(Here's the piece I wrote to the Christipher Orr painting shown in the blogpost below and which is also now published up on the Talbot Rice Gallery site. I thought it should also go up here as it's been a while since I posted any fiction here.)
We are up in
the mountains, only they are like no mountains that have ever been in the
living world. They are like something painted, something I saw once in an old
book, all smoke and brown and jagged, and as though maybe they are painted in
coffee grounds. There is no blue or mist or silver in these mountains.
The air is warm
and dry, and not the least bit wet, and we are dressed in summer dresses as we
might be were we on a beach in high summer. Nor is the air so thin as air is in
the mountains, nor so chill. Like I said, it is warm and easy. And there is
music playing somewhere, just faintly. It’s all strings and straining and soft,
like something in a film.
It’s a dream of
course, and I know that even as I am dreaming it. It is a dream I have dreamed
before and so it is familiar. Maybe there’s more detail this time, as there is with
each revisiting of the dream. I am sitting and my dress is the pink one from
years back. I have the dress still, wrapped in cellophane and draped over a
wire hanger. It is in my wardrobe somewhere. It does not fit me now, nips spitefully
at my waist and strains across my breasts so I can scarcely breathe. But in the
dream it fits.
Alice stands
behind me. I can’t see her exactly, but I know she is there – she’s always
there. Perhaps she wears the blue dress from that summer from years ago. And a
straw bonnet maybe, for she was always fond of summer hats. I know she is
there, even without turning my head. It is a feeling at first and then I hear
her voice and she is saying it is beautiful and she means the view and isn’t it
just. Alice puts one hand on my shoulder, light as birdwing and warm. I want to
turn my head to see her. I want to look into her eyes, all blue mist and
silver. I want her to look into mine. But in the dream I can only stare at the broken-toothed
smoke-stain mountains.
‘It’s ok,
Honey,’ Alice says, her words all whisper and breath so that I can feel them on
my cheek, words like blown kisses.
I want to say
something in reply, but this is a dream and I am not in control of what
happens. I sit, silent, the dark coming slowly down, and all my words are just
thoughts in my head. I want to tell Alice how much I miss her these days.
‘I like the
dress you are wearing,’ she says ‘It’s such a pretty colour and the buttons all
made of pearl. So pretty.’
And Alice’s
fingers are fiddling then with those pearl buttons. Picking at them, one after
the other, till they undo. And that takes my breath away. I can hear my heart
beating, like the wing-beats of frighted birds when they take to the air, like
the startled owl at the back of the barn when it escapes the night-stalking
cat.
‘There now,’
says Alice, and ‘Don’t you fret none.’
And it is like
the first time, and because it is a dream, it could be the first time, lived
over and over, and a little more to be lived each time I am dreaming. And I
feel Alice kiss the back of my neck and her hand flat between my shoulder
blades – ‘Just where your wings should be,’ she says. She is so near I can
smell her. It is violets I smell, powdery and elegant. She wears Balenciaga Le
Dix. Sprays it in the air and walks into it so the scent on her is gentle and
not overpowering. I have a bottle hidden away in a drawer and some days I take
it out and pepper the air with the smell of Alice.
Her hands reach
round me and hold me, tight as never letting go, so it is like she is a part of
me – briefly it is.
‘Always,’ she
says.
‘Don’t say
that,’ I want to tell her, for I know the dream will end with that ‘always’.
‘Always,’ says
Alice.
And everything
begins to dissolve around us, until only the coffee-ground mountains remain,
and then not even the mountains but a suffocating black-smoke darkness.
I wake and
catch my breath, as a swimmer might on regaining the surface after a deep dive.
The night is all about me and I hear the sudden owl screech somewhere beyond
the barn. Beside me the bed is empty and already grows cold. He is up by this
time and dressed. I can picture him downstairs, hunched in his chair, his brow
lowered and scowling, and he is drinking strong coffee, black with two sugars.
I can picture the cup in the nest of his two rough hands, dirt ‘neath his
bitten fingernails, his lips thick and pursed, kissing the stained rim of the
cup, blowing and sucking.
I should get up
and see him out. He deserves that, at least – any man deserves that. But then
there is Alice, or the absence of her and the memory of her – which is the same
thing. I breathe through my nose, breathing deep, filtering the air for the
thinnest scent of violets maybe. But I smell only sweat and a staleness to the
air that is sour. I say her name, over and over, as though Alice could be
conjured up again. But there is only the darkness and the stillness, and the
choking air, and the missing her these days and all days.
6 comments:
Wow. Still at it then? You would think you would have learned by now and that the years and years of accusations (and occasionally actually being caught) would mean that you could be ORIGINAL, not just pick increasingly obscure stories to rip off.
Cite your sources, then you would not get comments like this one. Former english teacher yes? You know how then. Stop being so obtusely proud and admit what you do, give credit where credit is due.
Not sure what this anonymous comment is about (why is it anonymous?). If you mean by 'still at it' that I am still writing - well yes, of course I am. If you mean something else, if you mean that this story is not my own, then be more explicit. My source for this story, is the picture that I was using as a prompt. I am not aware that I used anything else.
And what's that bit about former English teacher, yes? And that 'You know how then'?
Talk plain and not in riddles.
Excellent, pure bluster.
Though I am undecided whether you have used your skill as writer to place the onus of explanation on the commenter, or you are genuinely confused by a colloquial turn of phrase, which would be worrying if you are as skilled as you so frequently claim.
In any event, I am actually fairly impressed you replied at all. While I could mention the name of the bad teenage fiction story this shares so much with, you could deny it, refute it, express ignorance, quote the age old argument of limited ideas in the world and so on. You could in fact be entirely unaware of the similarity and your subconscious mind has simply stored something digested at an earlier time to be expressed in this form. I find myself fascinated how your mind works - if this and every other incident is truly an accident then you have a stunning latent eidetic facility, which your conscious mind is apparently unaware of.
Regardless, it would not matter if I gave names, further description, or even spelled out the meaning of the original comment. What would it achieve? Would you learn from it? Would you respond with apologies, willful ignorance, or some as yet unemployed facility?
While I may skim past to see if you do reply to this comment, I shall not post again because I actually think years of self-aggrandisement have made you believe yourself, publicly at least, that you have never done anything wrong and that you are actually capable of originality. While you are undeniably skilled in putting words in the right order to achieve an effect, I do not think you have not written anything with any soul for a very, very long time.
And that is a little sad.
My turn to say wow!
Are you being ironic with your accusation of 'pure bluster' on my part when your entire comment is nothing short of bluster? No specifics. Nothing at all. Just thrown mud again.
And what's more, you don't even have the courage to add your name to what you write. Been there before and frankly this is shameful.
As for you assessing my writing over the past four years or so… you have not read one fiftieth of what I have written. And plenty of people judge my writing to be worth something. Just look at the blogpost above this one. And plenty of prizes from real writers who have said only positive things about my work. And they have never described anything I have written as without soul. Indeed, my heart and soul are often in what I write.
It will be no loss for you to abstain from commenting here again. However, if you do decide you have something further to say, why not step from behind the curtain and at least be honest about your comments.
I should also have said that it is ok not to like what I write… It's not to everyone's taste and that is ok.
Found this and thought the person who commented here should take the time to read and consider and I mean that only in the nicest way:
http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduates/?_r=0
(Don't know how to make it a link in this comment, so copy and paste it into your search bar… is that what it's called? A search bar?)
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