We were all that, in the space of about ten minutes. Phew. A bird, a song, the insides of a mouth, a fox, an earth, all the elements, minerals, a water feature, a stone, a snake, a tree, some thistles, several flowers, arrows, both genders, a whole new gender, no gender at all and God knows how many other things including a couple of fighting stags.
I got up to get us a drink of water and as I stood in the kitchen in the early morning light, running the water out of the tap, I looked out at the hills at the back of the town, at the trees on the hills, at the bushes in the garden, at the birds, at the brand new leaves on a branch, at a cat on a fence, at the bits of wood that made the fence, and I wondered if everything I saw, if maybe every landscape we casually glanced at, was the outcome of an ecstasy we didn’t even know was happening, a love-act moving at a speed slow and steady enough for us to be deceived into thinking it was just everyday reality.
Then I wondered why on earth would anyone ever stand in the world as if standing in the cornucopic middle of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon but inside a tiny white-painted rectangle about the size of a single space in a car park, refusing to come out of it, and all round her or him the whole world, beautiful, various, waiting?
Them
(It is really English down here in England.)
First class all the way. I was the only person in Carriage J when we set off. Me! A whole train carriage to myself! I am doing all right
(and that train getting more and more English the further south we came. The serving staff doing the coffee changed into English people at Newcastle. And the conductor’s voice on the speakers changed into English at Newcastle too and then it was like being on a totally different train though I hadn’t even moved in my seat, and the people getting on and sitting in the other seats round me all really Englishy and by the time we’d got to York it was like a different)
OUCH. Oh sorry!
(People in England just walk into you and they don’t even apologise.)
(And there are so many, so many! People here go on and on for miles and miles and miles.)
(Where’s my phone?)
Menu. Contacts. Select. Dad. Call.
(God, it is so busy here with the people and the noise and the traffic I can hardly hear the)
Answerphone.
(He never answers it when he sees my name come up.)
Hi Dad, it’s me. It’s Thursday, it’s a quarter to five. Just leaving you another to tell you I’m not in first class on the train any more, I’m in that, eh, Leicester Square, God it’s really sunny down here, it’s a bit too warm, I’ve got half an hour between very important business meetings so was just calling to say hi. Eh, right, well, I’ll give you a wee call when I’m out of my meetings, so bye for now. Bye now. Bye.
End call.
Menu. Contacts. Select. Paul. Call.
Answerphone.
(Damn.)
Oh hi Paul, it’s just me, it’s just eh Imogen. It’s Thursday, it’s about a quarter to five, and I was just wondering if you could check with secretarial for me, I eh can’t get through, I’ve been trying and it’s constantly engaged or maybe something’s up with the signal or something, anyway sorry to be calling so late in the afternoon, but because I couldn’t get through I thought what’ll I do, oh I know, I can always phone Paul, he’ll help me out, so if you’d just check with them for me that the market projection email and the colour printouts went off to Keith down here and whether he’ll have seen it all before I get over to the office? I should be there in about fifteen minutes. I’ll wait for your call, Paul. Thanks, Paul. Bye for now. Bye now. Bye.
Menu. Contacts. Select. Anthea. Call.
Answerphone.
Hi. This is Anthea. Don’t leave me a message on this phone because I’m actually trying not to use my mobile any longer since the production of mobiles involves slave labour on a huge scale and also since mobiles get in the way of us living fully and properly in the present moment and connecting properly, on a real level, with people and are just another way to sell us short. Come and see me instead and we’ll talk properly. Thanks.
(For God’s sake.)
Hi, it’s me. It’s Thursday, it’s ten to five. Can you hear me? I can hardly hear myself, it’s so noisy here, it’s just ridiculous. Anyway I’m on my way to a meeting and I was walking through a kind of a park or square at the back of the Leicester Square, where I got the underground to, and there was this statue of William Shakespeare there in it, and the thought came into my head, Anthea’d like that, and then, like, you wouldn’t believe it! About two seconds later I saw right across from it this statue of Charlie Chaplin! So I thought I’d just phone and tell you. I’m actually coming up to Trafalgar Square now, it’s all, like, pedestrian now, you can walk right across it, the fountains are on, it’s so warm down here that people are actually jumping about in the water, it can’t be hygienic, loads of people are wearing shorts down here, nobody’s got a coat on, I’ve actually had to take mine off, that’s how warm it is, oh! and there’s Nelson! but he’s like so high up you can’t really see him at all, I’m right under him now, anyway I was just phoning, because every time I come here and see the famous things it makes me think of us, you know, watching tv, when we were kids, and Nelson’s Column and Big Ben and wondering if we’d ever in a million years get to see them really, for real, eh, well now I’m waiting for the green man at a pedestrian crossing right under Nelson’s Column, you should hear all the different languages, all round me, it’s very very interesting to hear so many different voices at once, oh well, now I’m on a road that’s all official-looking buildings, well, just calling to say I’ll see you when I get back, I’m back tomorrow, I’ll have to have a wee look at my map now, I’ll have to get it out of my bag, so, well, I’ll stop now. Bye for now. Bye.
End call.
(Still no Paul.)
(She won’t ever hear that message. That message’ll just delete itself off Orange in a week’s time.)
(But it was nice to be talking on my phone here, made me feel a bit safer, and though I was ostensibly just saying stuff for no reason it kind of felt good to.)
(Maybe it’s easier to talk to someone who won’t ever actually hear what you say.)
(What a funny thought. What a ridiculous thought.)
Is this Strand?
(She loves all that Shakespeare stuff, and she loved that film, so did I, where the posh people are unveiling the new white statue and they pull the cover off and lying fast asleep in its arms is Charlie Chaplin, and later the blind girl gets her sight back because he gets rich with a windfall and spends it all on her sight operation, but then he sees that now that she can see, he’s clearly the wrong kind of person, and it’s tragic, not a comedy at all.)
(Still no Paul.)
(I can’t see a streetname. I think I might not be on the right road for)
(oh look at that, that’s an interesting-looking one, right in the middle of the road, what is it, a memorial? It’s a memorial with just, as if empty clothes are hanging all round it on hooks, like empty clothes, a lot of soldiers’ and workers’ clothes.)
(But they look strange. They look like they’ve got the shapes of bodies still in them. And though they’re men’s clothes, the way all their folds are falling looks like women’s —)
(Oh, right, it’s a statue to the women who fought in the war. Oh I get it. It’s like the clothes they wore, which they just took off and hung up, like a minute ago, like someone else’s clothes they just stepped into briefly. And the clothes have kept their shape so that you get the bodyshape of women but in dungarees and uniforms and clothes they wouldn’t usually wear and so on.)