Gul Davis

The Psychology Of Dangerous Roads

By Gul Y. Davis

 

 

By the time I get to bed, I am so weary. It’s that ache, the coldness. The slight sickness that pulls at the bottom of my throat. I put the photos on my desk face down, reach up, taking the Howard Hodgkin painting from its hook and putting it carefully outside my bedroom. My eyes raw, I slip off my clothes, sink beneath the quilt. Within minutes I am asleep. 

Something screams. A swelling in my gut, I open my eyes, sweating. The red digits of my alarm clock glow in the heavy shadow of night: ‘12.52 AM’

For minutes as I lie in darkness I believe the dream is real: the mutilated face of my ex-wife staring, the blood stained knife in my trembling hand. The fear at what I have done a physical pain twisting sharp with realisation that it cannot be undone.

Slowly my breathing eases. I remember that Maria is in New York, with Anthony, her new husband, and their newborn, Stevie. I remember I am in Birmingham, that I have not bought tickets let alone been on an aeroplane – so how could I have killed her? It is only a dream. Electrical activity. Brain filing and tidying while consciousness is shut down. No, dreams are not real. This stuffy darkness is real, this heat beneath my quilt, this clock staring out telling me it is only one o’clock and I have managed a pathetic hour and a half of sleep.

Last night I managed to get two and a half hours. The night before I did not sleep at all. I am nervous at how little sleep I am managing, frightened of these months of restless, sweaty nights. I know it will age me, affects my ability to work, that it makes my molehills mountains, my mood thickened and dark. I close my eyes, I must return to the musty subconscious world.

 

It is five in the morning, been drifting in a half-state, neither asleep nor awake, Maria’s final words to me repeating and repeating: Both of us in the car, that queue of traffic piling up behind the flashing of my hazards.

‘If you get out the car again – I’m telling you, that’s it, that’s really it – there was no one there – it was nothing! We won’t even make it out of Birmingham like this.’

I could not help it. I climbed out. She is right, of course. When I open the car-door, she is crying, struggling out her seat. Out the car.

Don’t go. I’m okay now – we’ll make it the rest of the way, we’ll get to the Awards without more problems, I promise.

But Maria doesn’t look round. The jam of cars behind my Ford, horns shrieking. I drive after her, crawling along the pavement, keeping beside her; Maria, come on – get back in.

A bus pulls up. She runs to the stop, climbs on.

I push myself out of bed, say ‘Nalsa’ three times as I put each photo lying face down on my desk back to how it should be. I put my Howard Hodgkin back up, careful so the painting is straight.

After I make coffee, I go to my study. Coffee cup steams in the dark air before I turn on the light. I ache with a dry sleepless tiredness, switch the computer on.

My Kartha-dragon, its small, clipped leathery wings, setting the village ablaze – the pleasant tingly flowing of my story as my fingers type. I don’t know where it comes from, this stream of words. It feels warm and safe. It knows without me having to know, it lets me rest as splashes of colour shape and merge into form.

 

A hammer-axe against my skull. Can no longer see the type on the screen. I rub my eyes, open them again, struggle to focus.

“Shit.” I push the chair back, yawn. Sleep pulls through me like gravity and I see my psychologist Llaya Marcell. See her clearly; her olive skin, feel her breath against me. I look into the widest brown eyes and am lost. See us sitting in her office, it is warm, no words passing between us. A fat and silent moment on what will be our last session before she leaves.

Without warning the camera of my mind pulls back – I see the Outpatient building Llaya’s office is in, then the building lost in miles and miles of traffic and streets. Hordes cramming the High Street, running between moving cars hungry to reach shops on the other side.

The warmth has gone. I go cold. Like something has gone rotten. Maria shouts; ‘Don’t stop the fucking car! – it’s a carton for God’s sake – it’s only a carton!’ but I see the piles of dead children, their broken backs snapping jagged paralysed smiles; thousands killed on the roads each year. Thousands crushed beneath wheels, smashed by steel tonnage.

I get out the chair, the computer is on but I don’t turn it off with this swimming in my head.

I throw the photos flat on the desk – pull the painting off its hook and shove it out my bedroom. Turn off the light, crawl back into bed. My heartbeat loud, rattles in my ears. I wait for the world to slide, for sound to disappear, for the swell of a dream.

I still hear my heartbeat thumping. The heat of the quilt makes me sweat. I roll onto my side, uncomfortable. Llaya and I have watched videos. We have had detailed logical explorations. We have studied the science – all of which prove the mass of a human being, even a child, is such that it is impossible for it not to be immediately clear there has been a collision. This is a fact. Newton says the apple will fall and it does – walls are hard to the touch – without water you die. All of these facts. Facts are true. Facts are reliable. Facts can be trusted.

Yet the car jolts over something and the possibility my mind had blanked out for that crucial moment seems so worryingly credible as my car speeds on down the road. The idea that I have been so wrapped up, so lost in worry I might not have noticed, seems a reasonable, a realistic notion. In fact it feels likely, pressing a strong sense of truth and a surge of fear. Right now lying behind the car, a mortally injured human. And I am driving away, I am letting them die, blood soaking my hands and my conscience.

Llaya’s gentle voice, the roll of her Spanish accent; ‘But how many times have you checked – how many times have you stopped the car, gone back and checked?’

Thousands, millions of times, Llaya.

‘And have you, have you ever hit someone without noticing? – is there any evidence in all these thousands of checks to support the fear that you have?’

No. I shake my head. Roll onto my other side, pushing the quilt from my shoulders.

‘It is a monster, Peter, that consumes, that is consuming your life, crippling you… The more you check, the more you need to check. No matter how many times, you will always need to check once more – your experience backs what I am saying, no? Driving is now very hard for you, isn’t it? You are handsome, talented man,’ Llaya smiles, ‘you know the only way to break the power of these thoughts is not to respond, to feel the fear, to let it pass, and it does pass. I believe you can do this, Peter…’

I can and I will. When I leave my sessions with her the strength in my veins is iron, my will hardened, sharpened in action. But two weeks is a long time to keep it up between sessions.

Our last session today. We met two weeks ago, the three of us, me and Llaya and her replacement, Dr Jeremy Clark. Just the wooden tone of his voice told me it is over. My one chance to overcome this illness has passed with Llaya’s leaving. All these months I have had to use the help she has offered, ignored. Now too late.

I stare about my dark bedroom. My cupboards and exercise-bike all shadows and tangle. Even exhausted I can’t sleep! This mind of mine behaves like a hyperactive child, overactive, on repeat as if pumped with steroids or amphetamines though I take none of these things.

I throw the quilt aside, head for the toilet.

 

I save and close the computer down. I shower and dress, brush and shave.

The crackle of milk against cereal, the sickly smell of my sugary tea. I listen to doom on Today on the radio. Watch rain sliding against the glass, blurring the world outside in the unreal grey of moving rain. Looking out through this rain the street loses its shape, houses – trees – cars, soft edged, pliable. If I could, if I were a God, I would reach out and take this musty clay, clench it into a shape where there are no roads, no cars. No, only the Narrath of my stories, in their cloaks of light, bending within the sun’s beams as the Gargoyles scream, covering their eyes. Only Crystals in the caves, held aloft by the true of heart to change the world.

I carry my tea through to my study, sit back behind the computer and begin to work.

It’s like the sound of bees buzzing in fields of flowers; I love the sound of my fingers typing. Even though I am writing, even though the story is before me, part of me is detached, listening to the sound of tapping keys, to the whirr of the computer. I do not write with my mind, perhaps ‘I’ do not write at all. These words come from some internal organ below my heart, above my stomach; a reflex, like the breaking down of food. A reflex full of stories and other worlds. It feels a bliss to be in its grip, twitching in its spasm, fingers hitting words against the keys. And when I write I don’t need sleep, the time rolls and weaves. I am at ease.

       My back begins to hurt. I pause, close and open my eyes. I do not want to but I check my watch. It is 9.45am. If I drive to the Royal I could continue to work for two more hours.

It is raining – look. It’s cold. If you walk in this you’ll be soaked, you’ll be shivering. She’ll know you didn’t stick to the programme. Is that how you want to end your sessions with her? Thanks for all your time and effort, Llaya, but I am zero percent better than I was when I first met you. Have a good life – enjoy your new job. Rest assured I’ll stay housebound, living my life through my books because I don’t have the balls to do what needs doing to be free of this.

My fingers itch to press against the keys, the story is still pushing at my mind and I could harness this, could let the pull of words distract me from my urge to walk miles in this rain to the Royal. Just keep on typing, let it flow on – distracted I’d soon forget this cut and stab, time would pass and when I next stop typing I would have to drive to make the appointment.

I open the draw of my desk, pull out my Action Plan:

 

Short Term Goals: 1/11/03

1)  To drive to 2 weekly psychology appointment at Royal Outpatient Clinic.

2)  To limit checking to 1 every mile and to pull in safely when doing so.

3)  When feeling the anxiety motivating the compulsion to a) practice relaxation techniques b) read card for reassurance.

Agreed by Peter Willis and Dr Llaya Marcell.

And both our signatures.

 

I pull out my laminated card -

 

‘No matter how unsure I feel, I have looked at the evidence carefully and it is a simple fact that the mass of a human being, even a child, would cause such an impact against the car that it would become immediately apparent. The anxiety I am experiencing is irrational and caused by my serious illness called O.C.D.. I know from experience the more I check the more I will need to check. I know from experience that if I do not check the anxiety will diminish within 20 mins.’

 

What’s the point of agreeing to a programme if I won’t carry it out? Why waste her time, why waste mine?! I feel my lip curl – do you want to get better?! Bitter as I save and shut down, push back from the desk.

You’re a useless, weak – My breath forces out. Put on my coat, take my umbrella. As I close the front door the cold breaks against me. I feel the weight of rain soaking through.

Against the umbrella it sounds like it is raining stones. I pass my car, start down the street. I am failing again, desolation folds with the rain. Car’s break spraying water, the grey taking all colour and merging it with its empty shade. People huddled under umbrellas at bus stops, and the crying canopies of shops.

But a bus would be even worse than my car. You can’t make them stop however much you want to. And people stare as you go pale, hate you if you vomit. Slowly the rain soaks through my shoes, cold, sopping soaks. The fronts of my trousers drowned. A truck booms past kicking out a wave of spray, soaking my chest, my face.

I stand cursing, feel the warmth of tears, and indulgent misery feeds me, poor little victim me when I only have myself to blame.

The wind begins – blows the umbrella inside out. The hit of rain down my hair and face as I struggle the umbrella right. I walk a hundred yards, it happens again. Then again. I start to shiver. Going over the bridge I fold the umbrella down so it’s not blown into the reservoir. The wind digs in, numbing, am glad when I am again protected by the miserable glass shop-fronts, the torrents running from roofs of houses. Rivers bubble in the gutters.

A year and a half ago I was short-listed for the Whitbread Prize. They invited me to the Award Ceremony in London. Can still feel that sense of pride when I checked my email.

Reporters phoning, oh God I wanted to go to it. And Maria, she was so happy for me, tinged with her memories of us travelling Europe in our campervan, me, scribbling notes into early morning hours. Always, when she read them, in the cosy-tight of both our bodies, pronouncing me a genius, Tolken, Dickens and Shakespeare combined! Me going red, looking away, until, kissing my neck she's pulled me round to find my mouth. She’d seen us slide. Seen me slide until virtually house bound, causing chaos if I drive – shouting at her, cursing that she hadn't left the photos’ face down in the night. Engrossing in work, shutting her out, as more and more I was losing myself in my fictional world because I didn’t like the story I was living. Our life withering as my useless stories sucked, grew fat; suddenly success and agents and sales.

Her soft blue eyes; ‘You’re a wonderful writer – this, being short-listed, it’s the recognition you deserve,’ a pause, “ – you’ll attend, won’t you – these awards, won’t you?…’ She couldn’t finish. Her dream of marriage to an author.

I wanted to go so badly. We would drive. London is only two and half-hours away. The train would frighten me more – it would shake and rattle, no control, an audience to shame me if I let myself down. These Awards, they were meant, they were my day in the sun. I would not be robbed.

The day before we were due to leave I could not eat. Biting my lip to stop myself snapping at anyone who spoke to me. That night too restless even to lay in bed and rest.

We didn’t even make it to the outskirts of Birmingham.

She got out the car, left me.

 

I feel the goose-bumps across my back and my arms, my thighs. I carry the umbrella folded for I am so wet I do not see the point. Llaya, she will be disappointed. I will see reflected in her eyes the hopelessness of my case. She will be sad and wish me the best of luck. She will tell me that I can do it, that I will do it. That I will recover. But the conviction in her voice will be forced, the pitch of her words too static. Inside me I shall freeze.

Still, I trudge towards her. Water draining down my face; cannot believe what I am reduced to. To what a pathetic lump of a man I have become. Walking these miles, like some refugee, when the only war inside me. The answer is so simple; just do not respond – just do not stop the car, keep driving on. Do this enough times – this fear, it will lose its grip. It will, you know this. It will realise it is banging against an iron door, bolted fast and able to withstand its battering. I, safe on the other side, in the room of sanity. Knowing that illness does not speak reality. I have done nothing wrong. No one is dead. Drive on.

The looming grey of the Royal miserable beneath the cloud. Rain stinging against me as I stop, staring at the building. My shoes now lead with wet, I squelch as I walk. I should turn back. I do not want her to see me like this.

 

The receptionist looks up; “God – you are wet!”

       The prickling of heat. I feel dizzy, I hold the desk.

       “Are you alright?”

       I nod. “Yeah, I’m fine, I have an appointment with Dr Marcell today, at one thirty? Bit late, sorry.”

       “I’ll let her know you’re here,” the receptionist smiles, “ – shall I see if I can find a towel or something?”

       I try to force a smile back. “Thank you.” I look away and tiredness drains down into my stomach. I go to the seats and sit down.

       I can just make out the receptionist talking on the phone, telling Llaya I am here; “… yes, yes, right, okay…” She puts down the phone.

       “I am just seeing what I can do about a towel, okay?” she calls across to me. I lift my hand, nod, the wet seeping inwards like frost. I do not have the energy to put on the gloss I want to make our final meeting optimistic. So tempting to topple into misery, to comfort myself in any pity Llaya might show, cause her guilt for abandoning me.

       “Hiya Peter,” the roll of her ‘r’s and I know it is her. She crouches down before me. “Look, what I have? eh? – you could do with?” She presses a soft blue towel into my hands. “Perhaps you should go to the bathroom, you look like a drowned rat. I wait for you in my office, okay?”

       Misery cannot survive this, a smile twitches at my lips. Her eyes shine as she stands up.

       I take off my coat. My top although wet, is not drenched. I dry my hair losing my self in the tumble of rubbing. When I look up, my brown eyes stare back beneath a tangle of hair. I comb it best as I can with my hands, an urge to look handsome.

My face stares back; purple, swollen bags beneath my eyes. My hair not right. Try again to fix it with my hands. I struggle off my soaking socks, am not sure where to leave them to dry. The floor cold under my feet. The noise and blow of hot air, I stand under the hand-dryer, try to get the worst of the wet off my trousers. I hang my socks on the radiator, can’t see anybody wanting to take them.

The leather of my shoes rough against my bare feet and I breathe in. Cross the reception, climb the stairs to her office.

 

       “Come in, Peter?”

       I push open the door, already she is pushing back from her desk, her heart-shaped face smiling. “Sit down…” she indicates to two seats, at an angle to each other. She is wearing a black skirt that comes to just above her knees. It shows off her waist and the curve of her hips.

       I wipe at my face, sit down and close my eyes while I listen to her settle. “Are you okay, Llaya?” I ask.

       She tilts her head gently; “I am fine. Did you see your review in the Guardian’s Literary Supplement on Saturday?”

       “No – was it reviewing The Orb?”

       “Yes,” she beams, “ – they say children all over the country are raving about it, that it has been most requested book at library all over country for six weeks now. They say, you ‘best thing since Rowling’ – ”

       Can’t stop the warm pride spreading from my belly to my chest, flushing my cheeks. “Heh,” I shake my head, “it’s alright – but it’s not in that league…”

       “Who says?” she points at me, grinning, “you always so pessimistic, no? Maybe it will be? eh, and even then you will find some reason to be gloomy about it?”

       I sit back, “Probably, you know me…”

       “Yes, I know you, Peter – I am sad to be leaving, I have enjoyed working with you… very much.”

       “Don’t know why – look,” I point at my sodden clothes, feel the press of bitterness, “I’ve walked here – I haven’t driven, you can see that, can’t you? I’ve ignored my program again – ”

       “I can see that,” she leans forward. I notice the shape of her breasts and look away. “but it is not an easy thing, your program is not an easy thing…”

       “It was raining,” my eyes sting, “all the way in the rain, couldn’t stop thinking how bloody weak I am – I know the steps I need to take to get over this – ”

       “You remember the story I told you, about my sister, when we were small?”

       “I – sort of…”

       “I tell you again. Me and my sister Maria-Ann are very different – me, I am terrified of spiders, oh,” she raises her hands, “spiders, no – they frighten me. My sister she loves them – she have a pet Tarantula in her room – and since the day she got it I never went in there, never, not once, you understand?”

       “Yes.”

       “So Maria have asthma – one day in the kitchen me and mother and Maria are cooking – and Maria, she can’t breathe – she’s turning blue. Really blue, ya, – mum giving her the inhaler but it empty – mum shout at me, go to Maria’s room and get her inhaler from the drawer – and I, I go pale. I say mama, I can’t do this – there is a spider in her room. Mamma shouts ‘now!’ because Maria is choking in her arms – I run upstairs but when I get to her room, I can’t, I can’t do it, I can’t go in. My sister dying and I can’t go in because of the spider.”

       “You, you told me this story – now I remem…”

       “My mother has never forgiven me, Peter – this cause me much hurt, but I know the fear of spiders I have – I know, that this fear – a terrible thing. You want me to act like my mama acted towards me because you could not drive today, because you walked in the rain?” she shakes her head, “I cannot, Peter. I know in my heart that you will do it. The frustration you have at yourself for not doing this difficult thing – when we started, it was not there. You had no wish to change – you did not believe there was a way. Now,” her face leans towards me, “I can see you are aching to change. I know that the balance will shift. That you will do this. That you will get better.”

       Her eyes hold mine as silence twines like strands of cloth around us both.

       I look away. “I’ll miss you.”

       “Me too, Peter… I miss… working with you too.”

“It’s just. You know – you are a good psychologist, that Dr Clark, I just don’t think–”

       “Do you remember when we spoke about experimenting with the future, not predicting it? We cannot predict the future, you do not know how it will turn out with him. He may be better than me, no? He may be the one to help you make these final steps. Wait and see – it is a thinking-error to believe we can predict what the future will bring.”

       “You’re so sensible – ” I laugh, “you’re just so bloody… sensible…” Gorgeous, I think.

       “No,” she shakes her head, her black hair tossing. “I am a case of – ‘do as I say, not as I do’ – that’s the expression, isn't it? I study all this in books, I tell you – I tell my other patients, ‘this is how you must think about it – this is a negative thought, challenge this, it is not rational’ and when something happens in my life,” Llaya points at her chest, “me, you think I don’t forget sometimes about what I am telling my patients and get depressed and anxious even though I know what to do to manage these things better…?”

       “Probably no one can do it, Llaya – ”

       “No, this not true – it can be done. I have seen many clients learn these skills, sometimes yes, forget, or they cannot, but this happens less, less as they practice… –becomes automatic. Ninety percent of the time, even when things are difficult. I see them manage, yes?”

 

I am laughing. Llaya leans back in her seat; “Perhaps on that note we finish?”

       I breathe in, close my eyes. “I’ll miss you.” I look up at the ceiling. “Look, thank you for all the help you have given - "

       “You are most welcome…”

       Gently my focus rests on the window; a tumble of grey in the movement of rain. I feel tightness spread.

       “Well…, well as of today I no longer your psychologist… – but if you need to get in touch, if… problem, you, you welcome, yes?...”

       “Thank you, that’s kind…”

       She gets up, goes over to her desk, knocking two sheets of paper onto the floor. She picks them up, fumbling through her drawer.

“You are a good man, Peter. Such talented writer… I am sure, things be fine.” Standing over me, she hands me her card. I stand, we are close, feel my stomach knot. I notice her neck is damp with sweat. She steps away.

       “I’ll keep you posted – on how I’m doing, – if that’s okay?” Feel the rush of blood climb my neck, slip my arms into my cold, wet coat.

“ – yes, you do that…” Llaya stares out the window.  “You are going to walk back? – to Harborn?”

I stare into the rain.

“It still raining, you will get very cold – ”

There is nothing to say. “Llaya – thank you for your support these last months. I’ve enjoyed working with you… ” I smile in a way to say I’ll be okay. I step towards the door.

“Peter – I not think you should walk back, not in this.” Her hand touches my shoulder. “You my last appointment – I need write some things on computer, then I am going home – I can drop you in Harborn?, it not far out of my way.”

The salvia in my mouth dries. “Llaya…” I shake my head.

“I will be with you. You know and I know your anxiety be very acute, especially as passenger, I know this – but it will start to ease after twenty minutes, and I will be there help you – we do this together, eh?”

My breathing tight, light. The room starts to move. “Jenny tried this with me before she finished her placement – ”

Llaya touches my shoulder.

I sit myself down, rest my head in my arms.

 

The way we work ourselves up. Shadows tangle and grow like haunted forests in night, tree’s twisted shadows spreading round, surrounding you till trapped. Even the sky lost beneath their ghostly branches. The fear, can feel it, it is a nausea making me sit in this car-seat and rock. My hands are pressed to the sides of my head, I am doubled over.

       ‘One – two – three. One – two – three’ I am counting and pretending I don’t have a choice. It is a never-world, it is one of my stories, it is not real.

A car roars towards us – glaring bleary lights rushing at us through rain. I can hear someone screaming – an accident behind us. Feel the car slowing, stop, Llaya’s hand on my shoulder, stroking me.

       “Shh… Peter, breathe – it’s okay…”

       I gulp at the air.

       “No – not like that, into your belly like I have shown you. Breathe in to a count of four – are you ready – one – two – three – ”

       But I can’t, there’s no room in my lungs.

       “And again, – one – two – three – four – hold, one – two, out, one – two – three – four – ”

       As I breathe out, I begin to sob.

       “Hush…” she touches my face. “This is your O.C.D. – its like one of demons in your book, eh? Together we beat it, together, okay?” she strokes my face again. The car rolls forward then speeds past houses and trees.

       The wheels rattle over something, the car vibrates.

       I feel stone lodge in my throat.

       “Peter, breathe, its okay… if we hit someone we will know, there’ll be no doubt, remember your card – ”

       My breath tight, wooziness of faint, of reel back and fall prickles against me.

       The car drives on.

Houses and cars and shops. The traffic lights, the dance of rain. The wiper – swish-swash – heavy rhythmic beat.

Swish – swash, swish – swash.

       Did we hit someone? –       

The sound of tires on the water logged road. The blurred glow of a red light.

Swish – swash.

Its just your OCD – listen, to the wipers –

Swish – swash. One, two. Swish – swash. One, two.

 

 

       I feel Llaya’s hand on my leg briefly. Hear the sound of the rain, the rumble of the engine.

       “Shall we talk, take your mind off things?”

       Shake my head, a seam of salt-sweat runs into my mouth. Tick – tick – tick; the click of the indicators. Listen to the wipers. Swish – swash, swish – swash. Breathe out. Listen to the wipers.

Rain falls glistening from the sky.

 

“Peter – this is Wake Street, no? You need tell me which house is yours?”

       Pull open my eyes, folds of rain blow down my street. My house, my car.

       “You – you did really well!” Her voice excited. “I’m proud of you! – see it’s okay?” She reaches over, turns my face towards her.

Looks blurred, far away, her lips slightly parted.

Close my eyes again. “Number 7 – with, with the red door.”

       Feel the car move down the street. It stops outside my house, I take her cool, small hand, press it against me. “Thank you Llaya…” Can hear both of us breathing. She draws my face towards her, kisses me.

 

 She yanks back, shaking her head furiously. “I – I sorry – ”

       “Don’t – ” I take her hand, brittleness climbing through me.

       “I shouldn’t have done that – no, I’m your psychologist.  – Peter – I sorry – ” tears stain her face.

       Cannot speak for the lump wedged in my throat. Open the door, climb out into the rain. Her car pulls away.

 

I shutting the front-door, breathing hard. Her taste citrus and salt staining my lips. Can feel my hands and face prickle as my breath becomes short, choked. 

Flop face down on my bed, fluttering knot chokes as I slowly calm. The drumming of blood in my ears, heat of my breath. Slowly I stroke the side of my face, feel the soft pillow, the thick sound of breathing and when I close my eyes she is gasping, pressing her against me, pulling her breasts free from her bra. Tangle-slide, her open mouth flashes against the night sky, the rain draining from the sky, its pulse turning into the rhythmic beat of the wipers of in her car, easing, a warm sea, tangling together as we come.

 

Far away I hear the sound of a drill, the rumble of traffic, school kids playing far away.

Dust, trapped, drifts in a golden stem of sunlight falling against me. My top hitched up round my chest, my neck aching as my eyes drift; Me and Maria, picnic on a cloth spread round us beneath a rusting oak; suit and Vail, confetti frozen round our smiles; my late mother, her kind tight eyes; my stiff faced dad looking over his shoulder as he works in his garden. Coldness, it creeps slowly down my throat. I stare at the upright photos.

‘One,’ I count, trying to breathe in, ‘two – three – four – hold,’. If I look up my Howard Hodgkin, it will still be on the wall.

My breath forces itself out suddenly, ‘one – two, –three – four – ’. I breathe out feeling nousos, slowly I raise my gaze; the painting is there, its bright mesh of colours. █

 

 

 

G.Y.D.