
voices concealing a cynical disinterest. The flashing and clicking of a
roomful of unseen cameras, the crackle of pages turned in journalistic
notebooks. That harsh, inhuman lighting and in the middle of it all, a
woman. With a name like Susan, Cheryl, Barbara. A face inflamed and
congested , the green of her iris unnaturally emphasised by tears and
bloodshot red.

'If anyone knows anything.....................'

The voice, tremulous like that of a child. Her repetitive, hopeless
appeal.

Days pass by, turn into weeks, and the disappearance, a common enough
accurance, is reported with decreasing intensity by organs of the local
press, begins to shrink, loses significance, becomes two dimensional. A
shoe discovered in some litter-strewn car-park. A possible last
sighting. Monochromatic now and filed away Another small, sad tale. Not
the first shopgirl dragged into the dark. I would sit gazing at the
screen, mind overrun with thought of this woman. Susan. Cheryl.
Barbara. Imagining her thin figure wandering across the fields in the
evening, clouds lowering, threat of rain in the autumn air. Her eyes
are sensitive to the smallest suggestion of disturbed earth, concealed
grave. Dreaming of her daughter, stilled and hidden, nights turning
colder. Mud and rain and the corrosive loneliness of another
world.

I' ve tried to harden myself against stuff like this. Grow a thicker
skin, shut my eyes and block out the more sordid horrors of modern
life. Especially these days, when it's just me. I persuade myself not
to think, as I'm looking out into the suburban night, that it's just
possible that out there, someone is watching, is secretly peering back
at me. Appraisingly. Sizing me up. Waiting for that window of
opportunity.

..................................................................................

The early mornings can be lovely. That coppery sunlight flooding the
sitting-room. The slight chill, exiting somehow, pleasant anticipation
of the coming winter. The unspoken English love of bad weather .
Sometimes, as I'm leaving, heading in the direction of the station and
the early train, I can even experience something approaching happiness.
Gladness at any rate. A subtly uplifting warmth within, all the leaves
changing, the sun shining through them, the damp, earthy beginnings of
decay. Changes in the natural world are mirrored by changes happening
within. Or so I've always believed. I've read about it in books.
Self-help. Cover photos showing flowers in bloom. Lots of sunlight and
empowering optimism. They're all the same. Promising profound
transformations, renewed vigour and success if only you 'd part with
the required ?6.99. Yes. I'm cynical but there is something appealing
abut all that positive thinking. Something to do with making wishes
come true. Dreams. Finding ways of making the leap into some other
life. The gist of it seems to be that by simply thinking about your
fantasies, by really concentrating on them, they'd all come true. Be
open. Aware. Tune in to the universal vibe. Don't be a slave to
'negative emotions'. So I've spent a great deal of time daydreaming,
fantasising, waiting for things to happen. Falling in love or taking to
the stage. Speaking powerfully to large groups of besotted admirers.
Walking along a deserted beach in brazil or somewhere.. Somewhere far
away. But it doesn't happen. Never happens. Routine rolls inexorably
on. And then I feel angry. Hot anger in my blood. Irritation. And my
hands shake and I start to think about home

We lived, my mother and I, in a state of uneasy peace, mutually hostile
animals attempting to graze in the only available field. Jealous of our
poor patch of ground, grunting defensively at even the most
insignificant suggestion of intrusion. Apart from occasional spats we
lived relatively quietly, exchanging few words. Sometimes not speaking
for days. As soon as the bulk of our financial problems had been
overcome, we abandoned the stale confinement of our caravan and moved
into a small house nearer in to the town. Her fondness for hazy,
pernod-induced reverie became all-encompassing. The aniseed reek and
slurred, sporadic outbursts providing a perverse kind of entertainment.
Drenched in booze, she became more talkative. Almost sociable. In her
more agreeable moments , completely drunk but not yet incoherent, she
would rememenisce, teary-eyed. Re-invoke sheeny images to better times.
Gossipy cocktails with influential friends, the glimpsing of
celebrities at invitation-only theatrical openings. She might even
speak fondly of my father, smile at the times before it all went awry.
I never said much, attempted expressions of sympathetic interest,
raised eyebrows and hint of a smile. Inside there was a strange,
yearning pain. These were the moments when the truth was clearest, most
perfectly defined. My mother was a wounded creature - the disaster of
her marriage, the spectacular loss of her home, me, her beautiful
failure. Yes, she'd been wounded and it was not difficult to foresee
the time when her injury would prove fatal.

`
..........................................................................

Clouds. Cumulus or cirrus, water-vapour or flakes of stratospheric ice.
The engines of the weather, bringers of the fine autumn rain, the quiet
January snow. I'm sometimes to be found, in the last few minutes before
the working day begins, gazing upwards. Standing at the top of the
gallery steps, jostled occasionally by hurrying workers , chattering
strangers. I throw my thoughts far up into the turbulent air, imagine
the feeling of icy, spiralling winds on my skin. the glacial breath of
the arctic, the mellower exhalations of the warmer southern regions,
colliding, giving a strange kind of birth to storms. Bright flashes of
unconscious lightening. The ominous rumbling of distant thunder. The
world below, the crucible of all our fatuous human concerns, seems
embarrassingly insignificant when compared with the flux of the
elements, the tireless processes of ancient nature. Passing the
revolving door and on into the echoing spaces of the gallery, I am
occasionally aware of feeling something a little like shame. Shame for
the triviality of my needs, my frustrated yearnings, the thing I'd like
to do, acts to perform, that preoccupy me. When around and above me, a
grandeur, an eternity, a distant and indifferent natural world. I hang
my coat on the hook in the staff-room, check to see if my forgotten
umbrella is still where I left it and head for the cafe, its morning
smells of fresh coffee, newly delivered bread, clatter of cutlery,
distance whistling of a tired night-watchman relieved to be going
home.

One day is much like another. Watching, waiting, pouring the tea.
Rearranging and displaying new varieties of pre-packed confectionery.
The monotony can be stifling. A grey half-life shot through,
occasionally, by moments of electrical brightness: the muttered secrets
of overheard conversations, someone else's' good or bad experiences.
Something sexual, an unrequited passion, news of a death.

He was hear again , quite early. Long overcoat of some heavy, charcoal
grey material. A scarf of an autumnal shade, burgundy or muted echo of
moorland heather. It lent vibrancy to his complexion, an energy to his
heartbroken eyes. I watched him. Getting closer. Thought it strange
that he wore such wintry clothing for, although there was definite
chill in the air, especially in the mornings, the days were still warm,
the summers heat diminishing but still in evidence. My actor. Alone. He
fumbled in his pocket for some change, glanced at the cakes, some
sad-looking sandwiches. I wondered how I would feel if it should be
that he had dressed with me in mind, made himself look more attractive
for me. I imagined him in his room, disordered sheets and books, black
and white photographs of on-stage triumphs, photocopied reviews. How he
discarded his pyjamas , still warm and musky from the bed, and stood
naked, skin pale and smooth in the early morning light. He mused over
what to wear, ran his fingers over lapels and shirt-collars, with me in
mind all the time, wanting to be handsome. For me.

'Just a coffee please.'

He looked at me when he said it, looked right into my eyes. My throat
felt suddenly tight and I knew I'd be unable to reply so I said
nothing. Just gave him my smile and poured the hot, aromatic coffee
into the cup. Took his money, the coins all silvery on his palm, my
skin touching his for an instant. Then he took the cup and walked away.
I expected him to glance back, but he didn't, just sat down at his
favourite table, silent and self-contained, stirring in his usual
sugar, glancing at a leaflet promoting some out-of-town event. Damp
cloth on the slightly stained surface of the display cabinet, crumbs
and the sticky residues, sweetness and old sugar. I thought about him,
his skin, its' texture smooth and warm on mine. The sheen of his sweat
, his wordless exclamation. I put down the cloth, noting the secretive
trembling in my body, the dull pain just beginning in the back of my
skull.

The headaches had started soon after my father departure. Stress
related. Always setting in at a moment when I most needed to be strong,
have my wits about me. In times of crisis, periods of transition. The
doctor prescribed some pills, '....a breakthrough in the fight against
migraine,' he said and pointed me in the direction of the waiting car,
black and ludicrously grand at the front of our modest little house. I
noticed with a frustration that transcended pain, that the sky was
heavy with purply-grey clouds, the familiar threat. It would be
raining, probably torrentially, as I went to bury my mother. I could
almost hear the heavy, cold drops beating hollowly on the polished wood
of her coffin. The crematorium was empty. A few distant cousins , an
ageing uncle who spoke sourly of some peoples vulgar tast in floral
tributes. There were hymns and a little speech about how my mother had
lived an interesting but blameless life. And then she was gone. Shunted
through the red velvet curtains to a sound track of pre-recorded
Mozart. My selection. When it was over, I stood outside, raindrops
running down the back of my neck, feeling what it was like to be
completely alone. The shell-shocked owner of a totally uninhabited
life. No lovers. No parents. No friends. I wondered how all this had
come about, struggled to discover the moments of mistake, of
wrong-doing. Trying to unearth hard evidence of my own culpability .
And I thought about my mother, feeling cross that she had left me in
such an untenable position. Her death came suddenly, almost
unexpectedly although it had seemed to me that she had been edging
herself out of life for years. A slight seizure and a few days in
hospital during which any remaining vitality simply ebbed away. I
thought she'd smiled at me in the last moments like the perpetrator of
a grand and rather subtle joke, astonished at the realisation that
she'd actually pulled it off.

.......................................................................................................

Stones are shaped over centuries, are changed, by the wind, by water ,
the seasonal freezing and thawing , cracking and fracturing. New shapes
emerge. On the wall above the fireplace in the staff smoking-room,
there's a faded print of some rocks on the south coast. Primeval.
Rising out of the sea like the teeth of long extinct, mythical animals
. They appear impervious to the onslaughts of nature. Immovable.
Unchangeable. They are not. Years of constant attrition , the ceaseless
wearing away of time, will reduce them to fragments and grains of sand
on the little beach. No memory will survive of their once proudly
defiant form. There will be no sadness as their last traces are carried
far out into the ocean. I've never been certain that our futures hold
any thing different. Are we not shaped by experience, accident of fate,
unforeseen random collision? Looking at myself now, nothing remains of
the thing I once was, of the rich potential of my childhood self . My
psyche, distorted like an old tree in parched and gusty mountain air,
bears the impressions of many impacts. Pieces have been lost or cannot
be repaired. I have the sense that, though I grow tougher, less
susceptible to the pains of injury, I also grow smaller, lose mass and
density, looking forward to the day, fast approaching , when the final
shattering occurs, when the pieces sink beneath the moving surface, the
acrid brine, and are scattered.

Anyway, I'm here until four. It's been quiet , hardly a soul all day.
An important football match or assassination of a film star kept them
at home . Kept this place almost deserted. Just a few strays, faceless
people en route to elsewhere. And him of course. Must get things
ship-shape, ready for tomorrow. Tidy up in the kitchen, clear up the
tables. Hear and there the melancholy clutter of other peoples
afternoon trysts. Grime of old coffee and used serviette. Solitary
cigarette-end in the ashtray. The sandwiches are stale but I'll take
some home anyway.. Waste not, want not, and all that. Funny how the air
smells of stone , of dust and damp clothing. I suppose it's raining
again, all the cool water falling heavily out of the sky. It might
still be raining at dusk, when the light is failing. It might rain all
night. How the pavements shine with it when the streetlights flicker
on, here and there, all over town, in empty bars and steamed-up corner
cafes. How the streets gleam with neon and the stark beams of the
headlamps of all the cars passing in the city evening. Hurrying home.
Home. Rain on the windscreen but warm inside. The radio playing some
old song with a tune you've known all your life. Conjures a memory,
some old memory. Trick of the light and I'm back.

Ends.