ANOTHER POSTCARD FROM PORT BROKEFERRY

(News first - 'Chesspiece' is book of the month with Books From Scotland.com - have no idea what this means, but it feels good.

Below another piece from Port Brokeferry... this links back to the one about Alice and her framed photograph... an unrequited love story - and never to be requited.)

HUNTLY SMILING ALL DAYS

She thinks she is unobserved. But I see her. Every morning the same. She stands by the window. Just back a little. In the dark behind her curtains. But I can still see her, if I crane my neck a little. She is a picture, too. I laugh sometimes. Not cruelly. It’s just that, seeing her in her bra and pants is something years back I’d have given anything for. I’m talking years and years. I sometimes wonder where they’ve gone all those waiting years. Waiting for Alice Greyling to notice me. To drop a smile in my outstretched palm, just one. But then Alice doesn’t smile no more, not for nobody. Not for time upon time. There’s no one left but me remembers her smile, that’s what I think. I bet she’s even forgotten herself, what it is for Alice Greyling to smile.

I see her every morning, her breasts sagging now, and the folds of her stomach over the waistband of her pants. Her hair is grey and her eyes grey too, but she is still the most beautiful woman in all of Port Brokeferry, the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I see her every morning looking to the far end of the street, or out to sea sometimes. And she touches her neck. Keeps her hand there. I can see she is lost in thought. The same serious thought every new day. And I wonder what it could be. What it is that could so occupy the thoughts of the most beautiful woman in Brokeferry.

Of course not everyone thinks her beautiful. But I remember her as she was. I swear she brightened the day when she was in it. I think of her even when she is not there, at the window in her bra and pants. I think of Alice later in the day, when she is gone from the dark beyond the window, when she is dressed and about her business in the street, and not smiling to anyone. I think of her and I write her letters sometimes, imagining that she is my sweetheart and my lover. I call her ‘dear’ and tell her things to make her smile. I tell her how Mad Martin chases seagulls every day from one end of the beach to the other and back again. I tell her that Edwin’s tax return is late and that Magnus the book-keeper waits and waits for Edwin to call. I tell her that Dodie Bredwell, the school teacher, was seen drunk with his pants down and leaning against the sea wall one Saturday night, and he had to be helped home by the girl from the café and Athol Stuart, the policeman. And I imagine Alice Greyling smiling at some of these things, and writing back to me, calling me ‘dear’ then, and inviting me for tea on a Saturday afternoon.

I afterwards burn those letters I write, so my wife doesn’t see. And that makes me smile all the long days that are left to me. They’re just letters.