I will have to enter your house now.

Oh, you made a hearty job of clearing out. It's what kept you going those final months.

I don't know when I'll do it, Dad. I still feel like I need to make an appointment, habit being such. Of course Thom is too young to help and there's a melodrama in seeking the support of anyone else. And after all, if grief is anything, it's not lonely. Though objectively, I suppose, this is very likely the most lonely time of my life. George is in Asia, looking for a new wife and old recipes. He sends a marvellous postcard. I dumped Buckley, as promised. I am also professionally negligent in not seeking out another supervisor. I'd like to keep it simple for a while, perhaps rope in a Gestaltist. And I seem to have removed myself from my friends in psychotherapy, prefering the company of Renaissance scholars and obese women. And even Gareth, when he sees my eyes glaze over, is aware that it's not about him.

And yet, I have practised no magick since returning from Wittenberg.

In the first place, Axel's boat feels altogether too fabulously modern and almost futuristic for something so arcane. I didn't feel there was a suitable space until last night, drunkenly exploring the lower cabins, I came across a small and empty room. There was nothing but a stone Buddha on the floor of the back wall with, as ever, his closed eyes and the smug smile. Was this Axel's meditation room? The fleeting idea of his inner life left me cold as, I suspect, it leaves him, too. I could throw the Buddha overboard (are not life's pleasures deep enough?) and do my invocations, and my evocations, in here. It is pleasingly dark, too.

We caught bream for lunch, Thom and I.

He'll be going to a new school next year and I am raising the question of finishing his schooling in private education. Like many professions, teaching and teachers have been ruined by this government with it's moronic obsession with targets, tables and statistical hygiene, at the expense of nothing less than life itself. Why of course children stab each other in the playground for, if we know anything, it's that life can be denied only so long. And so I find myself honing my arguments in favour of, ready to enjoy the battle with Thom's mother, and the egalitarianism that she, and the middle classes, have now taken to their hearts. I drove Thom home yesterday and saw her, in my wing mirror, standing at the kitchen window. I then had another of my wayward and unaccountable certainties that she has, in fact, been single all this time.

I got a little burnt. Today, I did.

It's the weather. For an hour, with my skin blistering and tight, I wandered around the boat without a single thought in my head. I was an empty vessel inside an empty vessel. And if it weren't for my renewed passion for cigarettes, I'd be nothing! Certainly there are moments, if not whole hours when I am clinically a psychopath. And so I took to wondering how grief can render me, a therapist, so useless, so labile, so prone to marching up and down with my nothingness. And so I took to wondering of the state of the world, the nation, the city and the town, of the people in my street and how we rub along together, we do, pretty much. And yet the lunacy within each of us, BANG! God, FUCK! And to think that we dont, do we, no, we hold it together, we do, pretty much. Yet god help Caroline if I see her tonight, oh god, yes god.

And Thom.

We'll fish off the pier if the weather holds.

Ah, Caroline on deck, putting out the washing.

Myself on top deck, tapping ash onto the awning below.

Aside from her bikini, Caroline cannot help but remind me of Degas, and those moments of sensual, yet awkward physicality. God I should clutch her arse and save us both.

I have to confess I have missed Gareth. Within seconds he was gossiping, open and intimate, revealing the end of his relationship with his life partner, his fear for Neil over his dwindling client list, and the ridiculous but charming concern over Helen and the schizophrenia that runs in her family, finally making itself known. And so I sat with Gareth in the kitchen, blowing clouds of smoke between us, wondering if I had missed him or, rather, missed the simple ache and grace of inclusion.

Clearly, I'm capable of anything.

I could walk out of my life again, again and again.

I could go paint boats in New Zealand.

Or chop trees in Scotland. Or find an Asian bride.

Give her all I own.

Oh jest is infinite, is it not?

Well mine isn't. You think I jest?

No, no.

Angels, I believe.

And so it was, with my central nervous system somewhat impaired, my senses, in recompense, gloriously alive, my tread firm and definitive with the scent of O hanging on my collar, and feeling as libidinally febrile as ever, I walked into town and back to work, wondering how to explain my overlong leave. I decided that the maiden aunt, incontinent and immobile yet culturally aware, resided less in Australia and rather more in Rome. I decided the Italian city, with all that art, would throw Gareth off the scent. He'd let me have Rome. Very likely he'd bag the East, all that injustice and literal thinking, nothing to threaten. And so you can imagine my surprise on turning the corner to meet Gareth's huge grin (and obvious delight) and the instantaneous question, so how was it, Wittenberg? I smiled wide and true and, holding the buckle of my belt, found a deep, but entirely false laugh. Well of course, I learnt sorcery in Wittenberg, I said. I then explained most seriously of the minor relatives of my father that I looked up in Germany, en route, of course, to the maiden aunt in Rome.

Of course, I had sent them all a postcard! But why had I done that and, equally, why had I forgotten? And so it was that I entered work with a wall of defences, lies and all the unending manipulation and smelt, again, the warm oil of my life, and, ticking over, the engine of my grand plan. I threw open the window and, leaning out, lit a cigarette as if searching for it all on the street below.

I woke early to the drunken mewling and heavy tread of Caroline and Jeff returning to their boat. (And why, Axel, are we not double glazed?) What grisly party had they attended? Very likely it was a barbey that got out of hand. All tits and tans in some patioed garden, burgers and bottled beer from eastern europe, followed by the pub owned by their mates who happen to sell them their first yacht, then a lock-in for old times sake. Oh, when will they learn?

I went to the bathroom. I usually take a breath and enter my belly before walking into Axel's bathroom. Yet today I was unable to avoid the wall to wall mirrors and saw, as if for the first time, the wave of grey hair upon my head. What happened in Wittenberg? I used to have hair flecked with grey, maturing well, at it's own pace. I am now a grey haired gentleman. Oh what have the angels done? I found my dressing gown and went onto deck. And to think I have had a postcard of Dr. Dee pinned above my desk for over thirty years.

Oh god Helen.

Helen and Gareth.

Neil?

What will I tell them? And will Gareth believe me? The truth is rarely a realistic, or sociable proposition, so most likely I'll find a maiden aunt in Australia who required some comfort. Or maybe I spent a few weeks in one our Celtic regions, trying and failing to write my first novel. That'll go down well. But I must choose my deception with care for it may return to haunt my dreams and so, with a sly quarter pipe at the ready, I went to prepare myself for returning to the clear and obvious horseshit of the working world.

In grief, what did I do?


Wittenberg? Well it's a place, isn't it? A place to hammer out your very own religion. A chance to buckle down and sort it out, once and all. A place to go pale and insane with learning. A place of tidy women and furious students. And so, your honour, what did I learn?


Well, I learnt magick.

What can I say? I feel almost shy in saying. In Wittenberg I learnt the Enochian magick of angels. In short, in grief, all I ever knew was now nothing. It was no-thing. There were no dimensions to anything. And like any crying child, I had nothing to lose and only my Dad to gain. Am I apologising? Hah, I should be struck off this minute! And yet, was not Jung's Psychology and Alchemy a bible of my youth? I feel no better for that or any reckoning. And so, as I sit waiting for Thom to come and catch ourselves a proper breakfast, it sometimes feels like the continuity of a life, of a mind, and at other times it all feels shattered, and new. Ah my master, Rubens, how I wonder at your seraphs and nymphs, your angels and satyrs, what the fuck have we known our life long?

Ah now now, carve me a breast, my master!

A breast!

Ah, Dad.

If anything was ever expected, it was your death. And what are the processes of grief, if not my bread and butter? Oh, we always fell short, course we did. We were always lagging behind the face of that clock. When I could admit, dripping in fear, that you were only weeks away from death, you were, in fact, days away. And when I could see you gasping for the straw, craning over for the last suckle on some warm beer and accept, finally, that we were in our last hours, we were minutes away. And when at the end, half joking, you asked me if you would be going 'up or down', I fell to pieces. You were not asking and, finally, after a lifetime, I had no vanity to even imagine an answer. You were just wrestling me, as ever, right to the end. There was nothing here but you and me, and death. And so at last you couldn't hold your head, and death came. It pulled you hard into the pillows but you never left me, you never turned to the wall, or said a prayer, no final moment for yourself, it was just you and me, forever and always.

Is love the only word for that? And then it was over. It was over.

Ah, Dad.

What next? Well what?

To Wittenberg.

I was eased from my dreams by a mournful Gorecki. Without the accompaniment, I'd very likely have banished the dream to oblivion for it was, indeed, the most fantastically torrid, orgiastic debauch reminiscent of nothing else but Ruben's own Last Judgement. I do have a fondness, almost a nostalgia for eschatology and so, buttering my toast, had to remind myself that everyone who has ever existed has lived at the very end of time. And so, happily rebuked, I took my rods onto deck to catch myself a decent breakfast, and, notwithstanding, the better to spy Caroline at her toilet. Oh, they are lovely people, Jeff, Jeff and Caroline. Like myself, they have just entered middle age. Having sold up their recruitment, or double glazing business and, childless, they are now perma tanned retirees in the world of easy cruising. They are incredibly fit, always upbeat, clasping hands and shoulders, the only blemish being Caroline's one, shameful cigarette, alone at night. They are, of course, a mere step away from the world of swingers.

There was noone around. Very likely they'd gone to town, running an errand in pursuit of their next adventure. I lit a half pipe Of O and took to wondering about my dream. And yet, it was less the whirling mass of breast and thigh that concerned me, or the terrible will of the flesh, but more a sense of overriding, possibly anonymous beneficence surrounding it all. I was then reminded of my master, Rubens, and always within or above the most punishing of scenes are the angels, forever heralding, or succumbing. And so is it any wonder, after all, that I have to come believe in angels? Finishing my pipe and, as ever, in the steps of my master, I returned to the kitchen, coffee, and my journal.

And so this morning, stumbling out of bed like an English poet, I took a piss in the third and, surely, the final bathroom in Axel's boat. A measure of peace came over me as I watched the arc of my urine. It was good to know my waters would be slipping so economically into the waters below me, rather than piped around town with all the fanfare and administration of that. Am I warming to nature? Ah, I'm too old. Only it's deceptions really interest me. Of course Axel's largesse is legendary but he did request of me one thing. And for godsake, he said, just don't move, don't sail her, or screw her, or go anywhere at all with her, please. Now I understand that his boat is so big if I were to sail it anywhere it'd probably cause a diplomatic incident, perhaps even the recall of the depressed Swiss who is renting my house, very likely teasing himself to sleep, this minute, with my very own Mapplethorpe's. How far do I have to go to sleep in my own bed? Will terrifying the Dutch, do it? I shall finish my notes now (ah, my clients, do I deserve their loyalty?) and then take a brandy onto deck, all the better to see Caroline and the outline of her bra, as she slowly closes her curtains and then I'll return to the kitchen. I shall light a candle, brew some coffee, and, in my journal, I'll try to make sense of the last twelve weeks, holed up in a tiny room in Wittenberg, grieving, insane, and learning an altogether different trade.

I've taken up fishing, by the by.

Thank the lord for silence. But am I welcome here, I wonder? Will the old life have me back?

I've always wanted this, an endless horizon, the enveloping vista.

And that's Caroline! Have I mentioned Caroline? I saw her today. She was sunbathing on deck in the most unlikely weather.

Indeed, I currently have temporary residence of Axel's new boat, moored in the marina of my usual stamping ground. As I am renting out my own house (including a premium for the walls of erotica) so I find myself homeless. Of course Axel, the errant and rather elderly son of Austro-German industrialists, is on a four week tour of the Pyramids and he extended the generosity of his vessel to me, in the main, due to my bereavement. And so it was, pushing aside the slovenly mackeral I caught earlier in the day, I took to wondering if I could just storm back into my home and throw out the imposter. After so many months away I long to reclaim my life, my home, my possessions and while my tenant is, apparently, a Swiss diplomat, the only thing that stays my hand is remembering the sticky divorce he is suffering. As men of a certain age, we must look out for each other.

Ah, Dad.

Dad.

And Caroline, on deck, smoking at the moon. It's ten now. She'll turn in soon, snuggle up with Jeff. And as it darkens, we'll let the waters lap around us.

Mmmm.


No, no.


Mmm....Mmmm...Mmmmm.


Yes.

Yes.....