Falls the Shadow

A high, mournful violin note, stirring him sluggishly in dark rolling deep, the billowing net curtain ... a summer breeze or a winter draught? The three-tiered rhythm of an alarm clock, sweating, a falling dusk, like rain, wondering what time? Fallout settles on dark, twilight leaves and leaves him dark and green and falling out of darkness into sweat, and music, strange electrical music which she loved so much, sitting on the sofa, one white leg tucked beneath her, the other playfully in front, half Buddha, at five to eight and summer morning calling me to wake; but, mother, I feel ill, look at me, I'm sweating, is it fever, mother? Hush, hush, it's only summer sex, body love and hair matted, glued among the ticklish grasses, and a tiny tune floating smell-like across the open lit field, from me to you, yeah yeah, more rhythm, more sweat, too much light, time lines plaiting into almost eight o'clock; I must get up, get up, awake and rise and face that silver pond of truth above the basin, unshaven like the dead, eyes sagging with the pain of a lost night's sleep. I slip and fall again into your white arms, white and clean as hotel sheets, holding me in peace, covering my eyes with your forgetful sense, scents, almond sharp sweetness in your subtropical grottos, armpits, crotch, navel, perversely dripping our two sweats into overhung ponds, hot shade, humid dusk. Yes, yes, yes, the drug is fading, patience, I can and will begin again, the effort now is rallying, clocking on from hidden cells, congregating into action, soon, soon, not yet, not now, now I lie with you again my love, lie in your anaesthetic clutch, like mother, soothing my fever, cooling my sweat with your sense, scents, your almond eyes, hazel, the kernel of my memory, as you evaporate in this too bright light too hot, cold morning light. Fare ye well, historical love, adieu, flee like a ghost with the coming light. Flee! Fly! Before ye turn to dust, my love, the daylight taps my window pane and I must rise, among the noise and music of this ancient brand new day. She's gone. So be it, we expect no more from this uplifted face of earth, turning slow, spinning into day from her far night journey across the million million souls that crawl and cry beneath this temporary light dark world, like me; like me, stirring, rising, mammoth effort to all my limbs, breaking the surface of my visions into sharp, breath-catching morning bedroom, bedclothes draped in Roman style over hot, sticky flesh, cooling and steaming velvet horse flesh in the stable yard, an inturned thigh, crooked ankle in ugly horsewoman pose, farting horses and ducks and buses on country lanes, prance and fart above the sleek mythological loins of the horse you call 'Egmont Rouge', khaki jodhpurs, blue jeans like a slough, and I, Emperor of Rome, satiated by nymphs of sleep prepare to don the performance again, to the crowd who jostle and grin and call to me in rough intelligible voices, surging forward to pick up the lifeless jeans; like so. Hiding my frailty, my timidity, my humility behind these cotton walls, standing more erect, less vulnerable, shielded, encased; and ready for rituals of returning ghosts which loom like the drowned, floating face up in the swamps, casting their doubts at me as I prepare self-consciously under their parental gaze, cupping the mountain cold phenomenon with inadequate sleek pink chicken feet hands, diving into ice which crushes and splinters to the recesses of my inner chambers, flooding down through long drawn aisle and fretted vault the peeling anthem swells the note of praise, homework for tonight, a dull and lifeless stone church poem swollen and pealing, leaving distaste and curled brown greasy stains of leaves, of yellow pages, of headmaster's steel grey hair. Pass numbly to the kitchen, the attempted world of advertising, failing weakly in the virginal light, sadly, pathetically, pitifully not quite modern in its vinyl and enamel finish, apologetic, the ice-coffin refrigerator deserted, in its last lap towards a piece of waste ground and an unsuspecting child, the fly stuck in incredulous frenzy, held in the maniacal jaw of a Venus alien plant, carnivorous in your green peace slumber-fly, child, bottle of milk trap. Tea and toast and the taste of toothpaste, our brand, the family paste, inherited with the make of tea and the book of right and wrong, a greying moustache and angry unapproachable eyes to supersede the voice of a distant avoidable God, towering above me in terrible judgment, my unknown glands secreting fear in his gigantic, awful presence, the sharp red hallucinatory pain, the aftermath of guilt and hatred, crying in a too large bed with the walls against me and frost, Jack Frost, on the windows, laughing. A cloud of vapour pours from a metallic geyser while father, snoring beneath the Sunday paper, suffocating under the weight of his incredible age, skin yellow and hard as feet, nails of plastic, fragile now, unsure, impotent, dross in fear of the wind of death, too proud to cry out for pity, as confused as a memory, sitting quietly in the kitchen eating toast and drinking tea. Dad, we are separated only by a few thousand cups of morning tea, and when we finally dress you in wood and give away your things, re-adjust our house and lives, filling up the space, the warm seat of an armchair that you occupied through so many long and death filled afternoons, shall I drink from your cup, served still by mother, strangely alone, locked and distant in herself, mumbling nonsense to keep away the admonishments she doesn't need to hear? This tea is sickly, the milk is turning, the sun is shining, it's going to be a beautiful day, my dear, let's go for a walk and hold sweaty hands until it becomes unbearable, and act out our passions in a movie world we desire so much to exist, come, down past the cosmetics factory where the young boys smoke and flirt like absurd baboons and oil lies in dirty, unnoticed pools, collecting cigarette butts. To hell with work and air-conditioned niceties, cool cotton managerial shirts and proper print frocks, take my arm (may I call you Victoria?) and after the washing up I'll continue with you down the lush and laden lanes, past the gypsy camp (tread carefully! take care! They curse and kill and suck your eyes!), rinsed and fresh on the stainless steel draining board, water running down the runnels like the little stream we crossed as romantically as our clumsiness allowed, my eyes averted from your breast for fear that oily puddles of lust would stain your Spring joy. We didn't see the cow-pats, did we, my foolish love, or hear the transistor radio picking metallically across the blue and yellow genitals of plants that crowded in above our heads to watch us kiss among the hair and insects of a beautiful day like today, grabbing a jacket just in case, pocketing keys, turning slowly in search of forgotten items, and though I have to leave you, you knew I always would; I'd better be off. The door opens to the light and noise of Dunkley Street, blue-grey cigarette smoke light growing to yellow by the time I get to work, the door banging behind me, packing me off like mother to unwillingly fend for myself among the wool jackets and brown leather shoes, the perfume and hairdoes of a puritanical work ethic. Monday, Monday, morning rush hour, speeding buses and a feeling of impotence, under the clouds of Hagley's neon sign with the non-functioning 'L' and towering, exclusive, powdered Mrs Colthorpe, turning the corner and a neat side-step to avoid the silly old bastard with nicotine skin, 'careful' to you too you silly old sod, God, how I hate these hateful little people! And remember, no matter what you do, promise me you'll try never to hate anybody, in that much I am a Christian. No, not hate, stopping at the kerb, but a growing misanthropy, a desire to cross at the green man and leave those shuffling apathetic souls to the mess of road signs that strew their asphalt lives and redirect mine along St Stephen's Row, past the symbolic dirty brown cigarette packet floating puddle outside Barclays Bank, the two-faced capitalist, racist bastards who offer the neat efficient banking service to plastic middle class jokes that idolise materialism and success and believe the plight of the Africans to be in good hands, watched by America and the UN Secretary General, Christians all in this day and age, it would never happen to us because we've got security at ten percent, if only they were prepared to work; to work, then, once again, a pigeon fluttering before me like a photograph, wings blurred as the hero crosses Red Square, a grey misty, melancholic hero with a lost love who had black hair and green eyes and spoke in a soft, difficult to place accent, Celtic perhaps, her fragile frame a trap, her power almost mystical, of sea and sky and seagulls, not fat fool city gent pigeons that explode into action only to fall like industrial waste on
to the shifted flagstones of this pompous bestatued square, a testament to dullness, where birds and people strut like Egyptian court jesters, humouring the dead. Not hate, but a growing misanthropy. Mum, dad, I'm not a Christian, you know that. I will not drudge in perverse silence for that pot of dull gold you fell for in your childhood, I'm twenty eight, I believe in the dead, I cannot not live my life for some overblown, egoistical, 'It's my plan' Father Christmas who would doubtless bank at Barclays anyway. Carbon monoxide and lead kill, they suffocate. Well, kill yourselves but leave me out of it! Too many faces worrying along the newly paved path, throwing glances in polished, well-lit shop windows at the price tags of modern success, success in instalments with free fitting, a cold breeze from the football pitch that tenaciously clings on between the garages and warehouses and backsides of shops, swallowing the shit, the plastic bags and motor oil cans, the occasional shell of a car and a host of snakeskin Durex that smell of rubber, old men and inquisitive thirteen year old girls, a sweaty mixture of football, fun and fear, the last rag of land before Hag-ey's symmetrical aluminium disgrace. I live in a nightmare; I must wake up, pinch myself and gain my peace, sweating in the damp morning mauve light at the window, no danger without, heart beating skin cooling confidence creeping back like frightened children after a storm. One two three marble steps, through the open door, 'morning' to the cleaner, quickly out the back to the washroom, it's not so bad, only seven hours, think of Sir Barclay's black African cousins and you'll pass through easily enough, almost ten to nine, time for a coffee in a plastic cup, time to slip on the costume and go through the dress rehearsal one more time; will we ever get it right? Come on, come on, it has to be done, rub hands nervously and open the door, nobody about, up the carpeted stairway, 'morning' to Mrs Colthopre hiding behind her glasses and middle-age, into the staff canteen of loud and cheery voices and the smell of cigarettes and perfume. Action. 'Morning', you look so old and tired, why do you still work here, do you need the money so badly? 'Coffee, please.' Do I need the money? The last figure was absurd, something near ?34,OOO. 'Thanks.' In ten years, the measure of one third of my life, printed by a computer and popped through the letter box in a pre-paid envelope splashed with advertising, five small, meaningless numbers holding hands and singing my worth in a chorus of mathematical glee. Coffee like the mill pond where Mrs Simmonds, the newsagent's wife committed suicide, hurling her tear-stained life into the filth and dark brown stagnancy of the disused pond, two frightened boys, quivering at the edge of the lake, peering into the Hollywood mist that I seem to remember existed like her ghost, suspended below the dark, damp, dripping trees that folded conspiratorially over her dead deep buried body, entombing her pain, keeping her dark, unnatural secret hidden for eternity, or until they drain it and build a car park or a cheap staff canteen that sells mud in plastic cups, and Mr Simmonds, uncomprehending, shuffles out the back of his disordered shop to make a cup of tea and read the newspaper that carried the news to every pair of gossiping lips, wishing he had her courage, her passion, instead of lumbago and a diminishing stock of years and Marlboros. 'Morning', stay there, I can't talk to you yet; thank God, I couldn't stand him and his sexual fantasies at this hour. Elephant trainers? Save it for the pub, I'm having a nightmare, drowning in my coffee, draining the bitter cup to the last sip of determination and nine o'clock. 'Morning.' Let's get out of here, slowly standing up, nodding greetings to faces so old and familiar they seem unreal, accidentally washed up in his presence like faces in a dream, faces from who knows when or where? Instinctively along the passages and up the staircases to the Furniture Department, his domain, the environment to which he was adapted, like a lion to the savannah, the typist to the machine - such geometrical speed, a perfect castle of systems - Richard to the Furniture Department, to the soft air-conditioned musacked atmosphere of his padded cell, his oily puddle, his dirty pool of brown water, his mill pond. Nobody here, a limbo stillness settling with the dust on top of the happy family furniture displays, kitchen tables awaiting the magic wand of life, glossed and lovely among the pre-arranged three-piece suites and sexless, tasteful bedroom units, nobody here until at least ten o'clock when David, wide-tied, rat-eyed, blo-dried David, the other dimension in Hagley's sales drive psychology, Richard's devoted opposite, his schizophrenic salesman balance, would dart in like an American on a training scheme, manoeuvring like a waiter through his ambitious day; fortunately he was mostly out of store, pushing his mechanical Ford penis into the sloth and stupidity of central city traffic leaving me in this lunar, weightless world of middle people's domestic desires, smoothing out a work/sales sheet HFl3, dating, signing, respecting its pointless worth through forced habit, sitting at the tiny tin desk, feet stuffed uncomfortably underneath, watching the floor space revolve slowly like the surface of a planet, imperceptibly, an alien planetscape of soulless merchandise set in soft relief by hidden lights and subtle drapes, where strange, lost, unlikely astronauts land with looks of wonder, strolling quietly, respectfully along the avenues of lathe-turned table legs, stunned and overjoyed to find themselves in such a tasteful domestic paradise, stumbling across me, the sole inhabitant, bartering, waving plastic cards like beads at a negro, head in hands, staring at the worksheet, that hateful HFl3, knowing that I can't go on forever in this absurd, smooth speaking, petrified, almost obscene mentally diseased studio: I can't. A cottager, unsuited, in the wrong place, Eleanor, Joan of Marble Arch, crashing against me, hoping to loosen my grip, my grip upon this bloody stupid HFl3 and its tin desk, encouraging me, helping me, thanks Eleanor, thanks for your harsh words and your strong muscular arse, seducing me with your subjection, clinging to me in your sleep; thanks for all those comforting hours on that island bed with its silly down quilt that never stays on; thanks for those realistic morning breakfasts and your short, sharp 'go nows': I'll miss you, are you sure you won't come? Two female heads appear above a chest of drawers, giggling, no buying power, stand up and ask brightly 'May I help you ladies?' No, I thought not, sit down again and ask myself 'come where?' Am I going somewhere? Only to another cup of mud at quarter past ten, to the toilet maybe, my flat, the garden, her schoolteacher bed, this fucking tin desk! I should have gone to University, resat my 'A' levels, taken a degree in Philosophy or something; but then what? Showing students round the soft-lit teachings of ignorant feudalists or puritanical German nationalists? Selling Sartre in no deposit, two years to pay instalments? To sit at another tin desk in another pointless department, filling in forms and thinking about the time? No thanks, I'd rather be out in the air, digging or working for me, not for some huge 'concern', just me, minding my own business, master of my own life, abiding by the laws of nature only, keeping time by the light of day, wind on my forearm, sun on my neck, soft springy soil or a rocking boat beneath my feet, wiggling my toes in the nylon socks my Aunt July bought me, feeling the sweatiness these smart, Hagley insisted leather lace-up shoes create, polishing them every Sunday with my father supervising, mother teaching me to tie the laces and make a tie, so that, eventually, through trial and error and forced correction I could tick-tock away my years bathed in artificial light, tapping a pencil, dreaming of a birth right I never had, more a child of plastic spoons and Y-fronts than peat, salt or bird calls, clear cold bird calls that punch holes of musical simplicity in the heady back-cloth sky of streaking nimbus dissolving into dark damp distant bogland, out on smug, artistic wings across the heaving demented sea, curling and rising with the wind, a perfect geometry of flight to adorn the serious landscape, a landscape of reality and sense, not this absurd, commercial joke that nobody laughs at except perhaps Mr Hagley himself whoever he is, or was, a portrait hung in a dull and lifeless boardroom where loyalty and service to cash is the key credential, a bevy of vacant, well-shaven, greying dignifiedly at the temples with fine gold-rimmed bespectacled heads, vying and lying and counting the cost of keeping me here, in the empty aquarium, breathing and speaking like a fish, like a moron, like a salesman. Look at this
hateful watch and die of boredom as it tells the truth of quarter past nine and I can't believe the day will pass or that I'm a salesman or that I'm going to die when I never had the chance to live. Open a drawer that squeaks so loudly that I can see the other children's faces squirming as the blackboard duster scrapes down the pock-marked greenboard and the ragged teacher's tweed arm is sprayed with chalk gas, chalk spray, a pen top and a box of paperclips, nothing to read except HFl3, item, cost, discount, commission, HFl3, slam it closed and try the next, Friday's paper, dead and discarded, digested and excreted, the crossword half-finished, David's work, sharp, hurried writing, slanting in a propelling pencil style, merciless, showy, the writing hand of a competitive man thrusting and jabbing even when he's alone because he thinks someone will be watching him from afar and will be pleased and will give him a rise and a new company car and a wife and respect and a well kept neighbourhood of swept garages with tools in their proper place, fitted by Hagley's, kitchen, diner, master bedroom, all worked for, paid for, carved out of society's miserly grasp by his own swift eager alert propelling pencil, Mrs Colthorpe passing by and throwing an expensive dentist's grin at me which I nod casually into the wastepaper basket when she's gone.

  I'll pray for their souls, these lost and deluded fools, I shall walk off into the raindance, the rainsong, the fresh and enlightened rain, and I shall hope for them and mourn them, for like me now, they are not alive, we are not alive, not dead yet, but dormant, huge and silent as volcanoes: I shall erupt! Yes, crashing through the guttered roof like a torrent of molten stone, burning scalding, hissing into life! Throw the paper in the bin and stop the volcano nonsense, it won't be like that, it will be a sordid, clinging, sticky-eyed birth, placenta torn and dripping with the blood of memory and upbringing, one foot on the tarmac and one on the grass verge, staggering on weak legs, half-closed eyes oozing; a slow, tacky, ugly dawn - there will be no volcano. Slump, relax all the muscles, think of the work ahead and sigh, I know, I know, I know. The hum of the air-conditioning, a vaguer rumbling and tooting of High Street traffic, a touch of back ache, numbness in my arse, I wonder what the weather's like outside, is the sun still shining? Here comes the sun, drumming the beat on the toneless tin table top, dadndeeda, here comes the sun and I say, it's not alright, dadadndeeda dndedadndada dadada, little darlin', I feel my back is almost breakin', I should sit up straight, like this, shuffling and dragging this apathetic body into a perfect, ridiculous, more painful posture, dndadada, like a Victorian at tea, why is it the things that are good for us are so often ridiculous or dull? Abstinence and vegetables, exercise and carriage? Here comes the sun; not here, it can't penetrate into this electric pool, this neon lake where all my submarine friends are gliding gracefully past, French polished, sunless, bloated creatures, vaguely surrealistic beneath their substitute suns, floating, drifting, denying their inertia, betraying all laws rising and falling and tumbling in plant-like slow motion amid the particles of dust that turn and revolve like fragments of crystallised air, glass dust, continually settling like chalk dust from a tweed arm, dusting me. Dust, dost, dussed. I can't sit down any longer, let's stretch a bit, take an inspection tour around my wall-less house. My world of domestic perfection where everybody smiles through precision-tooled teeth at their clean and healthy relationships, kissing mummy, helping daddy, loving my younger sister with text book devotion, smiling and laughing and feeling loved in my glossy new mod-cons maisonette in advert-land, consumerised Eden, cheque card paradise. Good morning bedroom cabinet, how goes it, coffee table? Coffee table of round smoked glass, like a cup of coffee, or another pond, reflecting the lid of my box, Jack, reflecting the lid of my box. On through the frozen jungle once more, left at the kitchen display, straight on down the avenue of period chairs, lions feet and powder, wigs and pox, cake and absurdity, ugly as old women's legs, as redundant as joy. Goes on, and the beat goes on, through the centuries, years spinning, leaves of a calendar peeling, headlines evolving through the movie-mist, past the graves of human conceit and insignificance, decade after decade of decayed hope and buried lessons, fast, chaotic train music, climbing with tinny difficulty to a fat masturbator's sickly tasting orgasm, crashing cymbals, whore violins, grinning talentless cacophonies of Now orchestration, gradually fading, an image appearing through the idiocy of the passing ages, fading in to me, this little box, focusing on Jack. Hi! This world's too small for both of us, kid, go for your gun. Rattle my keys against my thigh, metal and cloth, hair and skin. A thigh that has no desire to don the blue jeans image and sport a loaded denunciation of humanity. My se1f-defence lies in my not succumbing to such hatred, fighting sickness with sickness, matching warhead for warhead. My life is not a film, or an advert, or a game, or a war. It is ... it is lost among the soft furnishing of Hagley's. Pad back to the desk, not long now until tea break, or coffee break, an interlude between scenes. Back at the desk, what can I think about? Something worthwhile, something with lean pieces of succulent flesh clinging to its bone. Chickens? Ha, no, not that again, let them peck out their limbo lives in peace, and please, no children today, I couldn't stand that topic again, not this early (swollen bellies and flies again). No, not now. OK, you want a topic? You want something to think about? What are you going to do about this wooden life of yours, Pinocchio? When's the fairy going to float in on those self-same violins and make your dreams come true? There are a million stars to wish upon if you believe in fairies, Richard. You don't. Then tell me, what are you going to do? What time is it, five past, fantastic, and no David yet either, what am I going to do? Don't harass me, it's early, we mustn't rush these things, ten years of pacing the Furniture Department, we mustn't rush these things, a whole decade of not rushing things, I can't think if you hassle me, or act, or make any decision under stress, rather drift through the next ten years, taking my time, not being badgered into action, having peace and tranquillity to ponder it until my death when they'll polish my box, put new pennies on Jack's eyes and file me away under F for furniture and futility. Wake up, man! Think about it, go over the possibilities, are you afraid of that world outside you hardly know? Enough, it's tea-break, standing up, my face set in a strange new mask, ten more years, more thousands of pounds, more HFl3s and long idle mornings. One more cup of tea nearer you, dad, one more penny in the fountain, it can't go on, I can't go on, this world ain't big enough for both of us, two at a time up the softened stairs, before the year's out, through the door into the coffee room, is that a promise? Blood pumping through this old heart of mine, adrenaline on full alert, something stirring, pushing, beginning to kick, 'coffee please', is that a promise? Don't rush me, 'thanks', come on now, you sat across the room and asked me if the relationship was over and I said nothing, pounding the yes, yes, yes deeper down into my coward's stomach, and you said 'yes', and I fumbled and mumbled and felt something snap between us, your hands on the scissors, mine strapped to my sides in impotence and failure as I sit down at a vacant table and you ask me again, 'Well, is it a promise?' and I say yes, yes, yes, but say nothing as the fear seeps into my guts and my fingers twitch around the scalding plastic cup of mill pond coffee, and you stand up now, angry, defiant, enraged by all the sloth and weakness of our bitter relationship and cry Richard! Promise! For Fuck's Sake Promise! But what, what? Before the year's out, man! Promise? Yes, damn you, or die alone in your man-made hell, and looking up nervously as Mrs Colthorpe asks to sit at my table and I say cheering, urging, the significance is pounding my soft and fleshy mind and I say (feel the weakness ooze, the fear scream in pain) and I say, 'Yes'. She sits, it's final, it's over; I have promised. And calmly, surprisingly, unexpectedly calmly, I say 'Yes, certainly. How are you Mrs Colthorpe?', and slip the scissors back into my pocket.

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