George. History has served him well. He lives in a four storey town house, renting out the basement to a young couple with a baby. This arrangement supplements his pension but, more importantly, they give him the requisite amount of daily, social intercourse that enables him to spend the rest of the day with his books. Or, as he says, in splendid isolation. George could do without me, but he'd be lost without Soraya, James, and little Florence. Nevertheless, my role today is well defined. I have to sniff out the choice that George wants to make and then, preferably unshaven and looking worse for wear, I make the case for the opposite course of action. Then, riding a sudden wave of sobriety and good sense, his intuition confirmed, he knows precisely the thing to do. But this time it's serious. George is about to make the same mistake twice. The soul can survive any corruption, but it goes into hiding, too. Some people say that, at this point, the body loses interest. I have not found this to be the case. But who knows what terminal conditions I harbour? So, back to my friend. Equidistant of Chichester and Rye, lying in the folding hills, is a redbrick university where George worked for thirty years, landing up Head of History. It ruined him. Despite his publications, the increasing visibility in the media and the prestige of his peers, George was forced into an early retirement.

In short, he was one of the select- a bunch of celebrity academics, politicians and neo-Darwinists- who played out their mid-life crisis in hysterical, drunken public. Every twenty minutes with their  teams of researchers, writers and tour publicists, they would publish books like God Is Crap, or, God is a Lie, or, one of the more perceptive, tonally intriguing titles, God is a Lying Crap. And with their burnished, Carribean hangovers, they were giving it to us straight, and we loved them. There is nothing we wouldn't do for these guys. Let's face it, they were lovely. They were tough, they were tanned, they were strong. They wore hard, iron pressed shirts. Their hair was fucking perfect. They never gave an inch to anyone. And we'd do anything. Invade a country...Oil?..You just do it...Why?...Some things are true, they are self evidently true. Like democracy, women, children. They are self evident. And if you are not protecting the self evident truths of your civilization, you are shit. And we are not shit. And George was not, either. He was very far from anything of that description. He was expanding his department at the university. He was soliciting and accepting funds for research into these most pressing, contemporary issues. Eventually, he had a team of historians and, unbelievably, they all had remarkably similar beliefs to each other and, equally remarkable, they were the same, or very similar, to the beliefs as held by George, Head of Department. It was extraordinary. How could such a friendly, unassuming...Which of course returns us to the man I know in the four storey townhouse. In fact, the four storey Georgian townhouse where I am bringing him cheap wine and an Indian for two, to talk over these very same...issues.


26th May 2013

I was waiting for George to answer the front door. The Indian was getting cold and me, irritable. He opened the top floor window and shouted, with his red face beaming: I'm coming ! But that was a few minutes ago. I remembered the goblet conversation. Why was I even here? Who was George anyway? Everything fell away. The tenant, James, was in the basement staring at his laptop. Around his feet were some coloured blocks, children's toys, all of them expensive, wooden. The screen of the laptop gave his face a look of lunar, fearful intent. It reminded me of Rachel. She said we have  a waxing moon and so I must stay calm during this period of volatility. Mmm... had I taken that as a hint to not look at her social media? At least, not yet? Well it had worked so fuck that, I'll do it now. I pulled out my phone and googled her name..Horrible, fucking horrible from every angle. There were men everywhere, there was buddies, pokes, tweets, favourites, men, other men, men. Didn't I know all this anyway? Hadn't I sniffed it on our first fucking date? Who needs detail. GEORGE!!!  I shouted to the top floor window, GEORGE..!!! James's head jerked from below, briefly. At least I registered on his consciousness, perhaps as an off screen Pop-up. Leaning against the wall, dropping the Indian to the ground, I thought of Thom, the goblet. And then, with relief, Anita.

Here she is. It's a photo I took over twenty years ago. But I can't take any credit for it. At the time I was writing a dissertation for my MA and Anita, a few years older than me, was coming to the end of her PhD on the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. We were friends and spent many hours talking about art. She rarely ever talked about poetry, her speciality. Looking back, it was this assumption of privacy which I found so intriguing. Sure, she could be pedantic, too. When I arrived at her flat, she wouldn't always offer to make a drink. Sometimes she was over insistent on matters of no importance and at these moments I could see why the man who made her pregnant was no longer being mentioned. Yet, I never felt I was replacing him....GEORGE!!!!!...At least, not until the day she asked me to take her picture. She set the whole scene up. It was her camera on the tripod, her lighting set up behind her brown, patterned quilt. She knew the beads she wanted to wear and the precise level of swollen belly she would show. The only thing she asked of me was that I stand behind the camera and press click. This was my sole contribution to the picture. I cannot claim any more from neither a technical, nor aesthetic perspective. But maybe it was my presence that gave a hint of red, of vulnerability to her face. Yet, even so, in her eyes you will see the calm confidence of her intellect. I could never be a match for the things she knew. And so even if, for a moment, I imagine she is wanting something of me, I need only look at her hands. All the energy, all the blood, is draining down to her hands, cradling her belly. If she was inviting me, she was also prioritising me, too. Four years later, Anita died. She had three and a half years with Maria, her daughter....FOR CHRISTSAKE LET ME IN !!!!!!! Not a sound from George, nothing from James, either. What a moonstruck cunt. I took a breath, and another...I send cards to Maria,. At Christmas, on her birthday. She works in Finance- godknows the word- she works in Financial Services. Fuck it...GEORGE !!!! She's a Para-Planner, that's it. I send her cards every year hoping that one day she'll get back to me. I would like to tell her about her mother, yes I would. And tell her everything I remember, which isn't much, about her mother's love for Rainer Maria Rilke.  



28th May 2013


Eventually, George answered the door. In fairness, he had tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He'd clearly been running around. Nevertheless, I gently handed over the Indian and said, Sorry, emergency. He appeared shocked or, even, bereft. But I was only looking for salt, he shouted. Salt? (Later he told me that I'd knocked on the door so loudly that he'd spilt wine all over his Persian). But I was shutting the gate, striding off to Rachel's. Jealousy. I hadn't experienced jealousy for nearly fifteen years. In fact, since the boat party for the Millennium. Walking so fast I had to stop, get my breath, put my hand on a tree. It was ridiculous. What is jealousy anyway? Is it even an emotion? Biology, more like. It's a tantrum of the genes. And what's that got to do with soul? Everything. I imagined passing all my frustration from my hand, down the trunk of the tree, into the ground, into the roots, passing all my paranoia into the capillaries of the earth. For a moment, it worked. I closed my eyes on the whole city. Those rancid Darwinists! They would own even my jealousy. I opened my eyes but all I saw was Rachel, her lips on another man...Keen, attentive. Suppressing an urge to crash into something or someone- anything to end it- I took deep breaths and tried to walk slower. Jealousy wasn't the plan, not with Rachel. I liked her, fancied her, admired her. There were moments I felt paternal, too. But it was always clear to both of us our plans were very different. She cheerfully admitted she wanted a husband, children, and I was equally game, admitting that all I wanted was conversation and sex. If pushed, occasional tickets to European art galleries of my choice. Even a few months ago we'd lunched and discussed her plan to return to Match, her online dating. Why not? After all, I understood...Maybe I'll take a decent photo of you...Yes, I'd  even said that.

Now this. I wasn't in love with her so why the jealousy? But I knew better. Jealousy works deep in the soul but it usually presents as a raging, paranoid fantasy. You see it every day. People buckled over, breathing deeply, holding onto trees in residential roads. This hysteria is always a smokescreen. It's a noise designed to stop her, and myself, from getting anywhere near the actual truth. Sadly, the truth is this: it's not Rachel's imminent infidelity I am raging about, but the fear that yesterday, or maybe last month, she saw something in my eyes that told her something she already intuited, that I had a long, long, history of lies and infidelity all of my own. So this raging on pavements was, as ever, a game. Feeling a little heavier, pleasurably so, with soul, I slowed my pace and began to look around me. But I was still heading to Rachel's for the body has it's own dumb habits, it's momentum, and so I would probably still arrive, unannounced, banging on her door.


29th May 2013


Oh, surprise.

She opened the door wearing her comfort jumper. There was a tiny spot above her lip.

Sorry...I didn't look sorry about anything. In fact, it took a few seconds for my face to catch up. Been with George all afternoon. So...boring.

Sure.

Her level tone said this was not the Dark Ages. You don't just turn up on someone's doorstep. Only the neighbour is allowed to do that, when in need of milk or sugar. Lovers? Family? They need appointments. But what could she do?  I entered the flat, pinching her jumper as I went.

He's been offered a job.

Really?

Instead of hanging my coat in the hall, I threw it down by the sofa. There was nothing I wouldn't do today. But no men were here. At least, not now. Still, her Tarot cards were there, visible, on the coffee table.

Yes, they want him to create the conditions that will allow us all to start another war in the Middle East.

Oh, good...She took a step towards me. And he thought he'd run it by you first.

Her warmth...Yes.

I slumped on the sofa while she went to make coffee. Did I have the will for this? With her curtains half closed, the comfort jumper. She was alone on a Sunday evening with her favourite film and a bowl of nuts. What right did I have to make a claim on her? On her desk was the Damien Hirst coffee coaster I found for her, and on the wall a couple of posters I got for her birthday. Whenever sat here, slumped on the sofa, I'd get mesmerised by the posters, engorging myself, almost. I never unpacked what that meant, and didn't intend to start, not then...But it reminded me of her wardrobe in the  bedroom where, top right, she kept all the sex toys I've bought for her. It would be obvious if they'd  been used recently. Last time we used them, it was me who packed them away. Put it like this, I don't have a photographic memory, but I know when to concentrate. She was making coffee. I could sneak into her bedroom on the pretext of...But I am nearly fifty and too old for that.

So, lying flat on her sofa, I decided that, finally, it's only speculation that's interesting, evidence demeans us all...Isn't it the play of possibilities that sustains life...?  So, preferring to reminisce, I remembered my excursion to purchase the sex toys. I knew from experience that, like all shopping, it was better to buy everything all at once. After all, we never know what's in shadow, or what we really want, do we?....How many times in a relationship have I sauntered off down the shops to buy a butt plug, only to realise that it was nipple clamps we really needed? So, a few months ago I went to the local emporium and filled a couple of baskets for Rachel...I suspect the girl at the cash till didn't have much conversation for middle aged men at the best of times, but, glancing at my baskets she managed something for me. Yeah, she said, there's been a lot of interest in S & M since Fifty Shades of Grey came out. She reminded me of the girls, the blonde, fluffy, sarcastic girls who I used to chase after, hopelessly, when returning home from university...I was about to reply that, au contraire, I rather think it all began with Aloisiae Sigeae  by Nicolas Chorier in 1660. But, knowing that, with girls like this, it was infinitely preferable to be viewed as a pervert than an intellectual I said, instead, It's for her birthday, what do you reckon? Think she'll like it? She arched her eyebrows and, for a moment, we understood each other.

Rachel put the coffee on the floor and, having taken the remote and without speaking, lay down next to me. Our bodies always seemed to mesh well, without trying. By which I mean, me, large enough to wrap around her, nearly, but not completely containing. She lay her head on my chest and without moving, said, I was watching a film. Do you mind? She rewound the film to the scene she was at before I came. And for the longest while we lay in silence, she, intent on the film; me, slowly breathing out all my fears, from the back of my head to the ceiling. When I was done with that, feeling like a heavy piece of dough, my eyes moved to the television. Perhaps it wasn't too late to get into the film.  At that moment, without moving, she said, hello. 


31st May 2013


Later that evening we sat naked on the sofa, hands on our knees, my dick lying between my legs, defeated. We'd written the names of various European cities on bits of paper and then, shuffling them up, Rachel chose one at random. Stockholm. Bugger, she said. And so it was by a curious process of alchemy that we landed up not in Stockholm but, instead, spending four nights at Le Meurice in Paris where, from our seventh floor balcony I watched lovers in the Tuileries Garden while reading Rilke's letters, sometimes aloud. And yet, on the very first night, as Rachel stepped out of the shower and the lovers below were yet to gather, I found the passage in the letters that I realised I was looking for and yet, concentrating so hard, reading it two or three times over, I'm not sure I shared it with her. It goes: Our task is to stamp this provisional, perishing earth into ourselves so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its being may rise again, invisibly, in us. I let his words pound into me, just as Rachel was drying her feet. But over the following days I read other passages to her. Rilke on art, love, Paris, Cezzane, and she soon got a sense of what the man was about, and I wouldn't doubt that.

I'd have preferred Stockholm. Axel rang a few days previously saying the book was ready, all we need is art work for the front cover. Of course it's absolutely your choice, always will be, but I was rather thinking of Picasso's Bacchanal. I'm sure he was. In fact, the original hangs in his study. For myself, I was rather thinking of Boucher's Venus, currently on public view, Stockholm. But when Rachel said Paris, I recalled all those splayed and hungry thighs in charcoal and pencil at the Musee Rodin. It was, as she sometimes says, a no-brainer. And yet, thinking about this, it was curious how we went from playing a game of chance - invoking with it all our transpersonal hopes and, even, our spiritual longing- and then, pissed off with the result, we decide to do what we thought we wanted, and got tickets for Paris. She uses her tarot cards and astrology in precisely the same way. They confirm what she wants to hear, in which case she feels stronger, as if fate were on her side. If the reading is not acceptable to her, she discards it, and does what she wants anyway. When I see that momentary doubt, followed by utter certainty that her will is stronger than the cards or the Zodiac, I find myself wanting to wrap myself around every bit of her, like a God. Like most women, she knows how to comfort herself. While men expect comfort to be bestowed on them, or to come from within- at least any man worth his salt does- women always seem to know how to roll with the world, to use it to make themselves feel better. Just watching it, I have fallen in love with the wrong people.What I've never told Rachel is that, oh, hundreds of years ago I, too, was immersed in astrology. I could make up charts and gradients for any time of day, for any calender year. But I don't want to crowd her out and, to be honest, I'm unsure how much I remember. But believe every word of it. 


2nd June 2013 

It wasn't easy getting time off. With Gareth in Wales, Helen would be alone with clients in the house and this was, of course, a Health & Safety issue. I rang her on the second day. At the time, Rachel was lying at my feet, reading a book on How To Be A Woman. Everyone was reading it, even women. Best not mention that you're already in Paris, she said, turning a page. For Rachel, reading was a social act, not an introspective one. Of all the women I've known, she needs no advice on How To Be, but she wants to be able to join in the conversation...Do you think...? I said, reclining on a stack of pillows. Truth is, I was becoming rather louche, and didn't like it. There was a shaft of light between us on the bed. I turned to the wall, comforting myself. The previous evening, we'd spent an hour on the balcony making up names, careers, and psychological histories for all the lovers in the Tuileries garden. It was clear to both of us that the homosexual lovers had never met before. But I felt, from observing a confidence, an expectation in their gestures, that the heterosexual lovers had prior knowledge of, or contact with each other. Oh you are so wrong, said Rachel. I was annoyed by this. I thought she was exalting the liberality of her gender and therefore, by definition, her own sexuality, and, purposefully, making me feel old and out of touch, or maybe, on this early summer evening with half a glass of, she was just a bit squiffy on the book she was reading. Nevertheless, over the remaining days, I kept a keen eye on all the lovers in the garden but by the time we checked out, I hadn't revised my opinion. My years at the boat party have served me well enough.  And so, later that night, with the moon waning and without any overt intention, I eased myself into Rachel's sphincter. It wasn't always thus. Depending on her mood, she was usually game for anal. She understood that nowadays men expect it, whilst usually being unaware of how to do it. At its best, it could be an invigorating, joyful, and unendingly intensifying confirmation of, often, a thought or decision already made. At its worst, it could be a painful, distant, and fairly abrupt. And so it was this evening, everything jarred. Luckily, our bodies knew each other well enough. Instead, we took a photo.

I set the camera on a timer. But as the photo shows, I wasn't quick enough and our faces got blurred. In truth, this wasn't innocent fun. I knew that Damien Hirst was Rachel's favourite artist. But this afternoon we went to the Pomidou Centre and I hoped that, having an interest in death, money, and only a generation less than Damien Hirst, I might be able to interest Rachel in a few Francis Bacon paintings. She loved them. It's like they're not there, she said. He is painting people who are just not there. And so, returning to the hotel room, tired, hungry and with a peculiar and, I might say, rather modern agitation in my heart ( after all I was falling in love with her and really didn't want to ), we waited for dinner by getting undressed, and failing to have the sex aforementioned. And so, slumped back on the pillows, drinking fruit juice that seemed to burn our tongues, we looked around ourselves and it appeared as if the objects in this opulent, but empty room had magnified. We both alighted on her camera and said, together, let's take a picture. We decided to try and emulate one of the Bacon paintings we had seen a few hours earlier. So, I set the camera on the timer and, as the photo shows, dashed back to the bed a few seconds late and, as you can see, trying to compensate, we both smiled like mad. Much later that night, Rachel was on her tablet reading the latest about Francis Bacon. One of the most recent reviews of his last exhibiton had described his depiction of the human form as being resonant of the carcase of an animal, hollow, mad, alienated. She turned over, waiting for me to tuck my knees under hers. Well, maybe, she said. But it's not like our picture, is it? And she was right, it isn't. It really isn't.


4th June 2013


3 am. Woke up thinking I was in bed at home, alone. But it was Rachel, tapping me on the back. Hey, look at your arm. On the inside of my left arm, below the elbow, were four red marks. There was blood on the surface, as if waiting to bleed, politely. You've been scratching it to pieces, she said. The area around was raw and doughy. I got out of bed, staring round the room as if looking for a spanner. There was a tray with a glass and some loose change. I couldn't fix anything with that so I sat back on the edge of the mattress. This Paris trip was the first time Rachel and I had shared a bed for the whole night. Is this what it would be like in a relationship? It had been so long. What, to have someone waking you up, reminding you who you are? There was no noise in the Tuileries seven storey's below. There was a moon, somewhere, meaning something. I got back into bed and turned to the wall, but she'd already hooked her leg over mine.
 4am. In moonlight, the room felt like a cell. Rachel was lying on her side, snoring lightly. Lifting myself, I touched her temple. She stirred, sliding onto her back. She pulled the sheet over, covering the top of her breasts, and the snoring stopped. From the front, she was naked to the world. Lying beside her all I could do was picture it. But anyone at the front of the bed could have seen a nipple just visible under the sheet. They would have seen her left leg opening, and rising. Her pubic hair. They'd have seen only the hint of labia and wondered, perhaps, why she was not shaven in the modern, Brazilian style. The answer to that would have been, having no desire to inspire the paedophiliac sensibility, and having a mind of her own, she preferred to shave, and shape it. If they had the patience to listen, I would have dutifully explained that Rachel would shave the sides, making a neat I, rather than those overgrown forests, the V's, of the nineteenth century, the existence of which  everyone flatly denied. I once suggested letting more of it grow, but I was unsure of my motives. I closed my eyes. She was so still, I could feel my breath warming the sheet. From the front of the bed you would have seen all this, you would have seen her pubis then moved on to her thighs, the unabashed fleshiness of them, her sleeping thighs. Possibly, you would blink, and return your gaze to her vagina, as if you'd missed something. At this point you might turn away, take a step towards the balcony, ready to plant your hands firmly on the railings because, at this moment, you would prefer to speculate, to order your thoughts. Though, in truth, it cannot be said if thoughts is the exact word. But speculation is your natural idiom and so, yes, you turn away towards the balcony. At this point, I feel bound to call you back, to inform you that, in all seriousness, you didn't miss anything the first time you looked at her and that, it was always inevitable that you would take a second, possibly a third look. Though even as I explain this to you I am already aware that I am a moment or two late because you are already stepping away. But I carry on talking, explaining to you as fast, as precisely as I can that no, it was inevitable. You were always going to return your gaze, over and over. In fact, you could have spent the rest of your life looking at Rachel and I would have removed the sheet, sat on the edge of the bed, and negotiated even this. But I am aware, behind my closed eyes, that you are now on the balcony, looking down on the Tuileries Garden and as you begin ordering your thoughts, the first word that comes to you is origins. You think of your origins, the origins of your clients, and from there you begin to speculate. You speculate that there are various types of origins. Your clients come to you seeking their personal origins, but there are also the origins of the species, the planet, and there are the origins of our thoughts, within which we may find all of the others.You become aware of my voice from within and you turn around wondering, perhaps, if I have been talking all this while. I beckon you back into the room and you stand at the bottom of the bed, exactly as you were a minute ago, and I am now so tired talking and talking, explaining all this to you but at last Rachel sighs, gently, and moves her arm a little.


5th June 2013


4.06am. Sat on the balcony with Rachel's tablet on my knees..I press standby and see she has downloaded To The Lighthouse. She is on page 4. There was a rustle in the leaves below...Now, listen here, I can say many things with absolute certainty and this is another of them:  Rachel will not reach page 5 of this book. Or if she does, she'll never reach page 7.  Last Christmas we tried reading The Waves and before that neither of us could finish the first chapter of even Mrs. Dalloway. Yet both of us keep plugging away at Virginia, but it'll never happen. I find her characters' sensitivities somewhat bloodless, and irksome. But while Rachel subscribes to the modernist and, if pressed, post modernist sensibility, even she finds Virginia Woolf just plain boring. But we keep on trying and that is because we have an unusual and, possibly, occult connection with her. Fact is, Rachel was born on the 25th of January, the very same day as Virginia's birth. For myself, I happen to be born on the 28th March, the day of Virginia's death. This was the day she walked into the River Ouse, her pockets laden with stones. Big, heavy ones. Furthermore, we both live and work only a stones throw from the River Ouse. As the months passed and our failure to appreciate Woolf's prose deepened, I suggested the only way we could embrace or overcome the shadow of Virginia Woolf on our liaison was for us to go to Charleston, the Bloomsbury country retreat, and fuck in the bushes of their garden. Again, a stones throw. On this, Rachel demurred, but hasn't ruled it out. But first, we have Paris to deal with...And from this distance, it doesn't matter. If we had fallen in love with Virginia's prose, and, who knows, maybe seen echoes, metaphors, or even individual lines that screamed about us and our lives, then maybe we could have fashioned our romance into a truly cosmic, shattering love affair. But we didn't, and we haven't. Of course, like everyone, I have had those love affairs in the past. They are the ones that yank the soul back into the centre of your life, where every moment with the beloved is a trace of infinity and always it ends in heartbreak, as it must. For these love affairs have one foot in this world, one in the spirit world, so they always crash. But along the way, however painful, your soul has been hauled into the next stage of its long journey. Eventually, we are always thankful to those who break our hearts. But that's not Rachel...I see her now, on the bed, her left leg rising...What am I doing here, on the balcony, with her tablet? What awful information am I after, what terrible news that will end this good, simple thing we have...? She wants nothing more than to connect with what I 'm feeling. It won't wrench my soul into another life, but in this world, does it get any better...? I lean back on the chair, the electronic light shining on my belly and in my mouth, a pen. I chew it like a cigar, or a reed.


7th June 2013


 4.08 am


 What are you doing...?

The sound came from far away. In fact, like a ghost, Rachel was now standing behind me, as if she'd caught up with her own voice. I closed my German dictionary and gently put it down, as if that were the offence. On the floor, her tablet. The screen was still open, staring.

I was checking up on you, I said.

Within a few seconds she'd be sitting down next to me. Prior to this, though, she stood facing the Tuileries, pulling her hair back with both hands. She may have indulged the possibility of irony but this was a gesture that had no patience with bullshit at this time of the morning. I had intended to check up on her. But I'd stopped myself and decided, instead, to pursue my language studies. Currently German, the letter B. I was innocent of everything...So why admit to something I hadn't done..? Firstly, it looked as though I had done it. But also, sometimes it's better to speak the truth, especially with jealousy, because noone is ever wrong about that. Also, the truth or whatever feels the truth always seems to change, sometimes in even a few seconds, into something grey and historical that will land up feeling like a lie, one of the ordinary lies we always tell. Which is a way of saying, perhaps, that time passes. It certainly does. But it's also a way of saying how quickly things fall into memory and become, if not historical, then fictive, even the truth. I rubbed my heel on the tiled floor...And besides, telling Rachel things, specific things, was quickly becoming a habit. Only last week, apropos of nothing, I told her my preferences with regard to socks. She listened, calmly.  It felt as though I were shedding twenty years of grief...But now, in Paris, on the balcony, we had the world to ourselves. It was 4 am and the midsummer sun, as if it had forgotten something, broke into the sky. Rachel had never looked so much herself, and her thighs, never as strong. At last, she sat down.

And what did you find..?

Nothing...

Well, that's good...Isn't it?

Good..? I don't know if it's good...

It sounds good...

Well, I don't know if it sounds anything...It's whether it's true or not...that's the point, surely..? Not whether it's good that I may or not have found...things....

You said you didn't find..things.

I didn't... 

Well...

Well...no, actually, what would be good is if those..things..didn't exist...It's the actual existence of these things...that's the thing...not whether I find them or not...That's the point...

The point..?

Yes, actually...

Is that the...? Actually, surely the point is you're snoooping on me...

Well we've established that....

Establis...

I told you about it...The snooping was...estab..

Well actually, the point is this...you always said that you would never commit to me...

Or to anyone...

Well IT'S ME...ME...I'M.....TALKING ABOUT...you said you would never commit to me and that you didn't expect any commitment from me...it just so happens by fucking accident that I have been committed...

Well fuck off, so have I...

Well so have I...

With a pang, I remembered the boat party in March...But that was offshore, and tax free. We sat facing each other, our jaws hanging, and our arms, heavy. What had we established...? I had no idea what it meant personally, but philosophically it was another reminder ( as if I, or the world, needed it ), that men and woman are, at the break of day, incapable of carrying on a sexual liaison that doesn't, finally, seek exclusivity...Personally, I began to wonder if my snooping had resulted in us declaring a desire for commitment, when the whole point of snooping was to destroy the...

Come to bed...


9th June 2013


4.09 am  Would the night never end..? Preferring the dark, I pulled the duvet over ourselves and pressed my head onto the back of her neck. Rachel didn't say anything, or seem to resist, but within a few minutes she'd turned around, so I held her then. And it was later, in the light of events only a few hours later, that I would come to return to this moment under the duvet and wonder, after all, if this was the closest I'd ever been to anyone. It was 11 am and having crossed the bridge, we were hurrying along the Rue de Bac, heading toward the Musee Rodin on the Rue de Varenne, when I stopped, suddenly. I had been thinking about George, about Axel, about Thom. Was there anyone I hadn't neglected? George, in his hour of need? I'd dumped him on his own doorstep with a chicken  curry. Axel? All he ever wanted from life was to publish my book...Had I even returned his calls? And Thom..? Hey, why are we running..? She was right. I don't think Rodin's going anywhere in a hurry. Right again...Was this woman ever wrong about anything? And so, we stopped..There was a bench on the side of the road, further up. Who needs to go running, headfirst, into the gaping thighs of Rodin's women..? Why not sit down, rub our eyes, pull out our phones. Rachel turned to face me, putting her feet on the bench. I was holding my phone, wondering if I should call George and talk through the implications of the job. When I turned, Rachel was still looking at me, but now with sunglasses on.

Hey, what's up..? Already, George was sounding American. 

You gonna do it...? It was infectious.

Signed the contract...It's done.

Well that's fantastic..!...Fucking hell!...I was aware of Rachel's gaze on me so I told George he was breaking up, and switched him off. I closed my eyes and tried to follow the path of my own breath. There are not many peaceful moments in life, and I never expected this to be one, either. But under her gaze, I began to slowly hand in my weapons. A few phrases came and went in my mind, half formed. Yes, I am an absolute piece of...I am not actually worthy...`..The acceptance of limitation is not always religious, but there are too many echoes, over too many centuries, for it to be much else. And I was defenceless under her gaze. She was searching me out, and I gave in. For a while, I became her object, and, frankly, it was bliss. She was speaking now but I couldn't hear her, not properly. My belly seemed to fall and, quickly, my eyes filled with tears. I looked upwards, as if to acknowledge them, or drain them, I don't know. But I was aware that Rachel was talking and telling me something. ( Later that day I was shouting at her, telling that I had heard nothing, nothing of what she was saying. In fact, I hadn't even heard the cars driving past us on the road. And I hadn't...It was like they were sliding by on grease.) Yet, while I was aware of her speaking, I couldn't help this absorption in  the immensity filling behind my eyes. It felt as though my mind were expanding in every direction and, for a moment, I wondered if my voice were so deep that if I dared to speak it would render a crack in the pavement, in the road, in fact, a crack all the way up to the highest skyscraper, and down, all the way down to the substrata of the lowest geologic.. The acceptance of my own limitation had led to an immensity that drowned not just Rachel, but the entire world. Of course, there was no way of explaining this. On the way back to the hotel, I told her that, goddammit, I'm middle aged.  I have these turns. Later, in the hotel room, there was a lot of shouting. She threw something at me, it landed on the balcony, slid under the railing, fell into the Tuileries. But I don't remember what it was. I shouted at her... She shouted at me...Later, we fell asleep. Before that, she told me again what she'd tried telling me and, in it's every aspect, it was absolutely true. She said, you are scared of commitment. And you are so scared, you want to blame me for it. I couldn't fault a word. It was the absolute, literal truth. But we were asleep soon enough.

God knows, the mood I'm in. I want to drink the day to death. Trying to recall something my Dad said...After my mother died, my father did stretching exercises. I would come down for breakfast in my school uniform and see him in the kitchen, wearing his white vest and Arsenal shorts. He would do sit ups, press ups and, at first, star jumps. You've got to be fit at the end, he'd say. That's what I was trying to remember. To be fit at the...But at the time, I wasn't really listening. To be fair, he didn't say it every day. But he said it enough so that by the time of my  ' O ' levels, I was alert to the change. And again, to be fair, he didn't say this very much either, perhaps once or twice. You've got to be fit at the end, son. So you can tell your side of it. It took him seven years of sit ups to get there. But what's that got to do with me? I've had an easier life than him and, besides, there's no flies on me. There's nothing I won't readily admit to. My Dad was a hidden man, yet keen on his own longevity. I always felt he was waiting for all his contemporaries to die and then, only then, would he open his mouth. It seemed that having the last word, having history on your side, was the only thing that mattered. Inevitably, as he got older the desire for a final, definitive statement about life, his life, began to wane. Everyone who cared was dead and those who weren't, by definition, didn't care. He'd missed the boat, or so it seemed to me. Yet, he was too subtle to refuse my requests to speak about the past- and having a therapist for a son couldn't have helped- but he always managed to find a curious, spontaneous digression. By the time I left for university I was listening to classical music and knew there was a thousand years of baggage I didn't know anything about. It was around this time that I was taking coaches to Watford, Aldershot and Basingstoke- where I would settle down into my seat and scan the audience, looking for another mother.

Finally, George confessed to my ansaphone, I've been offered a post at the LSE. And perhaps worried that his cats were listening, he whispered...The problem is, they want me to expand the department...I went to the kitchen to pour a brandy and on my return to the hall, the message was ending, But I've never been offered so much money. Ah, so, it's a question of integrity. Who'd have thought. Yet, there was a fearful tone to his voice and, for a second, I imagined George hanging himself. It wasn't an  implausible scenario. I'll ring him later. You cannot mess with the soul of a man in his late fifties. But for now, to be alone. But alone at home wasn't the answer. Increasingly, the pleasure of isolation can only be achieved in company, so I quickly booked a single ticket for Poulenc's Flute Sonata. 

Driving to the concert, I recalled the end of the other day. Rachel had wanted an early night and as the whole enterprise had been a new experience for us, I didn't argue. It was the first time we'd ever met without sex. And yet, as we parted, it was as if I were heading off on a military train to the Carpathian mountains. Winding down the car window, we kissed as if for the last time. But with the car between us, it was as safe as a poke or peck on Twitter. And within that safety, she traced the contours of my anonymous mouth, biting my lips, and then, possibly something I'd never have done in private, we sucked on each others' tongues. I imagined the car door dissolving and my face falling to the pavement and, happily,  breaking my chin. But driving away, I had made a mental note to explore the terrain, to check out her tweets, her prods and pokes, her whatnot.

So, All Saints church. The musicians were four young men in their twenties. I could have fathered them all. In fact, there was a sense of striving, of intensity, to the whole evening. The ushers were staring upwards, beyond the stained glass, and even the coffee was burning my fingers. I settled in my chair and recalled, gently, the fraud at which my life excelled. Truth is, I never knew much about classical music. It was a quiet rebellion against my father who'd tried to get me into The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. As a teenager, I took myself off to hear Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and, for a period, I was chasing the Late Quartets around southern England. But I never comprehended, fully, any of them. I would go to the concerts because when I saw, for example, a pianist playing Chopin, I could only grasp the music by watching the pianist play. I wasn't experiencing my own reaction, but only by watching the pianist could I feel the music, and I understood it through him, every tiny gesture of the head and hands, from the slow and absorbent, to the spasmodic and crazy, it was through the other that I became. But I am gentler on myself now. I realise that what I was looking at then was a man expressing, in space, soul. I learnt from these musicians that the containment, the embodiment, of soul was, in fact, the expression of it. I never stopped travelling for that.

Of course there was another, baser reason for my interest in classical music. We'll come to that.

Time to ring George.

The American players began by handing out cans of beer. Apart from showing us what rolicking great guys they clearly are, it also suggested the danger, the sheer havoc they could wreak upon the European canon. Rachel threw up her hand, the yankee Grendel's eyes fell upon her. He chucked a beer- which she passed to me. I thanked her, not mentioning the phial of brandy in my jacket. After a few minutes of academic irony fusing with the jazz, Beowolf  burst from the side. With a sword and a mound of fur on his back, roaring and strutting, he was pure, thick, dyslexic dick. I supped the warm beer...Had Rachel ever worn perfume before? Always clean, always stepping from the bath or the showers at the gym, I loved her subtle, untraceable smells. Sometimes it was only the smell of freshly washed clothes, or shampoo, but never anything as nuclear as perfume. If going to the theatre was my way of taking our liaison to a new level, was wearing perfume hers? I hope not. But I suppose our liaison, having consisted only of sex, has never explored the terrible and fearful terrain beyond her bedroom, occasionally mine. Why leave a lingering scent around your own duvet? We are not...foxes. Foxes? The beer was slipping from my hand. Grendel and Boewolf were squaring up. The American players were doing an ironic machismo, a brief nod to feminist critics. There's always a sadness in returning to the present. It's like being cast out of Eden a hundred and fifty times a day...Hey, you..! Rachel took a gulp of beer, perhaps worried that I would get drunk and turn into an American phallus with no past, no future, forever deconstructing and fucking the present moment of my own jubilant existence. I remembered the phial...No, she was wasn't thinking that...We have good sex, me and Rachel...Saying that, she could have good sex with thousands of people. As the youngest of three siblings, she is at ease in her skin...All relationships begin as triangles. Ours did, too, but what made it intensely sexual was, in fact, a misunderstanding...I could hear a thrumming bass, not unlike the Velvet Underground circa 1969..The misunderstanding...It was this: For the first few weeks, whenever Rachel and I met, we were unduly awkward. I knew her to be a giving, talkative woman, keen on detail. But whenever we met, for the first twenty minutes, it was as if we were starting all over. This went on for six weeks. I would burst in out of the rain, we'd hug, then we'd have twenty minutes of quizzical looks, bitten lips, as if making a cup of coffee were a form of satirical dance. At the time I took it to be the significant gestures of a woman in her mid thirties.In fact, she was simply trying to work out if I'd been reading her Twitter. Of course, I never had. It wasn't because I am nearly a generation older than Rachel ( I have clients in their seventies who have had their hearts broken on Facebook ), it's  simply that I am a dog, and I prefer to sniff for information. Yet, whenever Rachel and I met she assumed my immersion in her hyperventilating world of social media. Inevitably, I let her down. Where I was expected to be curious, I was indifferent. When I was expected to be jealous, I was happy as Larry.  She just didn't get me. So we'd spend twenty minutes in a fierce display of limbs, looks, misunderstanding, and heavy gestures. In short, I inscribed onto her kind but uncertain expression, all my fears, and this made it an imperative for me, as a man with those fears, to be inside her.  And without delay. Or undue delay. And so, whenever Rachel and I met, within an hour we'd be in the bedroom, resolving on our bodies all our expectation, and sniffing for all our information.

I was reading a new translation of The Second Treatise of Seth when George, seemingly my only friend, called to say he had news and wanted some advice. We tend not to share our bad news anymore and while this is a feature of the middle years it also means, due to our occasional tendency to identify with each other, that we don't get ourselves into misery and horseshit. Equally, I was in no mood to hear his good news, either. I called Rachel. Shall we go to the theatre? Had we ever been anywhere ? To see what, she asked, as if we had. I haven't a clue, I said, dimly aware that perhaps I was trying to create some news of my own. Brilliant, she said.

I got tickets for Beowolf- A Thousand Years of Baggage. I explained to Rachel that it was a devised piece, a fusion of music and performance, part lecture- part romp taking the 9th Century tale out of Academe and back to its bare bones of mothers, sons, war, dick. She asked if I wanted a coffee. I said no. I wanted to to be out on the town, fucking about, holding her hand. ..Why? She smiled, looking as if someone else had said it, someone on her team, perhaps. And confirming this, she said, I have friends I can go to the theatre with.

Blimey fucking Mary. After six months, this was our first argument. The one time I make an effort...After six months of...You always said you wanted more, and now, right now, when we are about to WALK OUT THE DOOR AND DO...MORE !!!!! This is the moment...She was warming to my anger, so I carried on. HELL yes, maybe I do want more from this, don't you..? Not any more, eh? So what am I to you, a fuck-piece? (Had I just invented that word..?) She came towards me, putting her head on my chest. Then, prodding me gently, said, no, you're worth more than that. And so we left her flat with our irony, our selves, intact, and with time to spare. As I drove us to the car park I felt a cloud of dementia fall over me as I explained again we were going to see Beowolf- A Thousand Years of Baggage. It's a devised piece, a fusion....of music and....performance, part lecture-part romp...taking the 9th Century tale out of Academe and back to the bare bones of.....mothers, sons, war....dick. She pinched my knee. I said it was American. The theatre company was American. They are taking this show all over Europe. They are deconstructing our myths because, presumably, they have the clarity to do this, not having a thousand years of their own baggage. She laughed. Having found a space, I pulled up the handbrake. 

For drinks, English's. I told George about my encounter with Karen and, feeling low, I must have told the truth or, more likely, given too much detail because he found it hilarious. I described to him the incident at Christmas with Thom and his girlfriend, Lyra, the incident that led to us falling out and of which Karen knew nothing. Until friday, in Diana's.

So, she didn't know about the goblet?

Well, she knew it existed, of course she did. It was for me, for drinking wine at home. But yes, it was modeled on her breast, how could she not know? We made the cast together. She wasn't aware that whenever Thom came round to my house, he used the goblet for his lemonade. 

So Thom didn't know the goblet was modeled on his mum's breast? This was making his day.

Why should he? He  liked drinking his lemonade out of it. I didn't tell him the provenance. 

Normally George would have been on his second gin by now, but he was loving this. I was making a fool of myself and, more significantly, of feeling myself sink into the role. George is incredibly well connected but he has no friends, so it was safe. He narrowed his eyes and straying well beyond his usual territory, said:

So, what would happen if Thom came round and you were about to pour a goblet of wine and he wanted a goblet of lemonade, then who would get his way, as it were?

Fuck off, George.

I had never told George to fuck off before, neither playfully, nor seriously. He seemed to take it very easily. I made a note of it.

So, what happened? What did Lyra say?

Well, she  pointed at Thom's lemonade and laughed. Thom said, why are you laughing? She said his cup looked like a breast. It had never occurred to him before. But either she is very stupid or very clever, because she then said, I wonder whose breast it is?

And of course you told them.

I was tired. George, I don't tell the truth, but I don't lie either.  George didn't deserve this, a truth that was true, so I carried on talking. I tried soaring into a Nietzschean argument for the relativity of truth, but soon fell into justifying myself.

Of course I told him. When truth is in the room, you answer it. 

I stared at him. His conscience wasn't great, either. We'd get round to him soon enough, but nothing stirred. Yes, granted, it may seem imperial and rather ridiculous to make a goblet cast from your wife's breast. Yet, didn't the very first goblet of wine, according to Greek myth, come from the breast of Helen of Troy? I didn't remind George of this, though straying onto his territory would've been very appropriate. Instead, I said:

He's my son. One day he'll inherit it.

Inherit...?

The goblet.

I'm working. We'll talk later, ok?

Is it cannabis? Tell me!

I won't tell you anything if you don't calm down!

Just tell me!

It'd been a while since she'd needed anything from me. But since my trip to the kitchen had successfully drained us of eroticism, all I had was an angry woman in my room. It seemed every word I spoke was igniting more indignation so better to shut-up and, instead, stare her into silence. Karen had always been self conscious about her hair. It just didn't have enough panache. I looked beyond her, to her fringe, narrowing my eyes to suggest she'd done something new and possibly inappropriate with it. After all, we can't all have big crazy hair. Some of us just have mousy hair, hair that hangs there, a bit lifeless. But you get over it, you get on with things. But..mmm.

If you don't tell me what's going on I won't let you see him!

I don't see him anyway.

She touched her hair, briefly, and blinked. For a moment, she was so distracted I could've changed the subject and she wouldn't have noticed, or not straight away. But it had been a long time since I'd seen Karen so, instead, I watched until she regained herself. Had it been that long since I saw her? Only a few weeks ago, bikram yoga. And the other night she was caught in my headlights, jogging along the seafront. And so it was, possibly due to the yoga, the camel, or (who knows) her deep and loving relationship with Serena, she soon regained possession of herself and, casting a contemptuous look up and down my bookshelves ( looking in the wrong place, she landed on a shelf of  Victorian phrenology ), she tried to make a final, definitive statement against me.

And why are you not speaking to him? What happened at Christmas?

Hands in pockets, I looked down and breathed deeply, as if this was, indeed, the real issue. I was glad to get away from the subject of cannabis because, of course, Karen was right. I should have told her, as any reasonable parent, or person, would have done. It's very easy to hide important things in apparently deeper issues. In fact, my livelihood depends on it. So, I was off the hook. Still, it took me a few seconds to respond.

I assumed he'd told you.

Of course he didn't, that's why I'm asking.

Ten minutes later we were in Diana's. Four pounds twenty for a tuna sandwich and a cup of coffee. I may have paid for lunch, but Karen showed us the better table, the one by the window. Likewise, the working men around us may have seemed oblivious to Karen, but I grew up around these bastards, and know their subtlety. The window was the better choice. Karen was calmer, watchful, and although we were here to talk about our son, other subjects could arise. And as I began to speak about Thom and the incident at Christmas, I wondered if the very faint erotic charge that seemed to return wasn't, in fact, the feeling of simply being at ease.

12.40 pm. With Gareth in grief and Helen taking another overlong lunch ( going home to make Sky his breakfast I shouldn't wonder ), I had the house to myself. Standing in the centre of my room, as if listening for mice, my mind went curiously blank. Or rather, it seemed to fasten itself into a state of blankness, as if making a point. Was this a stroke? But I had errands to run. Administrative tasks. I had planets to explore with my son. I shook my head, zinging the blankness from one side of the cranium to the other. I went to the window, threw it open and patted my jacket for tobacco. There was a time when cigarettes were both the cause and the solution to these aporias, these gaps in existence. But hadn't I quit seventeen years ago? There was a scratching from across the room, inside the wall. Of course, mice! It was deeply gratifying to have my instinct validated. I was listening for mice! There was a definite scratching, and it would've unnerved anyone. Then a quick knock before the door was thrown open, banging the shelf. In fact, jarring the spine of my early edition Ouspensky.

Why are you not answering your phone?

Men who claim to find angry women sexy are, without exception, loathsome. Saying that, at the precise moment Karen arrived I was, if not having a stroke, then certainly in a meditative trance. This libidinally passive state, crossed with Karen's aggression, sent an erotic charge into a room where it wasn't really wanted.

What happened the other day with Thom? You must tell me. Is it drugs? He smelt of cannabis. Is it cannabis? He won't tell me. 

I'll be back in a minute. Leaving the room quickly, I saw her throw her hands in the air, as if we'd been having this conversation for three or four months and I still wasn't getting it. She was in a rage of frustration, almost visionary.  If I let her release it all now then, within minutes, she'd answer all her own questions. In the kitchen, I threw cold water on my face. To generate some ego strength, I coughed loudly and squeezed my balls. I turned and was about to return to my room when I changed my mind, swiveled back and punched the sink. That was better. Nevertheless, I  returned too quickly because Karen was still pacing around, her hands on her hips.

Gareth's mother has died. He came to work today to tell us the news, and the consequence of this news, being that he can't come into work today. Despite the warm weather, his raincoat was zipped to the hilt but he had given his head a fresh shave so, although not making any eye contact and possibly unsure how to present himself in grief, at least he wasn't falling to pieces. Saying that, he could have called us with the news. What did he want, a hug..? I could have stretched my arms for the death of a mother but Gareth wasn't looking tearful, or tactile. Rather, he looked like a man who was grieving over the loss, not of a parent, but over his attitude to that parent. Having renounced his family he was now, in returning to Wales, renouncing his renunciation. But grief is a long road and I quelled these thoughts by making him a coffee he hadn't asked for. No thanks, he said. I stood on my heels a moment, as if something darker were going on here. But will you be able to take my group for me...? I nodded an affirmative,  remembering an attractive brunette sat by the window. Who will you stay with, I asked. Gareth didn't answer this. Instead, he seemed to pick something from his teeth and said, thank you, and left. So, after twenty years absence, has he cascaded back into the bosom of his family? Will he, in fact, become its bosom? Perhaps I'll never see him again.

I've been pushing this blue folder round my desk since friday. It won't serve as a coffee coaster but neither can it be ignored. But can I bear to read it? This morning it landed on the floor. I figured that by looking down on my novel for a few days I may start to consider it as something to chuck out and yet, as time goes by, I begin to recall the mood, the tone, the characters and even, this morning, a few lines came back to me, verbatim. I was, to be sure, an insane young man. To read the novel would be to remember a self, to break a seal on the past. Sure, I may have been a louche youth, falling into bed with everyone. But I damaged a few people, too, not least due to my occult activities. By my late- twenties I was doing soul work and, desperate to redeem myself, I gave it everything. I gave it my proper blood, and never looked back. Yet, perhaps, when I do look back, I sense nothing has changed except my intentions. Now, I do...good. I am in no mood to remember any of this. I was an insane young man. Caked in lunacy. For a moment, I felt giddy. I considered calling Karen and giving her the latest on her son. Which, of course, would have been...bad. Mercifully, George rang. English's 1pm. Thank god.

4 am. Woke and found the ansaphone blinking back at me. I'm avoiding Karen because she wants to know exactly what happened with Thom the other day. First, I must speak to him. But it's not Thom that needs protecting. I suspect that in her decent, healthy way, it's Karen's heart that will break. Coming from a poor but aspirational family ( oh it's never hard to see why people get together ), she never understood cannabis. It was this no-nonsense, sex-is-better pragmatism, that I fell in love with. Anyone can analyse anything, especially these days, but I remember the way she could divide any problem into its various parts, make a plan, and see it through. Where I saw horror, shame, eschatology; she saw a letter, a plug, a new calender. I was in awe of it...My lower leg was itchy. I threw off the duvet and grasped it with both hands, scratching like a dog for a bone. Karen was reminding me of Rachel. She, too, has an aptitude for the stuff of life. She works in the marketing department of an Energy company. Lives alone and, in essence, is deeply introverted. In fact, on the Jung scale of introversion she would rate as the hardest to reach. And yet she covers this with a diary full of somewhat needy male and female friends, a passion for cooking and, seamlessly, for astrology and tarot cards. She tells me I am the only man she is sleeping with but I know her horizon always shimmers with possibles. Wish she were here now. I padded out of bed and, forgetting to piss, went straight to the attic. The other night, while sorting through the photos of me and my mother, Agnes, I had momentarily rested my head on a pale blue folder. I didn't want to look at it that day and, since then, its presence has percolated into a mild dread. It's the novel, I'm sure of it. In my early twenties I spent a few months in Paris and- speaking to barely a soul- in a furious act of sublimation I wrote a hundred thousand words. I retrieved the folder and placed it gingerly on my desk...I left for work with two distinct, uneasy feelings. Is it possible there was once a time when I had ambitions to be a writer? Is it possible to write a novel without the overriding sense of being someone who writes novels? And when living in Paris..?. I am playing with the Gods here. Who knows how the day will end.

Helen's meditation class.

Apart from making up numbers for the first session, my presence also gave Helen's group an air of peer respectability . But I mustn't look as though I am monitoring her.  Recently, she has began to underscore the perfectly obvious. She used to do it with occasional looks, facial expression, but more recently it has become verbal. I cannot help but posit an erotic cause. I suspect her relationship with Sky has been sliding, very quickly, from the fiercely sexual into the maternal. And if that sounds like a wild assumption about the nature of young black- older white woman relationships, then so be it. I have been in this job a long time. Oh well, it just means Gareth and I are in for a few months of heavy condescension. I must give him a heads-up...But I didn't want to let this go. She smiled, and left the kitchen. Just out of interest, I yelled after her...How would you like me to look..? Saying this seemed to increase my anger and, briefly, I imagined punching the sink. Always ready to make a point, she turned on the stair and said..I would like you to look as if..you are meditating...Now, what did that mean?..Was she making a point? Was it the most normal, diplomatic response in the circumstances or was it, in fact, a little stab? And if so, at what? A little stab at what, the essentially theatrical, self creating nature of my character? A stab at that? What does she know? I imagined myself back in the attic. Taking a breath, I returned to the the sink, put my hands over it,  refusing to punch.