Tomorrow’s Parties

Perhaps I could have persuaded myself. Perhaps I could have gone on quite happily, breezily – in a kind of self-hypnosis of which I feel sure he – I mean, the peddler would have approved.

My life, after all, has changed, become quite unrecognisable. And those things to which I have just alluded – there in the darkened room – and am now – ashamedly, mysteriously unable to clarify - would not dare to intrude on the reality that we have all been carefully constructing here (pace Salem).

Perhaps I could have persuaded myself. With things as they stand, one could not say that those things to which I have just alluded – and am now – ashamedly, mysteriously unable to clarify - should have much – if any bearing on what is happening now under the interplay of headings:

The War, its protests

Salem, his clients

And (unexceptionally)

Tomorrow’s parties

The Peddler

There was a crack at the top of the window where the plywood had broken off and let the light in.

The window itself cannot have been very high, but it was – being small - way out of my reach.

Even though I could not see out of the window, I knew there was a courtyard the other side of it since I could hear people walking across the cobblestones.

I could distinguish two sets of footsteps: the brisk walk of the woman who brought me the food, and the other much slower – more careful tread of the one who I was never able to identify but became in my mind the peddler.

Once I heard him stop in the courtyard. He seemed to remain there for an eternity. I began to imagine he was going to lift his feet – like a cartoon cat - and come up on tiptoe. – Right up to my window. (As if I was somehow safer behind my occluded window)


Sometimes I wake in the night convinced of his return – only to see the bedclothes rumpled and I am not in fact wearing the crinoline skirt.

Perverse details

Perverse details.

The woman who brought me the food wore a crinoline skirt. When she put down the bowl, I caught a glimpse of white panties.

A Survivor’s Tale

It may be triggering so be forewarned…

Our Genius

It is not Salem’s fault. How can it be? – I am a part of this, just as much as he is. –

Yet all of this we have won – through our genius - feels so brittle. – As if the glass is about to crack, the snickers will not go away. And I seem - how appropriate this seeming is – in this process of dissociation – to be retreating

Going back into my box.


Hajda alone. Hajda crying.

Why am I in tears?

Red Carpet Treatment

The bulbs start flashing
Salem takes a bow

Ladies and gentlemen,
Please allow me to introduce
Myself, Mrs Smith
And I am sorry to say
My accountant, Mr Manfred
Mancinnini
Of southern Italian extract
Few people know this
His father named him after an
Obscure Swabian king

The crowd hushed, bemused,
Mancinnini chuckling
As we spin through the swivel door:

S’what I call the red carpet treatment!

Who the hell?

As we step out the limo
Mancinnini almost trips
Down my cleavage
Someone in the crowd says:

Who the hell are they? Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?

Limo Scene (2)

Mancinnini places the said magazine on my lap.
The cover shows a picture of a blonde in bikini.
Mancinnini produces a rolled up bill,
Salem and Mancinnini take it in turns,
I watch as the lines get hoovered up
Across the crotch of the blonde’s bikini
Mancinnini wipes his nose. Sez:
Guess, you can’t hold a Sirius man back!

Limo Scene (1)

An attaché case rests on the lap of the diminuitive, De Vito-esque Mancinnini. As he talks, Mancinnini fetches some loose documents from the case.

Mancinnini: Springer is in on this?

Salem: So it would seem… Got to protect his interests.

Mancinnini: In Sirius Holdings (Laughing)… you cannot be serious.

Salem: That man is always serious… (Exclaims) Hey! Haven’t you got a magazine or something?

Mancinnini: Right, Salem. I keep my stash in here with your docs.

Salem (Laughing): You sick fuck! Just give us one of your mags!

Stop the war!

Felice!

Salem sits up, exclaims. - One of the protestors a curly-haired blonde, reminding him of our – quote-unquote - adorable little corrupter thrusts her banner at the camera.

STOP THE WAR!

But what war? He demands. – And just whose – whose construction?

I seem to hear his voice lulled out of a doper’s drawl as he straightens his tie (it was of an evening; we were dressing to go out; clients we have to butter up; Mancinnini waiting in the limo with the champagne):

Haven’t you got it yet, Haj? – We are no longer in what they call the reality-based community.

My oh so brilliant husband, who will deflate and then conflate all arguments…

The Masked Blog

The blog shows among other things:
A First World War soldier in gas mask
Two oriental cleaners (masked)
A surgeon and his staff
Around the corpse of an alien
A professional cyclist again with a mask

A cartoon duck aiming his twelve bore at something in the sky.

We are on a knife-edge, the government minister declares. - Expect things to implode before they explode.

Protestors are inter-cut with troops at the front.
Troops on exercise?
Somewhere in our desert or is it theirs?

In turn, this is inter-cut with the masked oriental cleaners confronting it would seem burning martyrs and dagger-eyed fanatics.

Shoebox (2)

In the end, it was not his poems or the letters or the postcards, which I had always liked, but the Monster I had begun to dismiss that made me cry.

Monster and the Cricket

The ritual took place every night just before they fell asleep. He would recline on the bed, while the cricket ran up and down his back bombarding him with those impossible questions she was in the habit of asking him i.e.

Monster, why is it you never write me any more poems?

Monster was thinking how best to answer this question, when the cricket spied a spot on his back.

Monster let out a howl. Cricket, you're hurting me!

The cricket insisted:

Monster, you must let me squeeze this spot! - It's only a little spot!

Cricket, said Monster, mustering a tone of sarcasm, if the sun has spots, you will say they are only little spots.

The cricket looked at him with a flicker of amusement.

Monster, she said. The sun is far away. Besides, your spots are here waiting to be squeezed.

The long-suffering monster lay on his back and looked up at the stars. The cricket went to work. By the time it was all over and she had successfully squeezed the spot, the answer had come to him.

Cricket, if you go on squeezing my spots, he said, I'll have no blood left to write your poems.

Shoebox

The writer came across the brown shoebox in the bottom of the cupboard.

Her hands trembled as she picked it out of the cupboard. – She sat on the edge of the bed contemplating the box; for a moment it seemed she could not bear to open it. – As if – though not exactly Pandora-like – since she knew all too well its contents – she was afraid.

Black Shadow Baby

Something fell
From the tree
Onto the windscreen:

It was a woman
If not entirely human…

She was dressed in black.
Her eyes were black; she had no eyelids.
She was trying to cover her eyes from the light.
The headlamps, he guessed.

Claw like hands grabbed at him
Through the windscreen;

She opened her mouth
No sound came out
But “Baby”.

The Driver’s Version (2)

Night was cold and dark
Except for the white lines eaten up
By his headlamps

He saw it
Whatever it was
On the road,
As they were coming up to the
Junction
Stop.

He thought shit
What’s that?

When he looked back at the road it was gone.

He turned to her and said:
Did you see it?

But she didn’t answer.

Something must have happened.
He lost time… blacked out.
When he woke up, the car was wrapped round the tree.

The Driver’s Version (1)

To keep her happy he put on cruise control, and turned up the stereo.

She was quote-unquote pissed off.
He was quote-unquote mortified.

Something had obviously unhinged his mind. His speech patterns were incoherent; he jabbered away - apologising over and again to the woman in the coma. It was with some difficulty, therefore, the officer at the scene had been able to reconstruct the driver’s version of events.

Tokyo and London

They had just left the party, and she didn’t get it… He had the mobiles out, see. - One was on the dashboard, and the other plugged to his ear, which obviously got up her nose. – He tried to explain… This was business, baby. - He was expecting a call. He had to keep an eye on the markets. – Needed to know what they were doing in Tokyo and London. She came back smart as Alec. She wasn’t asking him to keep an eye on Tokyo or London, just on the road - preferably hands on the wheel.

Crash

The police had described it as a routine crash. At some point the driver had lost control of the wheel, and the car had veered off the road. The driver had not been driving all that fast. In fact, the path between the road and the tree had served to decelerate the car and cushion the impact. That said, the trunk of the ancient tree was so gnarled, the officer at the scene was surprised to see it still standing.

Both victims had been saved by their air bags. The driver in his early thirties had been lucky enough to receive no injuries. At the hospital they had diagnosed mild concussion, which is what made it all the more perplexing, the fact that the passenger – a woman in her mid-twenties had been plunged into a coma. No one could tell whether she would ever come out.

Mortification

The question is:
Was it guilt or remorse?
Some inner stricture?
Something for which I was
Not culpable
And yet still felt
Culpable.
Heavens knows…
Let me put it this way.
I was mortified.

Craxman

Who was Craxman? – Well, they knew precious little about him. Except that once – during a lecture on an anomalous Neolithic burial mound, presented by an external – he had expressed an interest in primitive lobotomy. Hence the sobriquet, Savage Doctor.

He had started coming to them about six months before. He came and went – sometimes requesting to see their reports. He said very little, but was extremely polite.
He always brought the ashplant, and yet showed no signs of a limp.

Dieterling opined that it must have been for protection. Allbright concurred – citing the famous case of the Bulgarian spy brought down by the tip of his enemy’s cane.

The Authenticity of Miss St Clair

Detecting signs of her voice being thrown - like a comic with his dummy – as Dieterling put it - PARASITE was not entirely convinced by its authenticity. On the other hand, this was belied by the presence of Craxman who kept a tight grip of his ashplant all the while Miss St Clair was “projecting” the voices (Dieterling again).

The Gate

First voice: I heard some dude just gone an’ open up the gate.

Second voice: Oh, Jerry. That terrible. What he find?

First voice: Nothin’.

Second voice: Nothin’. I guess he’s a lucky fella.

(Long Silence)

First voice: (Giggling) I got me a question.

Second voice: What kinda question?

First voice: One of them serious question, like any other question I ask.

Second voice: Well, man, ask away.

First voice: Question is. How big is the gate?

Second voice: (Laughing) You don’t know!

First voice: I never said I didn’ know. I said it’s a question.

Second voice: Well, then, it’s a damn obvious question.

First voice: You answer it, man. You so clever!

Second voice: It’s you’ question, not mine!

First voice: I’m telling you, man, it’s tiny.

Second voice: No kidding! You can’ see it.

First voice: (With wild irritation) - It’s tiny, it’s big! – It huge! You fucker! - It all in the eye of the beholder.

Second voice: (Repeats chuckling) It’s big, it huge. You fucker! It all in the eye of the beholder.

First voice: I told you. - Those portholes always deceptive. You think you got a hold on them, they open up some place else.

Second voice: So, the co-ordinates change?

First voice: Dam right, they change! - Before you know it, the little people coming in.

(Silence)

Second voice: (Cackling, breaks into song)– Oh, dem bones!

First voice: You fuck- (Indecipherable)…

Second voice: (Cackling) Oh, dem bones, dem bones!

First voice: (Indecipherable)…

Second voice: (Softly) Dem bones.

Salem (4)

Just as I was about to go, Salem called me back:

Felice, wait! I didn’t say you could go! - Come and sit here and talk to me. I am in urgent need of your conversation.

He patted one of the cushions next to him. – The candle shrunk back; I did not move.


One winter, the lake had frozen over in the park near campus; Salem picked me up in his sports car and whisked me off to buy a pair of skates.

Salem could not skate for toffees. He kept on falling over; his clothes got all wet. My rooms happened to be nearby; O was not around; Salem lost no time in stripping off his clothes. I threw him a towel, but alas - the towel could not hide his intention.

What is it about you, Felice? He said. - You make me feel so ridiculous.

How could he have known it was me who felt ridiculous?

Salem (3)

Salem, are you going to tell me where she is?

He looked at me and shrugged.

Felice, you know my wife… When the mood takes her, there’s nothing one can do to shake her.

You mean she isn’t here?

I mean, she’s incommunicado, cannot be reached. –

Salem (2)

The collar on my long coat had caught Salem’s attention. – All you need is an embroidered frill to turn you into a perfect late nineteenth century gentleman. -

I chose to ignore the joke.

Salem, where is Hajda?

Salem chose to ignore my question.

Personally I have always felt that I was a couple of centuries too late. What does that mean? I should shrivel up like She, or was it Sheba in the Arms of Solomon…

Flashback (2)

The restaurant has low ceilings, dimmer lighting… Hajda’s knife and fork are crossed on her plate, which somehow contributes to the provocation… she turns and swallows Salem up in her mouth.

I watch, blushing. (Why it was not their fault I always felt so young around them).

Salem reels, laughing:

I can still taste the onion rings!

Salem

I went looking for Hajda among the party hoppers; instead, I found Salem propped up on a pile of cushions. - A candle was making snakes up the wall.

Salem must have seen me in the doorway, but he only had eyes for the pipe that had been passed his way.

Muttering something I could not quite catch, he tapped the pipe against his crown in some strange doper’s ritual. Finally, he seemed to look up and see me. - Felice, he said. You like the show?

Unhinged by the drug, he drawled with enthusiasm:

God knows what she was on when she dreamed it up…The snowboarder? – That was my touch!

Double or splits

The God of this other planet decreed it thus
For why he reasoned should things come in ones
When they can so much better come in twos?
So it came to pass
There were not five but ten continents
Though six
According to Wikipedia
And therefore twelve -
Ten and not five oceans
Fourteen
And not seven wonders of the world…


When Hajda, entranced by this idea, asked if the people also came in twos, her father laughed.

The people, he said, were always split in two.

Two moons

The music was upbeat, and yet the mood was strangely muted.

The dancers were moving through a galaxy you thought was ours until you saw the second moon caught in the flashing strobes.

Only I must have understood what Hajda had been thinking. When we were children, Hajda’s father used to tell us stories about a planet in a far off galaxy. Just as in this representation, there were two moons. –

The moons could be seen on alternate months. One moon, he said, was for happiness, the other melancholy.

Oven Grill Bill

There were two pieces of string dangling from his ears down to an oven grill.

People were invited to play the grill like a musical instrument, with knives, forks and spoons. The sound effects were echoed around the room to the accompaniment of Bill saying “Wow, Man! It gives me the heebie geebies”

Happening

One year was a happening: strange faun-like creatures orchestrated by a black witch.

The witch waved her magic wand and the fauns went into action – juggling balls and sticks of fire. A faun on stilts spun round putting out little fires. The other fauns made whooping noises.

When she thought we had enough the witch waved us in the direction of the house.

Snowboarder

A waiter in white gloves and tails was toasting chestnuts as we entered the ski lift.

The other revellers were all in puff jackets and bobble hats. Although it was neither cold nor particularly high up, I had on just a thin dress under my coat.

Someone had brought a snowboard.

As the lift arrived a few feet from the side of the mountain, the man with the snowboard jumped out.

We watched him drop onto the snow.

That’s crazy! said a woman in shades.

That’s Hans, said another. He’s part of the entertainment.

Well, said the woman in shades, I doubt very much he can do that from bed.

Which broke the ice… people started chatting. – Ah, I thought still shivering, where would we be without Hajda’s parties?

Sandpaper glue

The disc crackled like an old wind-up gramophone.
Tears stuck to my eyes like sandpaper glue.

You see, his eyebrows seemed to say from the mirror, sometimes it pays to be tone deaf.

Tone Deaf

We were on the way to the party – Hajda’s party – as it turned out, when a song came on the car radio that was popular with our group of friends - the anthem that brought us to the end of school. – I asked him to turn it up; when he started singing along, I got irritated.

Are you tone deaf?

Ignoring me, he turned off the radio, and switched to a disc.

You’ll like this, he said. The singer’s also tone deaf.

King Leer

Observed from my position in the passenger seat:

Every time he turned towards it an eyebrow seemed to hook round the mirror. – For a while I could not make up my mind, if it was a studied movement or somehow involuntary. What made me think it finally, this guy’s King Leer, I bet he thinks it too, when he’s in bed alone.

Quote of the week

The tube’s gone so far up the fundament, people don’t know anymore they’re living in Neverland.

Bob commenting on the effects of speed, but in this case speed was getting us somewhere in the universe fast...