BESPOKEN (iii)

Ok, so the crowd-funding for this project did not quite make its target and that is a shame but it is something that can happen - even if the project is as nice and as interesting and as rich as this one promises to be. Nevertheless, the team behind this are progressing with the plan and I am very glad that they are.

Up on their blog are lots of writing prompts and other QI type bits of information well worth the read. I'm dipping in from time to time, just a toe in the water, but the water's lovely. I have responded to some of the prompts, too, because that's what I do. And Helen Limon, who seems to be the chair of the group, says she likes my pieces and will pin them up somewhere so more can see them. So, that'll be nice.

Till then, here's something that is a response to one of the prompts. I hope you like it (the prompt linked to the last line from an Emily Dickinson poem… see here):

WEAR THE BLUE COTTON

Too special and he’ll think me over keen and maybe think me easy. I lay the silk dress aside, soft and slippy and pink. It will do another day, a day when he has me won or I have him, a day when there’s no need more for games. A plainer dress today, perhaps. I’ll choose the blue cotton. And flat shoes and a yellow scarf and my coat, and all wrapped up like a present.

It is just a drink after work. That’s what he said. Threw it out there like it was nothing. If you like, he said. If you’re not doing anything. If you have the time.

‘Yes, I’d like that,’ I said, before he took it back.

I remember one day up at the lake, a long ago day, and the sky was a clear unspoiled blue and the day was new and the air so still that nothing moved. That’s how it is fixed in memory and all the trees at the lake edge in splendid clothes and perfect. And I stripped off, and Mark stripped off, too, and we were laughing and a little shy and a little bold. And Mark threw himself into the water and shrieking like it hurt; but I was more uncertain. I dipped a toe in and felt the biting chill, sharp as glass or knives, and I laughed and dressed again.

Mark, sleek as a seal or otter, and he swam away from me, out into the centre of the lake. And the water was as black as ink or oil and broken only where he was, and a bird cried out somewhere, a shrill warning cry that was near and far off in the same instant. And I lay back on the shore, with my coat collar turned up, and I might have slept for my eyes closed and the sun was on me and I was smiling.

‘A drink, yes, I’d like that.’

There’s been no one since Mark – the wet mermaid Mark, his hair matted like wool when they pulled him dripping from the water and his skin so pale and so white, like graveyard stone or snow, and his eyes closed as though he only slept. No one since then and that’s been almost five years and maybe that is time enough for being alone.

And now a boy at work called Carl and he has offered to take me for a drink, if I like, if I am not doing anything, if I have the time, and it is only a drink and maybe that is all that it is, so I will wear the blue cotton today, and flat shoes, and a yellow scarf and my coat fastened chin to knee. And maybe I shall pin a trinket on the coat lapel, just in case he does not notice.