Pick me up and turn me round

April 21, 2018 — Leave a comment

I used to dismantle, remantle, unstock and restock the shelves of a tall wooden, cheap, bookcase every time I moved house. I think I’ve lived in 19 houses or flats, 2 countries, 5 cities. I think I might have got the bookcase when I briefly owned a house, and then when that didn’t really work out, I think what happened was that I felt dislodged, and as though I didn’t really live anywhere, unless the bookcase was with me.

It was pretty big, though. About 3 or 4 of my house moves happened within 18 months. The bookcase couldn’t survive that. Especially as at the time I was trying to let past things unfurl away from me, so that I could find myself again. Who knew where I’d gone? The bookcase, with its books, was like a tether. I used to look at it when I lived alone and feel at least something that I could recognise. But you can’t live in the past. And when some of the moves meant sharing a bunk bed with my mum, or renting a box room with just enough space for a child’s MDF bed, I couldn’t put the bookcase back together again. I wrapped the books in parcels of four or five, black plastic bags taped around them. They looked like packages of drugs I’d seen on TV. My grandma kept them in her loft.

March: Moon Duo

March 29, 2015 — 1 Comment

The baby is nearly thirty months, not truly a baby any more. He can climb stairs, pedal his tricycle, put words together in groups, although only his mother is very good at understanding him. He pronounces words using only half of his mouth, making the sounds fluffy and intimate. Only if you spend a lot of time with him will you understand his way of speaking. His mother likes this. It’s nice for her that they have this almost secret communication. She’s the one who explains the world to him. She knows that soon he’ll get better at speaking, and soon enough he’ll be at pre-school, and he’ll have other people to explain, and he’ll need her less and he won’t want her so much and this soft time they’re sharing will change into something else.

January: Two people

January 18, 2015 — 2 Comments

Two people, at not quite their first meeting but coming together out of boredom and as a result of the deliberate steeping of their own hearts in salt, in a squat-style nightclub in East London at the beginning of Spring, will medicate each other’s wounds only partially successfully and, kiss.

August: Renew

August 13, 2014 — 2 Comments

In July, August and September I have to write a lot to finish my course. Instead of writing new things for my blog I’m going to tart up some old things. An early version of this story appeared in Words With Jam magazine in 2011. Let me know what you think.

We’re Chained

The ice cubes in Ali’s glass made tiny twitches as the vodka melted them. ‘This means something,’ she said, her voice hoarse.

‘I’m sorry?’ I said. My chest ached with the sadness that bore down on my ribs. I wanted to drink, and talk, and not think about the way each second, or gesture or even thought, was a second, gesture and thought further from where you and I had been.

July: Review

July 16, 2014 — 2 Comments

In July, August and September I have to write a lot to finish my course. Instead of writing new things for my blog I’m going to tart up some old things. Here, from November 2011 is one of the first re-tellings I tried out. Let me know what you think.

November: 14 Down, Mythical Maze (9)

After Theseus leaves
What kind of madness can you call it that led Ariadne to this island? She tries to remember, but her memories wisp away when she attempts to catch their threads.

April: Night Bus

April 1, 2014 — Leave a comment

There’s a night bus couple sitting behind you. A man and a woman, at least judging by their voices, both archetypes of man tone and woman tone.

You can’t help but hear their conversation. They’re not keeping their voices down. What they’re saying doesn’t interest you until the man’s voice says, ‘Why are you always like this?’
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January: Brünnhilde (ii) (backwards)

January 19, 2014 — Leave a comment

I love your abused mouth; your lips pad together with final words.

I will die here too in a place where no-one can say my name, except for you. And you are dying mouthing not my name, but his.

Cities have fallen and cities will fall.

October: Brunhilde (i) (forward)

October 31, 2013 — 3 Comments

I lived on a mountain. My house had thick walls made of mud which men had carried on their backs all the way from the river banks of my home country. They were whipped up hillsides, forced over rocks wet with pure river water and through gullies slimy with stinking moss. The rugs in my house had been stitched by the women of my father’s house. They cried over each stitch. I could taste their tears when I put my tongue on the rugs.

It was a good place to live.
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May: Voyeur

May 18, 2013 — 4 Comments

They’ve always been a good-looking couple.

I said, ‘you’ve scrubbed up well,’ to Charlotte when I found her after the ceremony, in the still centre of an eddy of well-wishers.

She smiled. I felt a wash of everything run off her when she smiled, happiness, exhaustion, nervous energy. She smiled with her teeth shut together.

April: The Expanding Universe

April 16, 2013 — 2 Comments

I’d do it. If you wanted me to.

I have taken you to Dr Somerset. He told us there was no more help he could give. I have taken you to Dr Trevellyan. She told us, ‘Could be three months. Could be a year. Some people can continue indefinitely on the medication.’ She told us that you’re not technically suffering. Your pain is deadened by the medication. She said a nurse would come and show me how to soften food and thicken fluids for you. I told her I used to be a nurse and I knew how.

Jolie visits once a week to check on you. She is checking on me. She takes your blood pressure and looks in your eyes. She checks your padding. She inspects your chair to see that it is clean and dry.
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