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Improv.
It’s late at night, or perhaps early in the morning, and there are ducks in the water in Trafalgar Square. Ducks. This seems like my cue, so I say my line. I am word perfect. I have it all planned. I will tell you what’s happened. I will tell you and saying it out loud will make it so ridiculous it’ll kill it stone dead. Next time we see each other we’ll pull faces and mumble something about drinking too much. It’ll be embarrassing for a week or two. But it’ll be over. I say my line. I clear my throat and wait for the laugh. You wait solemnly for a couple of beats, and then you reply. I look at you. I’m dumbfounded. That’s not right, I feel like hissing, what the fuck have you said that for? You’ve messed up the whole scene now! This really is ridiculous. I have no idea what I should say. I’m looking at the ducks and thinking wildly, ‘prompt! prompt!’ I’d got so used to writing my own script I’d forgotten other people might be writing theirs. We’re both silent. It’s still warm and you’ve got one of your feet in the fountain. I’m holding onto your boot and wrapping the lace over and under my fingers. Over and under. Over and under. In the stillness, the next line comes to me. Kiss me, I say, kiss me kiss me – put words in to my mouth. |
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The calm before.
I spent the rest of the day feeling giddy. It was so silly and so simple. Love. The diagnosis had lifted a weight from my chest. I wasn’t going mad. I wasn’t ill. I was in love. And I was going to see you that night. Every time I thought of it something would catch in my throat. I was going to see you that night. It was the first really hot day of the year. At lunch time I jostled with the tourists and office workers for space by the river. I stood staring at HMS Belfast, letting the sun bounce off it and burn into my eyes. I’d never seen Tower Bridge looking so clean or so white. I’d never seen London so pure. My feet didn’t seem to be making enough contact with the ground. I was going to see you that night. What can I do? I thought to myself. I’m as helpless as a twig caught in a river or a bird fighting the wind. I looked out over the water. The Thames was flat and still. Above my head seagulls screamed and wheeled through a clear sky. Maybe I wasn’t so helpless, but I wanted to be. Oh, I wanted to be. Reality had been temporarily suspended. There was nobody else in the world but you; no doubts and no consequences. I was going to see you that night. |
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Obvious.
Your girlfriend visits me at work unexpectedly. It’s a busy day and when I see her, standing with one of my other friends, I think I’m hallucinating. I think, god, it’s bad enough I imagine I see him everywhere, let alone her too. But I’m not hallucinating. She really is there. We go for dinner and I cry off the pub afterwards. I don’t feel well. My head is hurting and my throat is aching. I feel very tired. I say goodbye and go around the corner to the tube station and cry. I call one of my other friends and say I don’t understand why that upset me so much. I am happy that you are happy. She is a lovely person. I wait for my friend to say ‘you have fallen in love with him’ but she doesn’t so I know it still isn’t true. I’m just tired. My stomach’s up in knots. It’s probably something I ate. At work the next day someone asks me who I went to dinner with and when I tell her she says ‘oh! I thought he was your boyfriend!’ I laugh a little and ask her why she would think something so silly. She says – ‘Because you’re obviously in love with him!’ ‘Am I? Obviously?’ Obviously. I am. |
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A question.
As he’s washing my hair I say - What would you do if I took a lover? I like the sound of the words in my mouth, decadent and faintly ridiculous. Took a lover. Nobody speaks like that anymore. He splashes a pint glass of warm soapy water over my head. I think I mustn’t have heard his reply because my ears are full of bubbles. I open my eyes and blink up at him wetly. Well? I say. Sssshhhh… he says and scoops up another glassful. It wasn’t that he hadn’t heard me. It was that the idea was ridiculous. Why would I take a lover? I didn’t need to. And how would I trap one? I was too old for silly games like that. My hair was the wrong colour. The idea I could do it again was laughable. Afterwards in the living room with my hair snug up in a turban he says - You want a more romantic life. I laugh and say I have a romantic life. There are notes on the fridge and kisses in the evening. No, he says, a more Romantic life. Capital R. I frown as though I don’t know what he means. He says - You want a life more like… Your name hangs in the air between us. Both of us look away. I frown as though I don’t know who he means. |
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In Vino Veritas
I’m at a wedding in The North. I am missing a big party in London and I’m sorry about it. People I was looking forward to meeting are going to be there. I get a little drunk and call my friend to say hello and to be passed around from ear to ear. She doesn’t answer. I call you instead because you’re there too. You answer straight away. You’re at the bar and I laugh because where else would you be? It’s noisy where you are. I lean my head on the cubicle wall and say ‘I miss you…’ ‘What?’ you say, ‘what? I can’t hear you.’ I raise my voice and say – ‘I miss you guys! I said, I miss you guys! Say hello to everyone!’ I hang up and stare at myself in the mirror. I take a few deep breaths and tell myself it’s nothing, I’m drunk, it’s silly. You didn’t hear me anyway. It isn’t true. It can’t be true. |
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Inkling
I saw you getting off the tube. I didn’t think I saw you. I didn’t see someone else in the same jacket or with the same hair cut. I saw you. You got off three carriages down from me and I waited at the foot of the escalator for you. I didn’t know why you were there. My heart beat quickly in my chest. I waited. I waited. Eventually I walked back around to the platform. It was empty. A newspaper blew up against my foot and another train pulled in. I didn’t want to hear the answer. |
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"... I've stepped in it a few times."
Believe me when I say I didn’t expect it, to fall in love with you. I thought I was walking on solid ground; I did not expect it to crumble beneath my feet. I was like one of those unfortunate Cornish gardeners who suddenly find their rockery sliding into an abandoned tin mine. |
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