God knows, save my soul from the sword.
It goes on, this winding stair. Every tread is new, and already trodden. How many times will I imagine the end...? How much better, to make a life, and be within it. I see myself, what, cutting wood..? Fashioning what, some object..? To imagine yourself, that life.  But this is all it will ever be, we know it. The rain of our imagining always breaks upon every step. That's something, then. Knowing it, something.
So it goes. Well I can report the facts, can do that.
There's Gareth, down the hallway. Was he ever anywhere else? There's Helen. Actually, where is Helen? She has clients round the clock.
It's all the same, then, all the fucking same then. But is it, really?
Ah.

How many times will I tread this winding stair..? We have all been dead a long while. Have you any idea of the sheer effort to climb these heights simply to say hello, again? To you, again? I will scale higher and higher to the tune of your indifference, it's known. But no birds sing in this house. Oh sure, it's true, we live in different worlds now. But there was a time our worlds met. Wasn't there, Mum..? Mum? Fucking hell.

I struck myself on the side of the face with the base of my hand, kicked open the door. Everything was here, intact. I slumped into the client chair. Agrippa, Paracelsus, Fludd, my Ouspenski. It was all here, everything. What was I thinking. I hit myself again, the other cheek, breathing deeply, until I heard the soft thud of Gareth's car door. Another day, with relief.

POSTSCRIPT III

Why has he not deleted my posts? Is he unaware of them? No, I don't believe that. There is every chance he is reading this right now.

Well like I said, no more games, that's not me. And if this post stays here for fifty years or five minutes, no matter. At least I've done it. I will always know I did my best to be truthful. Because there is such a thing, whatever He says. So, here's what happened: Bare with me, I may not have his florid, his...insinuating prose style, but I know the truth when I see it. Four days ago I knocked on his door. Of course, it gives me no pleasure to say that he looked older, tired, craggy. In fact, mildly decrepit, I would say. He opened the door quickly, as if he'd been waiting. Had he? No, won't go down that road. But- and this was even more unnerving- he ushered me in with an impatience- almost a familiarity- as if I were an errant son or nephew who'd been popping round the house for years. Of course, he said, remembering to smile. His greying hair was stuck upwards like he hadn't washed for days. In fact, he looked like a 20th Century painter whose name I forget. He led me down the hallway, then turned. But I must finish shaving, he said. Shaving..? Actually, my first thought was...nobody shaves anymore! It was ridiculous thought but a measure of my anxiety. Nevertheless, I was relieved to have a few minutes to compose myself- only later did I realise that he was already perfectly shaven when he said it. And this was the pattern of our whole encounter. I would have random intuitions- like the shaving- but they would formulate themselves as abstract ideas- like..noone shaves! Luckily I had the tape recorder, or I could never have pieced it all together. So, question is, why did he say that? I've run the gamut of possibilities- some of them, I admit- rather paranoid, others more literary. But at the end of the day I think that he, like me, simply wanted time to compose himself. Saying that, just prior to sprinting up the stairs to the bathroom ( and he sprinted...!), he gestured to a picture on the wall at the end of the hallway. You may find this of interest...Immediately, I knew he was trying to distract me, or at least control the situation. Nevertheless, I took a note of the picture because it may have signified something and, if so, I had to know about it. It was a Chagall print, a signed limited edition of his picture Promenade. Now, I've thought long and hard about this and I have no intention of writing an essay, interpreting or deconstructing this picture, let alone analysing his reasons for drawing my attention to it. Some things just exist as they are. We are all of us victims of the present moment and not everything means something. So, again, I give him the benefit of the doubt. He was just being the generally insane, controlling man I knew him to be. Or maybe, maybe, he was just being sociable. That is conceivable, and something I may have to take into account. Nevertheless, I will post the picture  here because -

I will post it here because...I mean, who really knows, in the great whale of time, what is really the case? In five minutes I may decide that he was trying to say something about me, my life, or maybe only on my deathbed will the whole thing come together. Or maybe only at the very end of time will this moment have its fractional relevance. I just don't know. The therapist would, after all, talk about the...transpersonal. So there we go, here it is. At the end of the day, it's all evidence. It's part of the story I'm trying to tell, but no more. I'm tired, and it's late. Though I have to say, even before I arrived at his house, he really did not look well.

CH

POSTSCRIPT II

Well why shouldn't I....? For seven years ( seven!), the therapist has been playing with us. Seven years of reading a story which has no end....! The one thing a story should promise is an ending, a last page so that finally you feel the hard cover of an end, but he's never done that. He carries on and on like a man who doesn't know he'll die. After all, how is a love sustained but for the death within it? In short, he never allows us the final intimation of our needs, does he? And yes, our needs are as great and hey, guess what, maybe even greater than his. Well someone has to remind him. There, I said it. He's been leading us up the garden for seven years and I've had enough. But why shouldn't I have some fun, too..? Why should I tell everything that happened that day in his house? Can't I play around a bit, like him? No, I won't. I won't, because I am better than him. But not tonight. I'm tired and it's been a long day.

CH

POST-SCRIPT

So where is he, the therapist..? I have been asking myself this question for several weeks. So we get to hear about France, the grotte des demoiselles, and then nothing. Except the cable car, again and again the cable car. So where is he..? And what went so wrong at Axel's party..? Allow me to introduce myself. I have been working on and off for the therapist for several years. Mainly this has involved a few low level administrative tasks, some of them, frankly, meaningless. Othertimes I've done his shopping, or been a friend. But seeing as he has not posted for several weeks and not returned my calls I decided to take action. Had I missed him? Well, a little. But mainly I was curious. He'd been an important, if distant, person in my life. I couldn't just let him go. Now, it had always been assumed that we would meet in public, cafes or pubs, never at his home. After all these years, and all that I've done for him, it struck me that I'd never even seen the man at home. You can understand how I felt. What a shit...! I'd had this feeling many times but always forgave him. But I had a sense we were at the endgame here so I decided I would knock on his door, and whatever happened, would happen. To be honest, I was excited. But in a slightly fearful way, too. I knew I would have to take a tape recorder with me and record the whole encounter because otherwise I would never be able to grasp what really occured. I even wondered if I should take a knife. Sure, we had never been close, and over the years I'd got used to his manipulative behaviour. But of course, I always forgave him because he was kind and generous. Well, things weren't going too well for me at this time, so even if he was playing me, which he was, at least I knew I'd end with first edition Somerset Maugham, an obscene Grozs print, or a plateful of drinks. So sometimes I would wonder, who is using who here? But actually, my self esteem suffered, and that's the truth. Considering this, I hope you will understand that if things were coming to an end for the therapist ( and what do I even mean by...an end?), then while I may have had some concern for him, I was also excited. Well, as the therapist himself would say, Mmmmm...

CH

I mean, really..Who's dangerous..? Just possibly, it's the innocent. They ruin everything. Whether they are Prime Ministers, skydivers, or just plain toddlers, they crash into the delicacy of a world they know nothing about. And yet, even my long years with Axel had not prepared me for my own innocence that night.

Oh reader, save my soul from the sword.

How was I to know...? How could I have known as I took the cable car into the deepest cave under France, under Europe, how could I have known what to expect? Even the dying man is forever dreaming. In the cable car I had imagined tea on the promenade with Helen, considered the pros and cons of hanging myself, thought of Thom and the homework I'd neglected, and, all the while, staring at my old Derby loafers I'd imagined calling Marco ( son of Stefan ), in Florence, regarding their accalimed line in ash grey loafers. So it was. Possibly even I, a therapist, need my defences. But if I'd known then what I know now, I'd have made a better time, made a better fist of it, at Axel's  party.

The cable car only took a few minutes, but I narrowed my attention onto my shoes ( those Derby loafers I bought when finishing my therapy training), and thereby, allowing time to expand, I tried to fathom what it was I wanted, or expected from this party. I'm coming to my end, was the only thought I could summon. But hadn't I thought this hundreds of times throughout my life? Possibly every other day. With an almost involuntary spasm, I felt inside my jacket, as if looking for something, and pulled out Helen's handwritten note. Ah, kindly Helen. When I mentioned going to France for a couple of weeks she'd written down a few places of interest I may like to visit. It was a sweet, even childish gesture, I thought at the time. After all, isn't Google everyone's best friend? Yet reading it now I see that she had listed the Grotte des Demoiselles as a place of interest, though surely not for the same reasons as me. I had a sudden memory of Helen telling me that her father had taught at the University of Toulouse. Perhaps writing down lists of places to go when she visited him as a child was a thing of significance. Kindly Helen. To be sat with her now, drinking tea by the sea...The cable car whirred along and I saw myself lunging for the wire cable. Would it shred my hands to pieces? Could I slow this thing with my own bare hands? And if I did, if I managed that without too much damage to the skin on my hands, would there be enough slack in the wire for me to hang myself? But why do that anyway? Who knows, I may even enjoy the party.
 

Grotte des Demoiselles. Thankfully, I was alone during the five minute ride into the cave. Clearly, I was arriving late and yet as I chunkered along in the cable car I also understood that it was nearly impossible to arrive late to an Axel party. Every guest was always earlier than they'd ever imagined. He'd chosen the Grotte for the launch of our book because staying at a constant temperature of 18 degrees for the last four thousand years, the cave had proven to be Axel's favoured wine cellar. I wondered for a moment if everyone, me, Axel, the entire Boat Party, whether we were all just...going home. Had we ever partied under the earth? I don't remember. There had been basements and castles all over Europe, but this was a drink in the furthest, deepest geology. A party at the core of the earth?  A geology deeper than me, at any rate. The central area of the cave is known as the cathedral. Over hundreds of thousands of years the accretion of dripping water has created two stalagmites that can only be considered, forgive me,  as God's first ever laugh. This central stalagmite is formed in the shape of Mary, mother of Jesus, holding her new born and looking down upon him in reverence. One could easily compare it to a Giotto, a Cranarch, a Botticelli, or any number of early Renaissance renderings. But at this point in the evolution of human culture, why bother? We tried and failed long, long ago. So this is what it is, it's God's laugh. That's what I thought, standing there next to a thin, elderly man in grey and black. To be fair, that was my first thought. God is taking the fucking piss...Only later did I imagine that maybe even geology is capable of the occult. Anyway, next to Mary, mother of Jesus, or not far, stands a second stalagmite. This one is formed in the shape of a huge cock and balls. It truly is a mad phallus in the manner of Mapplethorpe or Tom of Finland. But again, again....

He lit a cigarette. Smoke drifted from his mouth, in the manner of the elderly. He smiled again, unnerving me. Have I upset you, Axel..? Impulsively, I reached for his cigarettes and lit one. Aside from the O, I hadn't smoked for twenty years. As I blew out a lungful across the table I wondered if the idea of offending Axel were really worth a renegotiation with mortality. Clearly, it was. I enjoyed the sensual play of the filter on my lips while sensing a black pool of fear in my belly. If I had offended Axel then it could have happened any time in the last year, possibly two, and most likely I was the last to know. Well, you've not offended me, he said, opening his hands as if reminding me never to attribute human feelings to him, at least not in public. He smiled again, a grimace. Though, I have to say, Gertrude is not happy.

Gertrude..?

Not happy with the book, no.  He looked up and over at me, as if resting tired eyes.

Axel, I've no idea how I've upset Gertrude. 

I said this evenly, with my breath, and if there were any irony, he'd never find it. Lifting a serviette from the table and taking a pen from his top pocket, he said, rather arily...you know this area?

I have maps, Axel.

So I'd upset the fucking housekeeper...! Attributing negative feelings to the working or middle classes was something he tended to do. I remembered how he'd recently sold Cezanne's Eternal Woman to the Russians and had been deeply angered by the unsavoury negotiations. But he only ever said the accountants were boring him with it all. But there was history here, and it was possible that I'd angered the housekeeper. While researching the book, I'd made a point of asking Axel about Gertrude. I'd sensed the anomaly of her role in his life. As a militant homosexual, he'd only ever employed male butlers and the heavy presence of Gertrude- this charmless woman of random decorum- had intrigued me. I had wondered about unacknowledged sisters, wartime conflict, childhood trauma, repatriation. Axel had insisted, there's nothing there. So I left it alone and in the book made only passing reference to Gertrude, housekeeper. 

Anyway, bear it in mind for the second edition. 

He passed the serviette across the table. So, the party. It's at the Grotte des demoiselles.

Our rendezvous was over and I'd not even had coffee. I folded the map into my pocket and pushed back the chair in a single gesture. I'd been cast into hell and had no idea why.


Oh don't go...! 

Axel was smiling.

I want you to meet Robert...!

I've only ever known Axel as old. We met twenty five years ago when he was turning fifty. Like many men that age, he was improving. I never knew the angry young Axel. The man who spent his youth buying and selling homosexual nightspots in Berlin, Poland, Hungary, in fact the entire gay culture of Eastern Europe was at the mercy of his love affairs, his angry whims. I never knew any of that. But as he grew into middle age, Axel no longer fought his own existence, or that of his parents. His mission to squander his entire inheritance was far too grandiose. He was simply too, too rich. It couldn't be done. As this penny began to drop Axel began buying art. But not just any old art. Before his middle fifties Axel had amassed the greatest collection of erotica in the world. What is this..? I seemed to be paraphrasing my own book about him, Axel. A woman- stunning- short dark hair and the blackest of eyes was smiling at the ground as she walked past the table. In the fractional second- had I caught her eye? Undoubtedly, French women have the fastest eyes in the world. I imagined myself in her thoughts.Salut! Axel was beaming.

Keen reader, you will remember the day my book was heralded as the greatest feminist text of the Century? It was before I'd written a word.Yet, do our beginnings ever know our ends? Over the several months of writing,  the book slowly evolved, like a fish, or an unlovely insect, into what it's commissioner surely intended all along, a biography of himself. I remember saying I was exasperated by this turn of events, and insisted on re-writing it in the first person, but this was just a puff of anger. I can't say I was overly concerned. While I've had my moments with feminism, it was never my mission to advance the cause. No, Axel wanted me to write a book and, in plain sight, he'd bribed me.  Now when I am dead, I'll claim the accolade of having provided therapy for hundreds of unknown clients as well as having ghostwritten the autobiography of my friend, Axel von Raffenstein. Axel, himself a ghost.

I stopped walking, my mind peeling away, trying to appraise itself. I smiled, or imagined doing so. That was...a good thought...about the ghost. I continued walking.

I was walking the river path of the Vialonde into the village of Sauve. I was in Europe, in France. Like skimming stones into water, these thoughts never lasted. They bounced once, twice, and plummeted who knows where. Who knows where? I always seem to have my best ones as I'm about meet friends, colleagues, clients. As if my mind only functions when its' peace is about to be...devastated. And it was at this moment, feeling like a born Frenchman, I raised my head and saw Axel sitting in the restaurant garden, holding his elephant ivory stick. He was watching the waiter with the intent, or deliberation, of a an old, old man.

Axel!

I picked up a stone and swiveled round, as if to skim it back along the current of the river but instead, turned toward Axel and, smiling, slipped the stone into my pocket. It felt good. A few more moments like that might suffice. They could save a life. 

Salut!

He lifted a finger, along with his head, towards me. I loped over to his table, gently lifting his hand,  his elbow and slowly his whole body into a welcoming hug. I had written the life of this homosexual billionaire. I felt I was owed the chance to know what his body and bones felt like. Surely there was some truth in his physical presence? I clasped his shoulder and hit his back three times. His chin juddered on my shoulder.

It's my third night alone, and even the moon is full.  This Southern sun has warmed the skin, but my English bones are cold as rain. Rain and mud, and rain and horseshit. And yet, buttering my croissant this morning, I took a call from Axel. He would prefer to meet for lunch tomorrow in Sauve. Like an orphaned son I asked, will we be alone? I have no desire to be hauled into a glittering train of Teeth, accomplishment, and unacknowledged nepotism. But why even ask? God, I should grab my own balls. Firm up a bit. This could be a disaster.

To Montpellier.

I arrived and immediately felt oppressed by a warmth, a relaxed conviviality that neither my body nor mind could match, or even aspire to. A pipe of O, or even time itself would've  once eased me down into the rhythm, but I've forsworn them both. Still, there are other ways, and I'll come back to that.

Inevitably, Axel left a car for me at the airport. In a small gesture of self preservation, I made a point of not checking out the make or model of the vehicle. Suffice to say, the interior was so immaculate that I purred along the road to Nimes as if in slow motion. But it was this mammarian comfort that allowed my mind to wander and to consider why it was so necessary for me to be at Axel's incessant beck and call. Certainly, he'd published my book last month in Hamburg. But why had he decided to have the launch party in the South of France? He had muttered something in his native German, implying that there were geo-political reasons for the change of venue, reasons with which I need not concern myself.   At this point I sighed down the phone, loudly, because almost certainly we are in France for the convenience of the Boat Party. Yet he seems to want me on a very tight leash at the moment. He even suggested that I stay at the medieval chateaux of Robert, his American friend. I declined, politely, because, dear reader, I have every intention of being on my very worst behaviour.

Who wants truth? I mean, really. Truth is the sickly cousin of life. Frankly, who wants to visit him? In fact, who doesn't long for the day when he can finally scream at his mother, scream so loudly that he is nearly bawling  his own house down, screaming that he has always hated seeing cousin Truth. In fact, he hates everything about him, him and his funny, retarded ways which are just not normal. Him, him and his jabbering lip, his funny elbow. Ah, but don't take my word for it. I barely had a mother, and certainly no cousins. Even as a teenager I found the truth a bore. But I can tell you one thing about it, the truth is not the reason you're here....Is it, cousin? You see, cousin, what I think has happened is this. The old family gene pool has come round to my way of seeing things. They're just not into you and the Truth anymore. All that hankering for you and your deep ponds has gone. Oh trust me, it has. We're dancing in the shallows, old cousin, and it's never been such fun. Come on, come dip your toe. And so it was, with the stoned clarity of these insane thoughts matching my stride, that I put the key in the door. It was early, it was Monday morning. Passing along the hallway, I wondered if Gareth were in the kitchen, stirring his coffee. At the sound of my tread, did he still his spoon? Further down the hallway I could hear Helen's voice. There can be no change without loss...And so it was, with the strong, solid banality of that phrase in my ears, I was able to ascend the stairs to my room and begin another day on this, the earth.

How many times have I tried to end it?

Yet, here we are. Conjuring

you and me. I mean, 

really.

Flabby, uncertain, demented,

yet cautious.

It never ends, does it? Oh my

My wayward

unaccountable soul. So let's fling open the door

And if nothing else

hear the banging

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.