shoulders. We made an elegant pair: dark/fair, older/younger, assured/uncertain. The mirror offered us a snapshot of our own desirability. He was gazing past me with some satisfaction.
I looked too, but what disturbed me was another face in the mirror and another room behind.
It began. Of course it did. Simple, solid, knowable, confined. A love affair. A commonality of life as dependable as life itself. We are what we know. We know what we are. We reflect our reality. Our reality reflects us. What would happen if the image smashed the glass?
'Ice?' Jove handed me my drink.
'How many more of them will ask me whether or not they should be refrigerated at death until science can defrost them into the warmth of perpetual youth?'
'What do you say?'
'What I should say is that if you go in like a turkey you will come out like a turkey.'
ME: What will you do with your old age?
HE: What I have done with my youth and middle age.
ME: Your work?
HE: Purché porti la gonnella, Voi sapete quel che fa. (He sang.)
ME: If she wears . . .? La gonnella?
HE: A petticoat.
ME: You know what he does.
HE: Don Giovanni. I'll take you to the Met. I'll take you everywhere.
That's how it was/is. The story falters. The firm surface gives way. Nine months ago I was on this boat sailing towards my future. Nine months later and I am balanced on it as precariously as if it were a raft. On this raft I am trying to untangle my past. My past/our past. Jove had a wife. I was in love with them both.
That's how it is/was. Jove and his wife have disappeared. He crying in salt waterfalls, she scattering her tears like gunshot. I should have been with them.
Why was I not?
Here I am, all aboard the eternal triangle reduced to a not quite straight line.
Here I am, man overboard, woman too. They are gone but there are no bodies.
I am still here but there is no feeling. I cry lead.
If there was a body perhaps I could feel. He would say if I could feel there would be a body. Energy precedes matter.
She would say 'Until you are ready to love there is no one to love.' Would say/did say, caught in the curve of her own light.
Is that her breast under me? Sphere of the thinking universe, wilful plunge of the sea?
Stabs of time torment me. What use is it to go back over those high rocks that resist erosion? My life seems to be made up of dark matter that pushes out of easy unconsciousness so that I stop and stumble, unable to pass smoothly as other people do. I should like to ramble over the past as though it were a favourite walk. Walk with me, memory to memory, the shared path, the mutual view.
Walk with me. The past lies in wait. It is not behind. It seems to be in front. How else could it trip me as I start to run?
Past. Present. Future. The rational divisions of the rational life. And always underneath, in dreams, in recollections, in the moment of hesitation on a busy street, the hunch that life is not rational, not divided. That the mirrored compartments could break.
I chose to study time in order to outwit it.
When I was ten I heard my headmaster tell my father,'She'll never be top drawer.'
I looked at the pockets of their tweed coats, their knitted pullovers and knitted ties. I looked at their tawny jaws, their bottled eyes. I felt myself caught between two metal plates, crushing me. The pressure on my head was intense. I wanted to say 'Wait' but I was so low down that they could not possibly hear me. I lived in a world below their belts, not an adult not a child, smaller than small at the indeterminate age. The plates ground together and my father started to talk about the cricket.
We got home, my father and I, self-made man, poor boy made good, and while he poured himself a sherry, I went into my parents' room where they kept their chest of drawers.
There were two top drawers. My mother's held her jewellery and scent. My father's stored his handkerchiefs. His hobby was magic tricks.
When children learn to
I looked too, but what disturbed me was another face in the mirror and another room behind.
It began. Of course it did. Simple, solid, knowable, confined. A love affair. A commonality of life as dependable as life itself. We are what we know. We know what we are. We reflect our reality. Our reality reflects us. What would happen if the image smashed the glass?
'Ice?' Jove handed me my drink.
'How many more of them will ask me whether or not they should be refrigerated at death until science can defrost them into the warmth of perpetual youth?'
'What do you say?'
'What I should say is that if you go in like a turkey you will come out like a turkey.'
ME: What will you do with your old age?
HE: What I have done with my youth and middle age.
ME: Your work?
HE: Purché porti la gonnella, Voi sapete quel che fa. (He sang.)
ME: If she wears . . .? La gonnella?
HE: A petticoat.
ME: You know what he does.
HE: Don Giovanni. I'll take you to the Met. I'll take you everywhere.
That's how it was/is. The story falters. The firm surface gives way. Nine months ago I was on this boat sailing towards my future. Nine months later and I am balanced on it as precariously as if it were a raft. On this raft I am trying to untangle my past. My past/our past. Jove had a wife. I was in love with them both.
That's how it is/was. Jove and his wife have disappeared. He crying in salt waterfalls, she scattering her tears like gunshot. I should have been with them.
Why was I not?
Here I am, all aboard the eternal triangle reduced to a not quite straight line.
Here I am, man overboard, woman too. They are gone but there are no bodies.
I am still here but there is no feeling. I cry lead.
If there was a body perhaps I could feel. He would say if I could feel there would be a body. Energy precedes matter.
She would say 'Until you are ready to love there is no one to love.' Would say/did say, caught in the curve of her own light.
Is that her breast under me? Sphere of the thinking universe, wilful plunge of the sea?
Stabs of time torment me. What use is it to go back over those high rocks that resist erosion? My life seems to be made up of dark matter that pushes out of easy unconsciousness so that I stop and stumble, unable to pass smoothly as other people do. I should like to ramble over the past as though it were a favourite walk. Walk with me, memory to memory, the shared path, the mutual view.
Walk with me. The past lies in wait. It is not behind. It seems to be in front. How else could it trip me as I start to run?
Past. Present. Future. The rational divisions of the rational life. And always underneath, in dreams, in recollections, in the moment of hesitation on a busy street, the hunch that life is not rational, not divided. That the mirrored compartments could break.
I chose to study time in order to outwit it.
When I was ten I heard my headmaster tell my father,'She'll never be top drawer.'
I looked at the pockets of their tweed coats, their knitted pullovers and knitted ties. I looked at their tawny jaws, their bottled eyes. I felt myself caught between two metal plates, crushing me. The pressure on my head was intense. I wanted to say 'Wait' but I was so low down that they could not possibly hear me. I lived in a world below their belts, not an adult not a child, smaller than small at the indeterminate age. The plates ground together and my father started to talk about the cricket.
We got home, my father and I, self-made man, poor boy made good, and while he poured himself a sherry, I went into my parents' room where they kept their chest of drawers.
There were two top drawers. My mother's held her jewellery and scent. My father's stored his handkerchiefs. His hobby was magic tricks.
When children learn to
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