chill of hearth and home. And so it was embarrassing, really, having no money for the taxi â so I said to him Look, you just hang on here for a minute, will you? Shanât be a jiffy, be back in a mo. Christ knows this time what crawled all over his face: sometimes you just
canât
know, canyou? Canât bear to think, because (Christ Jesus) it could break you. Anyway: no money in the delftware bowl, where there usually is (and God alone knows where it ever comes from: not from me, thatâs for bleeding sure). Bugger all in my wallet because I remembered now â Iâd spent the whole lot in a funny little shop in Putney Iâd never come across before: bought a couple of rather nice starfish and a good length of fishing net ⦠anyway, thatâs not the point, how could it be. And Susanâs money was wherever she keeps it: on her, shouldnât wonder, day and night and even in the bath. So there was a jumble of coins on Amandaâs little pink dressing table, the one she wants to paint black (and Christ, by now I was panting like a bloody animal, heaving up and down the stairs, horsing in and out of every room in need of lucre) â and weâre five pence short, it transpires: the taxi driver, though â he said heâd let it ride. Yep, let it ride: thatâs exactly what he said. And this time I didnât â couldnât, really â look him in the face (well Jesus, thereâs got to be a limit).
I donât really feel I can go to the seaside. Not right now, no not really. Itâs a shame, itâs a pity, but my light and secret stupendous oasis â it cannot, maybe by the very jauntiness of its nature (cocking a snook) always come through for me. Sometimes â most times, thank Jesus â when Iâm frazzled, I am sucking down the ozone even as the key so very reassuringly clunks open the door; already I am heady with the blousy charge to come. By the time I am slung into the deckchair, my mindâs eye crimson against the sun, dizzily tracing the wheel and swooping of a single seagull ⦠then the deadweight of care â or jagged angst, or flashing terror, or the plunging of misery, or bilious self-disgust or merely the stark blank wall of boredom (for there are shock-few gamuts that can be soingloriously extensive) â that care, that stone, has plummeted from me like a rusted anchor on the heft of its thundering chain, fathoming down to the bed of the sea where it rests in peace, and then I can too. But on other occasions â and wouldnât this just have to be a white and luminous example of just such a terrible thing â I feel too salty to mingle with the brine of my imagination, too gritty inside to be coping with a warm swathe of sand, cosseting my toes. I never dare go in at times like these, for fear that then I shall associate this fragile harbour wholly and solely with its innocent failure just that one earlier time to jolt and then restore me. If I went in now (and I cannot tell you how very strong the yearning) I would only mooch â joylessly finger a casual barnacle, allow my sullen cornet to glossily slump: observe through hot and barely sucked back tears the warm and sticky rivulets coursing on down and over my panicked and bright-taut knuckles. Even the thought of the potential for sadness â in there, in my little maritime hideaway â it makes me so brimful of the sort of despair from which (I cringe at my knowing) there can be no exit. Yes. So no. Alcohol, then ⦠and maybe just a touch of something else: a hit of the aroma, the memory of then, when times were finer.
There is a chest, always locked, that reeks of the essence of Susanâs femininity. I would never have come across the key had I not, during the course of a routine and periodic rummage, found this other key to a particularly pretty little limewood and ebony jewellery
canât
know, canyou? Canât bear to think, because (Christ Jesus) it could break you. Anyway: no money in the delftware bowl, where there usually is (and God alone knows where it ever comes from: not from me, thatâs for bleeding sure). Bugger all in my wallet because I remembered now â Iâd spent the whole lot in a funny little shop in Putney Iâd never come across before: bought a couple of rather nice starfish and a good length of fishing net ⦠anyway, thatâs not the point, how could it be. And Susanâs money was wherever she keeps it: on her, shouldnât wonder, day and night and even in the bath. So there was a jumble of coins on Amandaâs little pink dressing table, the one she wants to paint black (and Christ, by now I was panting like a bloody animal, heaving up and down the stairs, horsing in and out of every room in need of lucre) â and weâre five pence short, it transpires: the taxi driver, though â he said heâd let it ride. Yep, let it ride: thatâs exactly what he said. And this time I didnât â couldnât, really â look him in the face (well Jesus, thereâs got to be a limit).
I donât really feel I can go to the seaside. Not right now, no not really. Itâs a shame, itâs a pity, but my light and secret stupendous oasis â it cannot, maybe by the very jauntiness of its nature (cocking a snook) always come through for me. Sometimes â most times, thank Jesus â when Iâm frazzled, I am sucking down the ozone even as the key so very reassuringly clunks open the door; already I am heady with the blousy charge to come. By the time I am slung into the deckchair, my mindâs eye crimson against the sun, dizzily tracing the wheel and swooping of a single seagull ⦠then the deadweight of care â or jagged angst, or flashing terror, or the plunging of misery, or bilious self-disgust or merely the stark blank wall of boredom (for there are shock-few gamuts that can be soingloriously extensive) â that care, that stone, has plummeted from me like a rusted anchor on the heft of its thundering chain, fathoming down to the bed of the sea where it rests in peace, and then I can too. But on other occasions â and wouldnât this just have to be a white and luminous example of just such a terrible thing â I feel too salty to mingle with the brine of my imagination, too gritty inside to be coping with a warm swathe of sand, cosseting my toes. I never dare go in at times like these, for fear that then I shall associate this fragile harbour wholly and solely with its innocent failure just that one earlier time to jolt and then restore me. If I went in now (and I cannot tell you how very strong the yearning) I would only mooch â joylessly finger a casual barnacle, allow my sullen cornet to glossily slump: observe through hot and barely sucked back tears the warm and sticky rivulets coursing on down and over my panicked and bright-taut knuckles. Even the thought of the potential for sadness â in there, in my little maritime hideaway â it makes me so brimful of the sort of despair from which (I cringe at my knowing) there can be no exit. Yes. So no. Alcohol, then ⦠and maybe just a touch of something else: a hit of the aroma, the memory of then, when times were finer.
There is a chest, always locked, that reeks of the essence of Susanâs femininity. I would never have come across the key had I not, during the course of a routine and periodic rummage, found this other key to a particularly pretty little limewood and ebony jewellery
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