The black rock

The black rock called to me that day. Its sentience crawled out from under it and spoke to me across the waters. Its thick syrup of a voice sped across the breakers coming at me in engulfing waves, begging me to swim.
In a skyline devoid of rubble, except for the strange crust of souls that jutted high above the wicked sea, everything about the rugged peak inflamed my mind. I had to see for myself, I had to see what spoke to me from its burnt coal heart.
So I swam. I dropped as many of my clothes as I thought I needed and I waded into the surge. With each fresh wave that swamped my body I was refreshed for a moment and knew my recklessness, my insanity, but then the voice of the island craned its neck once more and carried its message still clearer so my ears could hear it anew. I had to press on.
It was a grave struggle. Never in my existence have I fought so hard; against tide, against exhaustion, against my own spirit and conscience, telling me to turn back.
You might think the waves would roll smooth and pitch less mountainous, less torrid than at the shore, but you’d be dread mistaken. I was buffeted and tossed by forces so great, forces I’d never feared and respected as I ought. And yet, as I drew ever nearer with every aching and despairing paddle of my arms the sound in my head turned to wondrous song and the voice became multiple. But the water was choking my lungs as I gulped of it again and the spray was singeing my eyes and I had not a stroke left in my muscles.
When I felt the strong arm of the lifeguard around my chest, I tried harm to raise my arm in defence, or perhaps even attack. With each firm kick of his legs the song died a little in my mind and I gritted and ground my teeth in such despair. Yes, I think I would have killed that saviour of mine if I’d only had the strength. I would have smashed my elbow into his face and drowned his body or dashed his head onto the rocks, if I’d had the power to. And as the voice of the rock faded forever, I cursed my guardian angel, this enigma of the sea, this lifeguard, with a tongue as black as the enchanted rock itself.
He left me there on the shore, screaming and ungrateful; begging of the black rock to call me forth, solemnly, once more.

Behind the bars

There were men in uniform at the barrier today.
As the rain began to fall we all huddled under the shelter as the train pulled away. You could see the plump drops falling from the sky from a long way, could follow its route to oblivion. I listened to them splatter on the corrugated roof as I waited my turn to be seen.
As the queue receded, I could see them more clearly: a white woman with bobbed blonde hair and a black man with a light beard stood, padded in blue jackets, the company’s logo on their chests. The jackets made them look bigger than they were, more powerful. After all, who knew what lurked beneath?
Behind those two were two police officers; standard beat bobbies. But behind them were two special officers, wearing vests. They all looked around, uneasy, eyes picking over people in the queue, people on the station. I imagined there was a firearm or two stashed somewhere about these strange figures of civil power. A deadly weapon, hidden but brooding.
There was a murmur of disquiet about the rain soaked stragglers, creeping home through the station barrier, heading for the stairs that would lead them out of this strange Hades and back home to their wives and children. I arrived at the great checkpoint, slightly clammy, I’ll admit. All these people, all of this assembled cabal of authority, seemed to be doing was checking tickets and passes.
As I passed the first checkpoint unscathed a hitherto unseen officer lurched forward toward me pulled, it transpired, by a German Shepherd. The dog sniffed at my pockets and crotch and then moved on to the next man. It was but a brief defilement, but a defilement all the same. I stopped then, in slight bewilderment, looking round as if to check: ‘Is that it? Am I free to go?’
Nobody looked at me. Perhaps they didn’t know. So I trudged on up the stairs as normal and as the breeze hit me I realised the rain had stopped, or at least it had up here at street level.
I wondered how close I’d come to arrest at gunpoint. How good was the smelling power of those dogs? If I’d sat in a seat (and my seat on the train did feel like someone unsavoury might have been sitting in it, this evening) that a recent cocaine-fuelled lunatic or else a pot smoking fiend had recently used, could not a few grains of the white stuff passed on to my clothes? Might not my jacket and trousers have acquired the unfriendly aroma of cannabis? And then, then what would the dog have done to me?
I was suitably bemused by these thoughts all the way home, and when I got to the top of our staircase and pulled closed the baby gate I felt compelled to kneel down before the bars and peer out to sense the queer freedom of the world beyond.
I stayed like that until I heard the baby crying.

Drinking song for Rosie

We were gathered around drinking, been up since the dawn,
And there in the corner lay Rosie, so warm,
When the barmaid came over she smelt something raw -
So we all blamed Rosie.

See Rosie’s our girl and we cannot deny
She’s the sweetest and cheapest, most drunken, bar fly
And if any of our best laid plans go awry,
Then we all blame Rosie.

She’s hardly a sweetheart, she’s black to the core,
She’s coarse and she’s bawdy, though never a bore,
And whatever your girl gives, well she’ll give you more -
Oh we all love Rosie.

I hear she was a looker, ‘til the drink took her man,
Then it took her along too and she was at its command,
And now if you’d ask her she’d eat from your hand -
But we all drink with Rosie.

Well I once met a girl and she looked better than you,
She was taller and thinner but she caused quite a coup
When I touched her behind - to the landlord she flew
And we all blamed Rosie.

Oh I wish I could sit you down on my knee,
I wish I could stand up, I wish I could see,
But I know there’s a girl who’s perfect for me,
So I’ll stick with Rosie.

Rosie dance with me, dance with me, 1,2,3
Dance with me, dance with me, 1,2,3
Yes dance with me, dance with me, 1,2,3
Oh we all love Rosie.

Stumbling home

As I wandered the streets, my head weighed down with the water I refused to let well and fall from me, I stumbled and almost fell into the road. I sat and wondered how it would have felt to have been squashed by a truck or a bus. I couldn’t imagine it.
Wiping my running nose with my sleeve, I remember staggering on through the open market of St Christian’s. I wouldn’t cry in the street. The market stalls all lay bare and plastic bags swirled about my legs. It was Sunday, so I knew where she’d be.
I hadn’t thought about her in days. The economy of mind can help you get through life without any real thought muddying things. It helps you do your job, it helps you get up in the morning.
But yesterday I heard a flute playing quietly, a low soothing melody drifting up to me. It haunted me like a spiralling devil and I drifted down the hole that I’d been long digging but never fully explored.
I spent all afternoon in the company of red wine and the piano. Satie’s Gnossiennes coloured my day and I swear the music of the flute came through strongly every now and then, an accompaniment to my thoughts and my ever flowing fingers.
The fug hasn’t lifted since then.
I remember her chastisement on the last day we spent together, but I don’t want to recall why she scolded me so. Thomas watched me go past his open door via the mirror in his bedroom. She told me not to say goodbye to him. I could see the reflection of his red eyes blinking, though. He wrote and told me that he’d never felt a sound like the sound of my closing the front door that last time.
So here I am. I’ve almost stumbled home. Thomas likes to come to The Castle Courtyard where they put a play on every week. The theatre is always on after his bedtime, but Marie-Élise will take him to see a rehearsal, or just to witness the stage hands preparing the props and the lighting and the sets. Thomas can watch their performance for hours.
He started to clap when they lowered the chandelier from the rafters. It must have seemed like magic to him. And when two people walked by he stood on his chair so that he could still see the stage, just in case he missed anything. His mother held his hand, so he wouldn’t fall.
I ducked back behind the pillar then. I couldn’t hold myself upright any longer, hold myself in. I sank to the ground, biting at my lip, clawing at my hair. I heard the squeak of a bicycle wheel and shuffled around, away from the oncoming steps of my wife and child.
Once I was sure they were gone, I raised myself and took the seat she’d taken. I sat then and watched the men as they finished dressing the stage; applauding and weeping at their every flourish, their every measured placement of cloth or curtain, long, long into the burnished night.

The glutinous tide

The strange giddy essence of summer has been long spent. I’m back to my beach now, back to reality.
How hateful it was to see Anne once more. It was as if, in exile from her, on the sunny south coast, she floated in a bubble of perfection, colouring every image that invaded my head. Then, once my eyes were confronted with the truth of her image, they were suitably repulsed. How her features hang from her face, how her bones seem to sag. I kissed her goodbye on her pallid cheek and headed for the beach.
This is a beach, this is a real beach. No streams and golden sand, no bikinis and balls, no surfers and no tanning crowds – just a miraculous red-brown slop, as far as the eye can see.
Who knows where the sand stops and the tide begins? None would dare walk out on it for fear of being sucked down beneath the cloying mud.
That’s what I’ve come to appreciate now. I don’t need the beauty of the blue sky and the miles of pristine beach. Give me a dangerous, windswept, miraculous, mudpool any day. Give me something that will swallow me up in its bleak glutinous tide any day of the week.
Give me Sylvie.

The stare and the portrait

“Do you see the way he stares? It's unnerving”
“I wonder if he has any hands?”
“What might be the significance of the wine bottle?”
The photographer moved about the exhibition silently, dodging guests munching canapes and sipping champagne. He barely brushed their suits nor crushed the silk of their dresses as he wafted by without recognition.
It wasn't that he was unknown in the industry, it was just that these people, this assembled throng of monied patrons had sniffed the scent of 'the next big thing', of 'a sound investment'. They didn't care whom the artist was; the name was unimportant until it truly carried value. At the moment his name was simply spelled: 'Potential'.
You might ask why the photographer himself was even there. He asked, but the curator just tugged at his arm in an over-familiar manner and said: “Oh come now, Baker, I need you there as the deal clincher... if anybody's wobbling on a sale, I bring you in to charm them into the bag.”
So far he hadn't been called into action to perform his reverse snake-charming trick. The gallery had already made four sales, with the minimum of fuss. A red sticker against the glass frame of the large black and white prints gave that away.
All the sales so far had been of landscapes. They were an easy sell. But the portraits, now there's a different matter. How does one convince another that a portrait of somebody they've never met before, and likely never will, should hang forever more in some corner of their home – and that they should pay close to a grand for it?
Still, Baker was proudest of his portrait shots and felt driven towards their sale. He drew closer to one of his favourites. He'd called it: 'Neil Young fan, number 02758'. The photograph had been taken earlier that year, during the round of summer music festivals that always draw the strangest of creatures out into the open for their annual glimpse of the sun. Baker had paid the subject £20 for the shot, a price that included a glass of wine, a drunken acapella song and the man's ticket stub for the concert – which gave the image its title.
“Aha,” cried the curator of the gallery, breaking off from his schmoozing of the ravenous guests for a moment. “Here is the artist himself. Mr Baker, I wonder if you couldn't spare a few moments of your precious time to talk to some of our most valued patrons, Mr Baker?”
Baker forced a smile, but it came out flat and barely raised north of his lips. “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, a pleasure to meet you all,” he said with a slow nod. 'Was that over the top?' he thought to himself – he really couldn't be sure.
“Mr Baker,” piped up one of the women, a plump thing with an expensive face, “I wonder, could you tell us a little about your inspiration for this image?”
“By all means,” he said with another forced smile. Inspiration was something he greatly needed at that moment and he searched through his mind for the name of a photographer to help him out.
Everyone seemed to lean in as Baker paused to speak. “Er, well, of course, William Egglestone was my primary influence, as I'm sure you can see.” He doubted anyone would be able to see anything other than a man in a hat, sitting on something waterproof. He felt better.
A tall man in a cap and green jacket who looked like he'd spent all day at the races spoke then, a look of scrunched up confusion on his face: “But surely, Mr Baker, Egglestone is known for his documentary of the ordinary, the mundane. I'm sure you'll agree, this subject isn't the sort of pristine, banal capture that Egglestone favours.”
Baker hid his scowl and the grinding of his teeth as best one can when caught out like that and, grabbing a discarded glass of wine from a nearby table, knocked back half the champagne in one before turning upon the man with gusto.
“Of course, you've failed to see past the obvious in this image. Yes, there is a strange young man in the photograph. Somewhere between grainy and pristine, akin to the close portraiture of Robert Frank. But look beyond the man, look deep into the image, at the fragments of canvas and grass and the stink of cheap red wine. That sir, is the hallmark of William Egglestone!”
And with that he polished off the remains of the bubbling vintage he held in his hand, and swept away to a darkened corner of the room. He wondered if perhaps here he could retire from the unceasing and unnerving stare of the punters and just be. Perhaps here he would become unknown and unnoticed once again?
Whatever happened next, he knew it would not last for long.

Of sheep and men

The sheep munched lazily on the grass. Hazy viewed afternoon; Jennifer settled down on the grass, a safe distance from the animal.
She didn’t like sheep. She would tell other people that she didn’t like anything which had a plural the same as its singular. This would disarm or amuse the person interrogating her so that they wouldn’t ask why she was scared of fluffy little, wouldn’t hurt a fly, cute and cuddly, sheep. They could walk on by without further questioning.
Now that she sat in this vale, with nobody but her and one sheep for company, she wondered if it was their multitude that scared her. Flocks and sheep are words inextricably linked. It was unusual to find one here, contentedly chewing the long summer grasses, completely alone.
Watching the sheep intently, Jennifer wondered if the two of them hadn’t been led here, by some greater power, to better strengthen the bond between man and sheep. To gain a better understanding of each other and cast off the fear of the unknown.
The sheep, she gathered, needed little. It wished only for grass, which was in plentiful supply. And, when the weather grew cold, a coat of the very finest wool grew heavily across its body.
‘It’s not a bad life for a sheep,’ she thought, completely forgetting where the creature stood in the food chain.
Jennifer hopped up onto her knees and then allowed her bodyweight to shift forward. Her arms reached out and caught the ground before her. Her simulation of life on four legs was simplistic, but it would have to do.
She looked back at the sheep, brushing her long black locks from her face in order to better observe it. The creature bent its neck low and bit at the long green stalks, vacuuming them into its mouth and ruminating upon them with a professional ease.
Jennifer tried it. She found that she really had to grind her teeth together hard and then use all the strength of her neck muscles to help rip the tough grasses free. And then she munched.
The girl stayed in her four-legged pose while she worked the cud round and round in her mouth. It felt like her saliva had become thickened and milky in her mouth. She looked at the ground and noticed the odd fly and beetle hopping across the stalks. Undeterred, she kept on chewing and, when she felt like she could chew no more, she swallowed it all back. It was a strange sensation as the thin blades were sucked down into her gullet and she choked a little before it was all gone. She considered the taste for a moment, but could only place it as ‘grassy’. It seemed like she instantly recognised the taste of grass, though she couldn’t say for sure that she’d eaten it before. ‘Perhaps it’s the same for everyone,’ she mused, as if knowledge of the taste of grass was innate to human beings.
She was dribbling a little onto the ground and when she looked up she saw the sheep across the vale was staring at her, quite obtusely, as if she had no manners whatsoever.
“It’s alright for you,” she called. “You’ve done it all your life, I’m new to all this grass malarkey!” And with that she sat back down on her bottom, scowling at the sheep, and wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing her cheek green.
The sheep looked away, nonchalantly as you like, and moved a little closer to the river where the grass is even lusher.