Writing: December 2007 Archives

My bones ache, my skin feels cold, and I'm getting so tired and so old. - Snow Patrol, Open Your Eyes

Today, over coffee, we talked about how we would never go home again.

How the living, the living here, has changed us, made us into people we were not.

It has taken the people we were, uncomplicated and naive; and adding age, created tangles from previously unaddled stetches of being and process.

Talk of children, sex and life and Philip Larkin and his Importance of Elsewhere.

Lonely in Ireland, since it was not home,
Strangeness made sense. The salt rebuff of speech,
Insisting so on difference, made me welcome:
Once that was recognised, we were in touch

Their draughty streets, end-on to hills, the faint
Archaic smell of dockland, like a stable,
The herring-hawker's cry, dwindling, went
To prove me separate, not unworkable.

Living in England has no such excuse:
These are my customs and establishments
It would be much more serious to refuse.
Here no elsewhere underwrites my existence.

Where is your elsewhere?

'So mothers keep your girls at home,
Don't let them journey all alone,
Tell them this world is full of danger,
And to shun the company of strangers'
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, The Kindness of Strangers

The girl walks up the steps, doesn't punch her card. Sits down with one foot on the back of the seat in front of her. Small, dark skin, doe eyes. Straightened hair. Cheap perfume.

She wears a white puffa coat, jeans, a black belt. Nameless sneakers. She eats McDonalds fries out of their paper packet and watches the door. Her mp3 player, (it's not an ipod), blasts nameless music into her ears.

She taps her foot against the chair.

Opposite her a middle-aged woman, shopping bags in hand, lifeless skin, deflated breasts, soul escaped. Bags from Blokker with gifts for her children who are probably just as lifeless as their mother.

Destined for a bleak future.

Then a boy walks in, sits down, kisses the girl for just a little too long for them to be only friends. She leaves the headphones in. They don't talk. His hand rests on her thigh, near the top, just below her crotch. She eats her fries and listens to her music.

The middle-aged woman watches them. She's trying not to watch, her eyes pretend they're looking out of the window. She's not watching. But she is.

If she would speak she would say, 'I was 17. I ate fries while my boy put his hand on my crotch. I pretended I didn't care.'

If she would speak she would stand up and howl. The windows would shatter.

She likes to think she wouldn't be invisible anymore. She likes to think the boy and girl would notice her.

She'd be shaking her fists, roaring into a void.

Screaming, 'I'm here. Look at me!' Her voice would rasp and grate along the words.

They'd keep listening to their music. Their feet would tap to whatever it was.

The girl would leave his hand near her crotch. He would think about how he wanted to get into her pants. She would think about nothing.

The woman sitting opposite them is invisible.

They're only little tears, darling, let them spill
And lay your head upon my shoulder
Outside my window the world has gone to war
Are you the one that Ive been waiting for?
- Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Are you the one that I've been waiting for.

The tennis ball flips lazily from one side of the court to the other. Tanned, smooth, effortlessly hairless, teenage legs chase the ball. 

Backhand, forehand, volley.

White socks with bobbles above white-washed plimsolls, painted every weekend to keep them white.

Green skirts short, slips of white bikini showing when they dip to hit the ball. White t-shirts pulled tight across suddenly full breasts.

The tennis teacher, Flash, he's called, leaning back characteristically on his heels and surveying the sea of hormones in front of him.

The best player is blond and cheeky. Her C-cup passes her in Maths and advances her in tennis. She has curls, good teeth, and an impish face. Even at 14 she knows how to stand close to the teacher, how to show the most flesh when she swings for the ball.

The ball slams, hits the faded clay, catches in the ancient net. The racquets squeak. Shoes thump.

The sun shines on and trickles of sweat run down the back of the tanned knees.

Circles of sweat start to form in the armpits of the clean white shirts. Beads form on noses. The ball slams.

Mid-afternoon and tennis ends, just as cricket starts.

The few boys, favourites of the tennis teacher, lift themselves from the shade of the hut, where they've been watching the play. Punching each other, horsing around, they pretend not to care.

Lanky and loping, they leave to chase different balls on a different field.

If I don't break a sweat, it ain't as good as it gets. - Beth Hart, As Good As It Gets

The veranda. Wide and low.

Soft darkness in contrast to the glaring October light.

Green gauze over the window apertures to keep out the flies. Whitewashed walls, paint flaking if you rub against it.

Inside, cool oxblood floors, polished to a high shine by the Boy and his polisher. Whirring and whining every morning at 7o'clock.

The electric fan on top of the gramophone, limply distributing the air. The heat pulling the life out of you.

Dad fiddling with the radio to get a station through the static. Eventually giving up and settling for torpid silence.

Ochre plastic leather covered chairs sticking to the backs of your legs where your skirt rides up. A sucking sound when you shift in your seat. You want to fling your legs apart and hook them over the sides of the chair, but that's impolite so you keep them together and squirm in your chair.

You really want to lie down on the cool floor like the dogs, who pant and salivate in the heat.

Kleintje the fox terrier lies on her side, panting, chest heaving, in an effort to cool down.

Tea in a metal teapot. The green knitted tea cosy made by one of the aunts pointlessly covering the teapot. All delivered by the Boy on a tray with four cups, sugar basin, hot water, teaspoons.

'Bloody Boy forgot the milk again. Can you tell him to bring it?'

'Ephraaaaim, milk!'

The conversation drags on about crops, rain, mielies, Boys and their wives, incest, polygamy, the goat herder and his penchant for fucking the goats. Having to call the vet for the goats and why can't he just be normal and keep it in his trousers.

'Jeepers, did you see that Juliet's husband beat her again. These people. Drink and fight. You can't do anything with them. It's not surprising they can't govern themselves.'

A sigh, and then the subject changes.

'Mmm. Do you want another cup of tea?'