The lovely web designer

*

The Lovely Web Designer

High heel, acrylic on hardboard, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

She was giving the presentation from a slim laptop there were slides and a discussion about the colours and to-ing and fro-going about the lettering and why this and why that and if the logo should be here or there and how big and what is the first thing they see when they log in and oh that`s nice and how does it work on a cellphone and...well, you get the picture. Jerry made some comments and so did the MD and then it was marketing and tech. And I was transfixed.

Dark skinned with a wonderfully rounded head and large eyes. A soft red lips and a perfect not overlarge nose and almost black, straight hair.

A slender neck (delicious, so biteable!) in a black cashmere v neck and a pink neck scarf, and a knee length black skirt and low heels...

She laughed lightly occasionally while giving the presentation and sometimes a dark lock somehow became detached from her ponytail and fall across her face and a delicate finger rose to push it so neatly behind her exquisitely crafted ear which featured a tiny gold stud...

And the next day...there was Natalie, just Natalie.

Natalie when I woke: Oh God!

Natalie in the shower: oh my Lord!

Natalie at breakfast: Jesus!

Natalie in the car, her legs folded , just so, on the passenger seat - Gosh!

Natalie, Natalie Natalie, oh Christ, this is going to destroy me. Her shiny dark hair, her bronze arms and her full red lips and her slender legs. Natalie dressing and Natalie undressing... 

Oh God Oh God Oh god I can't carry on. Natalie's fine knees showing at the hem. Natalie's laconic way of speaking, her nonchalance. Natalie! The jaunty way she packed her laptop into her bag...

Jerry stopped me in the office corridor, "What's up?"

Nothing, "I said."

"Come on, man. Something's up."

He knew me. He knew that when I said there was nothing there was something. Something so massive and heavy and so amazing that it couldn't just be taken and told or sold like just any bla bla bla.

"Not now," I said. 

"Right."

"It's something so big and massive and heavy and amazing. I can't tell you right now."

"Ok."

"No really."

"I know," he said.

Silence.

He looked directly at me. "I know."

"What do you know?"

"The web designer."

"Oh God I said, you know."  He raised his eyebrows. "You do know. How did you know?"

 "You are so obvious."

"Am I?"

"Jesus, come on. You are more obvious than the trunk on an elephant."

"O Christ. I'd better get back to my desk, let's talk later."

"Sure."

"Tonight."

"Sure."

We met in a bar.

"How's it going?" said Jerry.

"O Christ."

"Like that?"

"I need to do something."

"Well, do something."

"I know, but what?"

Jerry laughed. He got some beer,

"Fuck."

"Play a long game. What's her name?"

"Natalie. Natalie Lloyd. Jerry, I need to do something, something soon; You don't know how it feels, it's eating me up."

"Relax man. Anyway, she might be married."

"Really? Oh God, no. No. I didn't see a ring. Did you see a ring?"

Jerry took a slow drink. "No."

"She isn't married, you arsehole. She hasn't even got a married vibe."

"Haha you reckon, you never know, there's no such thing as a married vibe. "

"Isn't there? "

"No. There isn't. Anyway, she might be in a serious thing. You have to relax."

"I know. But she is so fucking gorgeous."

"Not my type...I guess she's cute. She probably has some guy. They are probably doing it right now. his hands all over her body, touching her. Pleasing her..."

"Oh no Jerry, stop, please. That isn't funny. That's nasty. You're being nasty. Stop it."

Jerry laughed. "You got to relax. Let's get more beer."

A man in a red shirt, acyrlic on card, 65.5 x 9 cm, c.2000

He got the beer.

"Christ," I said.

Jerry continued, "Anyway, she hardly ever comes to the office, it was just for the project brief. They do everything by email."

"I know. It sucks. I fucking love her. I'm in love Jerry. Fuck Jesus I'm in love, I'm in love. Oh God, I'm in love, what a nightmare."

Haha come on man, chill. You hardly know her. Drink something. Let's have another beer.

"Oh fuck, what can I do?"

"You got to relax. You can't go crazy like this."

We got more beer, we drank more.

 "Actually," Jerry went on, "you know what, they're doing another presentation next month."

"You're kidding?"

"Seriously. It's another draft presentation."

"How do you know?"

"It's on the agenda. "

"Fuck, really?"

"Haha, you are so unprofessional, do you never check the agenda? You're meant to check the agenda every day."

"Fuck. I will from now on. When is it? "

"End of the month," said Jerry.

"Oh Christ. "

Jerry looked at me. I looked at Jerry.

"Let's drink more, said Jerry. "

 We drank more.

"What will you say to her if you see her?" asked Jerry.

"Oh Christ I don't know."

"You need to say something. You can't just stand there saying nothing, it looks so damn stupid. I saw you do that with that woman from marketing. You were awful, like a turd steaming on a carpet. I had to apologise on your behalf."

"Oh God, Jerry, I know, I couldn't help it, I kind of froze. I haven't a clue what to say."

A pause.

Maybe I'll just tell her how much I love her.

 Jerry laughed, "you got to hide your loony side, man. At least in the beginning."

"I'm sincere. Women appreciate sincerity."

"They like it. But they like sanity even more, man. Be cool. Be normal. At least, pretend to be normal."

"Oh."

"Ask her where she is from. Tell her you like her graphics. Crap like that. What would you say of you didn't fancy her?"

But the bar was closing and I was drunk too drunk to listen to reason. We went home. 

*

 Read to The Vicious Circle writers' group, 22 March, 2021

*

A Nice Party

 *

A Nice Party

Balloon, acrylic on hardboard, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

Setting: A big old house with a huge garden, comprising a vast lawn and a wooded area

I had finally completed my houseman year and was at a Vincent's party and this girl with big eyes said something I couldn't hear. She yelled and beckoned and I followed her into a corner , where she had a friend with a red mouth and the friend said "Hi."  I said, "I'm Caspasian." She said "What? I can't hear a thing here. Let's go outside."

So we went out down some steps and across the slope of lawn which gradually reached a copse where a log seemed to have fallen so artfully that it might really have been a landscape designers contrivance.

"I'm Caspasian." The girl with big eyes replied, "I'm Leslie", then the girl with the red lips said, "you don`t recognise me do you?" "Not really?" "I was at school with you." "You're kidding" "Yes, I'm Sarah." "O God that's unbelievable, it is you!" "Yes, it is me!" "You did that crazy thing with a ruler in maths." "Oh fuck. That..." And she laughed and Leslie asked, "what crazy thing with a ruler?" and Sarah and I laughed,  "no, no, you had better not know", and Leslie said, "oh you two are so annoying, I might go back to the house."

Well, nothing is as boring as the reminiscences of others, so we stopped that and sat down on the fallen tree.

We looked at the big dark blue sky and we looked at the trees reaching up and we looked at the moon in its holiness.

"It's great here," said Sarah.

A light breeze and the sound, faint, of music from the house.

"What are we waiting for?" said Leslie.

"Are we waiting for something?" I asked.

"Oh you are so naive," said Sarah, and she took a little shiny box from a bag she had and inside were three blue pills. "Got them from Vince." 

"Should be good," said Leslie.

"Fab," said Sarah.

"What is it?" I asked.

"They're blue Smarties," said Sarah.

"If they're from Vince they should be good," said Leslie.

 We took the pills.

At first there was nothing but presently I rose in the gondola of  a great silent balloon, free and floating.

"Fuck," said Sarah.

"Gosh," said Leslie.

"Oh my,"  said I. 

We soared, the gondola evaporated and then I was  performing summersaults in slow motion, and the  summersaults went so high I could touch passing birds. Then we were sky diving, we linked hands and span though moonlit clouds (what a cliche you say, but some delights are no less joyful for their unoriginality).

 Leslie said, "ooh this is good isnt it?"  "O crikey," said Sarah," amazing."

 After about an hour it eased off and our sense of the fallen tree and the grave woods around became more apparent.

Leslie stood up. "Wow. I`m going inside."

*

A young lady with a kiss curl

oil on card, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

Just me and Sarah.

She sat closer. "So...?" she said.

"Mmm," I said.

"You're not as I remember you."

"Have I improved, like a fine wine?"

"Not sure," said Sarah, "I never judge the book by the cover."

"Mixed metaphors!" I said.

"Oh shut up, pompous, and give us a snog," She pulled me  towards her and pressed her warm red mouth against mine. We snogged for ages, a rather fabulous sensation, and one I hope, Dear Reader, you are familiar with, as it's hard to convey in prose.

After a considerable time spent doing that we paused, "you`re not a bad snogger you know," said Sarah.

"Oh thank you! You're not too bad yourself. "

"I've been doing it for ages."

"Well, it's good to get positive feedback," I said, "It's so hard to be objective, when it comes to snogging."

Sarah laughed, "I bet you learnt from Youtube vidoes." 

"I did. But you're not my first. I practice on old ladies in the geriatric wards."

"Nothing like learning from someone with experience...but you are quite sick." She gently touched my foot with hers. "Sick...in a good way, I mean"

"Thanks. My great grandmother was an Edinburgh wigmaker."

Sarah laughed, "You're really fucking crazy, you know that?"

And we snogged some more.

*

  I didn't meet Sarah again for several years: she was leaving a jewellery shop with some guy, and it was all politeness.

*

A young lady with a kiss curl, detail

*

Read to  The Detroit Writers' Group, 17 March 2021

*

A Mystery

 *

Woman with a lollipop

 acrylic on hardboard, 10.3 x 13 cm, c. 2000

A Mystery

There was a time when we led very different lives, simpler lives, lives in which men were attuned to the earth and their own feelings. A time when men toiled on boats in the Aegean Sea, hauling fish onto their crafts then rowing painfully, triumphantly home, thus connected ever more closely with the elements and the very essence of their being.

*

I was with Tom at the party of someone called Yvette and was drinking wine. In my coat I found a piece of paper with a number. Where did I last wear this jacket? I tried to recall, I just couldn't remember. I knew I'd worn it to a stag party once, but that was some time ago. I must have worn it since then.

"What's that you have there," asked Tom.

"Phone number."

"One of your admirers?"

"Must be. Wish I knew which it was."  The number was written in an elegant, cursive script.

"Ring it."

"Not sure," I said.

"Don't be so pathetic," said Tom

"I just can't ring it and say, "hello, who are you?"

"Why not? I would," said Tom. "Here, give it to me. I`ll ring it."

"Oh no! No way!"

"You are absurd. Ring it. Go on. Here is a phone," said Tom.

He pushed a phone at me. We were in the kitchen sitting at the table. There was also someone looking for something.

Tom watched him. "There's more wine here." 

"Not wine," said the man. He had long curly hair, a beard and was wearing sandals. "Beer?"

Tom looked at me. I was worried that he would make a comment about the man. He could be quite rude sometimes.

"I thought Jesus drank wine," he said to the man.

"Very funny," said the man. "Where's the beer?"

"Fridge," said Tom.

"Oh, yeah, right," said the man. He got some beer. Then he left.

"Okay, he's gone now," said Tom. "Here: phone."

I dialled the number.

"Hello," said a woman's voice amid an electronic din.

"Hi," I said. "It's really hard to hear you."

"That's `cos I'm in a fucking club," shouted the woman.

"O," I said.

"Is that you, Phillip?" the voice said.

"No, it's Caspasian." 

"God Almighty, I don't believe you." 

"Listen," I said, "I can hardly hear you."

"Call me later," the voice said.

"When?"

But the phone went dead.

"Who was it?" said Tom.

"Not sure," I replied. "I have to call her later. She was at some club."

"Fine, we can wait," said Tom. "Then we're going to meet her and you're going to have some fun for a change."

"Let's go through to the other room."

The man from earlier was in the hallway looking through some cigarette boxes for a cigarette.

"Jesus!" said Tom.

"Hey, have you a cigarette?" said Jesus.

"Scrounger," said Tom

"Chill out, man," said Jesus.

We entered a sitting room. "I am going to talk to them," I told Tom, going over to two women. They looked at us queerly. Tom took a glance at them and returned to the kitchen.

"I'm Caspasian."

"Nice name," said the girl. "I'm Ann." Her companion wandered off.

Ann had brown hair. She was wearing jeans and a sweat shirt. I soon became bored with her. She said something about her nose and disappeared.

When you meet some people you feel free to tell them about who you are, and they seem to find it curious. With others you feel at a loss to understand why anyone might find you interesting at all.

With those sorry thoughts I began contemplating re-joining Tom when I heard Ann scream and I rushed upstairs to a bedroom where some people were crowding round a bed, on which a body lay.

"O fuck," said someone.

"She's dead."

It certainly seemed that way. The body was quite pale, in a black dress. 

"Get Yvette", said someone.

Jesus came into the room, a beer can in his hand. "O Jesus," said Jesus, "what the fuck`s going on?"

"She's dead," said someone. "Go and get Yvette."

Jesus ran out of the room. "Yvette! Yvette," he shouted.

"Jesus", said Yvette, wandering into the hall downstairs. "What he fuck`s the matter?" She was carrying a huge joint. She drew from it.

"There's a dead woman in this room."

Yvette was quite stoned. "Call the fucking police for Christ's sake."

She disappeared back into the living room.

I stood there. Jesus came back into the bedroom. He took a look at the dead girl. "O Christ," he said, "We'd better do something. Have you a phone?"

I decided to go, the corpse was stressing me out and I didn't want to have to deal with the police.

I  went down to the kitchen. There was Tom, staring into space. "Tom, we have to go."  "O," said Tom. "Where to?"

"Anywhere." 

"Did you phone that girl back?" asked Tom.

"No," I replied. "I forgot."

"For God's sake call her." 

"Okay," I said. "Let's get out of here first."

*

We were walking through a street in Belsize Park. It was a delicious summer night: the streetlamps reflected yellow and crisp off the Mercedes Benzes  and Daimlers lining the avenues. Tom walked down the middle of the road smoking. Every now and again the wind hushed through the trees.

I dialled the number.

"Phillip," said the voice.

"No, it's Caspasian," I replied.

"Hey! I thought you were Phillip."

"No. No. It's Caspasian," I said.

"Find out who it is," said Tom.

"I don't remember you," said the voice.

"Listen," I said.

"What?" she said.

"Who are you?"

The woman laughed. "Oh for fuck`s sake."

"Sorry," I said.

She ended the call.

"What did she say?" asked Tom.

She said, "For fuck`s sake."

"You fair screwed that up," said Tom.

"Piss off," I said. I really was sick of his aggression.

"What happens next?" asked Tom.

"I go home," I said. "You can do what you please."

"What time is it?" asked Tom.

"Four am."

"Good night then."

"Good night Tom. "

It wasn't that far to where I lived. I might have liked to invite Tom back to do a sort of post mortem on the evening and drink more, but he was in such a combative mood that I preferred to walk alone, up the hill to West Hampstead where I had a tiny flat.

The flat was on one of the roads off West End Lane, one of those apartments that impose a certain culture on you almost immediately. This flat had a funny smell of plywood, I always thought. If you entered the flat on the left was a tiny kitchen, barely large enough for making toast. On the right, however, was a giant room, full of light and a view of Swiss Cottage below, and it seemed the natural thing to sit there on the window seats and smoke.

I had a little grass in my pocket so I made a tiny joint and sat there and drank a bit more. It was almost morning and I could see the sun begin to rise.

Opposite the window was an easel supporting a painting in progress. It really was all right: I felt I was getting somewhere. In front of the easel was the motif: a bottle, a skull and a glass. The light coming though made everything very clear and I felt good.

*

Read to the Edinburgh Writers' group, 16 March 2021

*

The Surface of Things

*

The Surface of Things

Seated nude

 acrylic on hardboard 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

Since my mother died, fracturing her skull after slipping on ice on the pavement at Claridges, I must admit that it has been a struggle to keep the flat clean and the things in order.

Well, perhaps struggle isn't quite the word. I don`t fight with the problem, really, I just ignore it. But I caught my image reflected in a shop window and was quite shocked: I saw myself and what I was wearing resembled nothing so much as a sheet of dirty, crumpled newspaper.

So, I decided to take my clothes to the dry cleaners. I even took a day off to do that, and other domestic chores, my shirts too needed attention, the collars were quite worn through, and the flat itself had dust everywhere.

It seemed to me, indeed, that my cleaner, a garrulous Bosnian, had been neglecting her duties. I rang her.

"What sort of cleaner are you, letting me go round like a tramp? I have a responsible position to hold."

"Oh no, David. You look so nice, very nice," she replied.

"No I don't," I said, "I look dreadful, why, there is a stain down the lapel of my check jacket, and what about the egg on the cuff of my blue suit? How is that nice?"

"Oh" Oh"" said Vesna.

"My clothes are crumpled as well. I suppose you think that is nice too?"

"Oh no David, I don't."

"It is a disgrace. "I thought you were supposed to keep my things in order?"

"Oh Mr David, I am sorry."

"So am I. I am sorry too. I am so sorry I don't want to see you again."

"No no. no, Mr David, give me another chance. Please."

"Oh buzz off, " I said, ending the call.

A young doctor

 oil on hardboard, 9 x 6.5 cm, c. 2000

So, there I was, going through my things, deciding which to take to the dry cleaners, checking the pockets. It was really quite shameful how Vesna had neglected me. The more I thought about it, the sorrier I felt for myself. I wouldn't be surprised if my career had suffered as a result of her lapses, I thought as I noticed a strange yellow matter congealed on the shoulder of my linen suit and a weird fuzzy skin on the elbow. I tried to recall when I wore it last: I put my hand in the inner pocket: a piece of stiff card: an invitation to a wedding, that of my cousin Helen, to a man called Steve.

What a dull sod he was! What on earth did Helen seen in him? He wasn't even good looking, there were acne scars on his face.

 Unsurprisingly, and with characteristic dullness, they had taken a thirties semi up in High Barnet. I went one evening after the wedding with Lucy (when we were still together) and we spent an unforgettably tedious evening admiring their consumer durables.

Actually, that was one to the last outings that Lucy and I had made  together before separating. Recalling the incident reminded me that one of Lucy's charming qualities was an intense impatience with material exhibitionism, which she found absurd. I remembered her face in a spate of giggles as she spoke, in the taxi home of the solemn way in which Steve and Helen had oh so nonchalantly shown off their new kitchen, And Lucy's ironical smile when praising the couple's new bottle opener, over-designed and doubtlessly ridiculously expensive: she held it and winked at me making me chortle silently.

I put the invitation in the bin. 

I felt in the side pockets of the coat. Something else: a little silver locket, in the shape of a heart, engraved with a floral design and the image to two hands clasped and the initial "T". I opened it: a tiny piece of paper: Teresa 0207 289 8763

Teresa! The image of a girl faded into my mind, more particularly of a birthmark on a smoothly carved neck: it took the form of a flying swallow, so exquisitely drawn that I remember that I had felt urged to discover if it wasn't indeed a tattoo:  I leant across the banquet table at the wedding dinner with my spectacles on.

I put the locket on the mantelpiece wondering what to make of it, but the next day, on return from work (I worked in a surgery off the King's Road, where I was a dermatologist) I called the number, though I was somewhat pessimistic, it seemed so long ago. How on earth could she be expected to remember me?

I paced the room while the phone rang.

Bubblegum girl

 oil on hardboard, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

"Hello, it`s Victor."

"Oh, hello!"

"How are you?"

"I am fine. How are you?"

"I am fine too"

"So you finally found my number? You can't clean your jackets very often," she laughed.

"Well, my cleaner was supposed to do it, but she is useless."

She laughed, "Well, how is everything? How is the medical world? You do spots, don't you?"

"Yes!" I exclaimed, pleased she had remembered something about me. "I do! And eczema and rashes and pimples too. Also boils and stings!"

"That's magnificent, " she said.

"It seems to keep me out of mischief," I said.

"Well, it would, " said Teresa, " there's an awful lot of skin about...I guess that's why it took so long for you to call? You were lancing a particularly recalcitrant pustule? Or is there an acne crisis among our youth?"

"The crisis is in skin cancer, now" I replied soberly. "Anyway, are you around this weekend?"

"Yes," she said, "But I think I may go and see Helen."

"Have you seen her recently?" I asked.

"Yes" said Teresa. They are going through a bad patch.

"Oh!" I said, I could hardly contain my glee.

"Well," Teresa continued, "Steve lost his job with the supermarket, and they had money problems."

"Oh."

"And," continued Teresa, suddenly whispering, although there was no-one who could have heard us, "they just kept arguing".

"Really?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"So when are you going there?" The thought flashed through my mind that I had a concomitant obligation to visit Steve, though I can't say the thought stayed long. The man was an arch-bore and my curiosity had largely been sated by Teresa.

"Not sure," said Teresa.

"Well, let's meet on Sunday. We can meet at the National Gallery, at the Flaying of Marsyrias."

"No, let's meet at Ingres' Mme Moitessier, " said Teresa.

So I met Teresa in the overheated French rooms.

To my delight, Teresa took my arm as we looked at Ingres' wonderful portrait. Madame Moitessier was a huge powdered octopus. There was something repulsive about the sexuality of Ingres' women, too soft, too complaint. But perhaps it was not the sexuality that repulsed me, it was she conveyed no other qualities: she was a primitive organism, made for nothing but reproduction,  a fleshy termite.

Teresa herself was all grace and tenderness, and I saw what fortunate sense it was that I had contacted her. I noticed the exceptionally graceful shape of her wrist, no bone too weighty and the skin  deliciously smooth. And she advanced a playful  romanticism towards me. The warm air of the gallery brought a faint moisture, like dew, to her cheeks.

We looked at a few other pictures. I pointed out the lead-whitened skin in Gainsborough, the dappled surfaces of Rembrandt's portraits, the creamy smoothness in Velazquez's Rokeby Venus.

This was merely the first of several meeting with Teresa over the winter. In each of our meetings I grew fonder of her. As I despised Steve and Helen I was always keen to hear news of their decline, and indications of contempt on her part for them. But while I treasured every sign of their demise, it became clear that Teresa did not, and did not enjoy taking  an ironical stance in relation to it, and was genuinely distressed by their separation.

The fourth time I met Teresa she was, unexpectedly with Helen, whose arms had, I observed, developed liver spots since out las encounter. I was somewhat taken aback, embarrassed even, as I had imagined what Teresa and I were to be going on a date. My discomfort was a symptom of guilt, a feeling that I ought to have gone to see them, but that my interest was largely motived by spite. 

Nonetheless I asked, "Are you all right?" 

"Oh fine," she said", and we left it at that.

*

The Sense of Loss

*

A chair in a corner

 acrylic on hardboard, 6.12 x 4.5 cm, c. 2000 

The Sense of Loss

It was cold enough to see your breath billowing before you, with that English dampness that makes the chill so much more acute, and it was nine in the morning when that sort of cold affects one most. A fogginess made the world indistinct.

I was standing outside a furniture store on Essex Road, the sort where they put things out on the pavement for people to inspect: a heavy wardrobe, a forties wash-stand, an oil painting of Princess Diana in a Pre-Raphaelite style, an incomplete set of upholster ed chairs, a standard lamp, it's shade torn, a huge mirror in an elaborate gilt frame. I saw my face. "Hello,"  I said.

Now I was a lawyer, with a large flat and a pension plan, but in my youth I had been a rover, wandering from place to place, a pinball thrown from one temporary state to another, sometimes guided by gravity, sometimes by the will of others, rarely by my own volition.

Now I was another man. I had developed thought patterns, habits of feeling, methods. Had they merely allowed me to avoid the world? Had I become a subject of routines? Or were the routines a liberation, allowing action by delimiting it?

Yet I had not enjoyed my life as a drifter. I had wished to be settled. Ironical that now, when stasis was mine, I should regret the passing of those times. I recalled that back then I could sense very little between myself and something black and unending. But I had felt alive, compelled.

*

I looked at the wardrobe, which was made of oak, with art deco details. I opened the door and saw a low cabinet for shoes, and an urge overcame me -from where I don't know- I climbed into the wardrobe and sat down on the cabinet. The door closed on me. Inside: dark, the smell of furniture polish. I drifted off.

*

"Hey mate, you have to go home now, we're closing shop". The door was open. The street lamps had come on, a yellow light soft through the fog.

Blinking. "Oh, I must have fallen asleep. What time is it?"

"Six o'clock. We're closing up now"

He began to move the things into the shop. I had been asleep for hours. Stiff, cold, bleary, I went on my way. I needed something to eat.

*

Desk, acrylic on hardboard, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

I was on my own  all the time. Where were my friends? Why were they always away, or impossible to contact? 

So I sat alone in one of the booths in Fratelli's and ordered mushroom soup and spaghetti carbonara and a light Chianti.

There was a article in my pocket which I had intended to read about copyright legislation. The article contained assumptions and even base inaccuracies. Why was it so difficult for anyone to write anything in a newspaper without getting something wrong? I began composing a response to the editor in my head.

My thoughts were broken by the waitress. She held out a saucer with a note on it, "Join us", it said.

*

I looked across the restaurant and saw Alexander Ducloitte, a pianist friend,  dapper, smiling and beckoning. He was with another. I went over.

"Caspasian," declared Ducloitte, "meet Tadeusz Derȩgowski, the painter."

Derȩgowski smiled. We shook hands.  He wore a dark blue suit, cufflinks and a pink tie.  His glossy hair was slicked suavely back. I knew I was in the presence of colossal vanity. I had seen his strange pictures in a magazine: they depicted simple household objects which were imbued with considerable intensity. 

They were talking about money. Derȩgowski was very direct. "So, I hear you are a lawyer, how much do you make?"

 Ducloitte interjected, "Tell him to mind his own business, Caspasian, Derȩgowski's manners are atrocious." 

"It's okay, I said, I am on fifty five k." 

"Oh so, that's about a thousand a week, say seven hundred and fifty after tax," said Derȩgowski, "and you are a lawyer, not exactly the most esteemed profession, let's be frank- 10% must be to pay for the shame of it."

Ducloitte laughed, "not fair at all, not all legal work is quite so very disgraceful." 

"Well, anyway," Derȩgowski  continued, "what I mean to say is that we, who are artists and poets and whose work is taken as a yardstick to judge entire civilisations should be on at least double that, which would be roughly two k a week."

Ducloitte smiled. "No one with sense becomes an artist for the money. Anyway, we are boring Caspasian. Caspasian, how have you been? Here, try some of this, it is quite deliciously...sordid."

 He poured some wine into a glass, a vintage Sauternes: delicate, cool, sweet - and continued - "who are you passing your time with these days?"

"I am really just working..." I did not want to tell Ducloitte how lonely I had been. With a quiver of shame I remembered my sleeping earlier in the wardrobe. 

"Hmm, that sounds a bore," said Ducloite.

*

We finished and went our separate ways, the coldness reduced, the fog diminished.

Wardrobe, acrylic on card, 6.5 x 9 cm, c. 2000

*

An episode in a woodland village

*

An  Episode in a Woodland Village

At about four in the afternoon my train, already moving at an arthritic pace, stopped completely, and I could see that we were in a clearing with a low wooden station platform; a uniformed man marched along the train blowing a loud whistle.

He yelled something; on seeing my blank expression, he made a stopping gesture with his hands. Out train. 

Puzzled, I stood on the platform examining the timetable: no train out until tomorrow. 

My fellow passengers seemed all to have dispersed with magical speed. Alone, I saw the single road leading, unpaved, to a church, probably the centre of the village. 

Indeed,  it was so. The timber church, in a robust but elegant design, stood on one side, a cemetery next to it. On the other sides were houses, a grocery shop, perhaps a school. The houses were wooden. Many were prettily coloured while others were dilapidated. 

Beyond these buildings stretched forest and there seemed to be no life around except the occasional small grey bird. The air had a certain softness. 

I stood, hapless, with my backpack. 

Then, in a moment of wit, I entered the shop.  Hotel?

Yes. Small hotel not hotel. She made a gesture meaning almost. She walked out of the shop and pointed to a red wooden house with a little sign on which, when I approached, I could see a bed depicted. I knocked on the door.

Silence.

I saw a knob and pulled it. A bell. Then footsteps and a middle aged woman in an apron.

Hello.

Yes.

Hotel?

She made a gesture with her hand like that the shop assistant had, meaning almost.

Ok, I said

Her face was pinkly wholesome. I sensed she was a little shy. Come, she said.

 I went in.

A lithograph of a peroxide Jesus raising his hands in blessing hung near the entrance. 

And to my left was a front room where an old woman slumbered. There were cross stitch images bearing messages on the walls.

The woman pointed to a small sign with room rates. 

Ok, I said. 

She smiled. 

She pointed to a mat and I pulled my boots off. I followed her in my stockinged feet up the stairs.

 The house turned out to be larger than I might have imagined.  All was wooden, occasionally creaking agreeably underfoot.

She pushed open a door. 

My room.

Dinner, she indicated one hour with a finger.

Just me.

A springy bed with a patchwork cover. 

 The view of grey brown trees from the window, their endless growing and dying. My own breathing. The sad feeling that old silent country places have. Evening coming.

I lay down. An hour passed. There was a basin and a jug on a cupboard.

 I washed my face and looked at myself. Oh God,  why am I here? I started downstairs.

The woman appeared at the foot of the stairs. Come, she said, and we entered a parlour with a dining  table, and on the table a tureen and a stack of soup bowls and a basket of bread. There were four place settings with huge silver spoons. On one side sat the old woman. She muttered something but I don't think it was directed at me. 

On another side sat a man perhaps fifty years of age. Good evening, he said. Sit down. We can speak English.

I hope you like soup? My wife makes excellent soup. 

The woman- his wife- stood to serve the thick soup which did indeed smell most deliciously.  I was passed the basket of the heavy black bread. 

She too sat down and we began the soup eating. We ate in a silence broken only by the clink of the gigantic cutlery on the porcelain and the muttering of the old lady in between her slurps.

The man said, are you going to do some walking?

I replied, no, in fact I was on my way to the capital, but the train stopped here.

The man looked at me dismissively. I suppose you aren't interested in walking?

Well, you know, I hadn't thought about it, I hadn't planned to stop here. 

The walking is very fine...and you can also visit the church. It is 17th century.

There was a pause.

We continued with the soup, not speaking.

 I sensed something on my foot. A warm smooth rounded presence that moved from my toe upwards,  pushing a little inside my trouser leg to stroke my calf. I looked over and saw the wife lift her face up from her bowl and wink. 

The husband continued, young people are not interested in anything these days. Just sex and stupid pop music. No morality. 

Oh, I said 

Outside, night fell.

He looked at his soup then bending over continued to eat as if I had proven my inanity with my presence alone and would be better ignored.

The old woman muttered something. then sneezed,  and then began dozing. 

 More, said the wife? pressing my foot with hers under the table, and, without waiting for my response, giving me more soup.

I ate, finishing by wiping the bowl with a piece of bread.

The man sat back, also finished.  If you will excuse me, I must rest. He stood up and left. 

The wife also stood up and cleared the things leaving me and the old dozing woman.

I said, thank you. The woman said nothing, but smiled.

I went up to my room. 

I sat on my bed. Exhaustion.

I lay down.

I began to fall asleep. Then, I heard a faint knocking. I ignored it; it persisted. I went up to the door. I heard the woman. Let me in, she whispered through the door.   No, I can't. I whispered back. I am not like the other young people. I have morals.

I don't know if she understood, but I went back to bed and had a dream in which all the birds in the forest were weeping. 

Morning. I took my bag and went downstairs where I left it near the door.

 On the table in the parlour was cheese and an enamel jug of coffee, a hardboiled egg, and more of the black bread. I sat down to eat. The woman came and stood and watched me with her hands clasped, saying nothing. 

Then I got up.

 I put the necessary payment on the table. 

 Goodbye, I said. The woman didn't reply. 

 I put on my boots and took my bag and made my way to the station.

*

Read to the River Writers' group, March, 2021 and The Edinburgh Creative Writers` Club, April 6, 2021

*

Looking up a little

*

Looking up a little, Rio Vermelho

*