About Me

A practising lawyer, living in London with his lovely spouse, and 2 dogs . Making a living of the law, while trying to find time to write and express

Sunday 17 February 2013

Back from the dead and disappeared ...

After some time, I felt compelled to put something new up.  Not sure why, really.  Perhaps I've broken free of the grip of self-doubt and excuse-making.  Regardless, here's a piece that I wrote some time ago, on a now distant warm August day.  Not sure if this is a return, or just a Christmas card from an all-but-forgotten old friend.  In any event, I hope others might find something they like.  Having just re-read it for the first time in a while, I realize it does suffer from maudlin romanticism, but I still think it may have some good bits.

This is for Char, who believes in me when I don't believe in myself.

 Enjoy.

* * *
 
End of the vacation
 
You kissed me violently and threw your head back with a laugh, kicking off across the top of the pool like an otter or some half-glimpsed siren.  I sat in shallow water at the foot of your wake, small waves lapping my lips.  Sparrows averted their eyes, before flying away.  The breeze came up and filled the sail of clean sheets on the clothes line, lifting up the day as if we might take to the high seas, set a course for uncharted waters.  You gestured to me from the other side of the pool, inviting.
I had just read the story of a woman who built her bed above the tomb of her husband beneath the bedroom floorboards.  Taken too soon, he’d always promised he’d never leave her or the home they’d made together, and she took him perhaps too literally.  Slept every night next to him, until she would eventually join him again.  It was gruesome and romantic, in equal measure.
You kept gesturing me to your side.  I was not a strong swimmer, and you knew it.  The breeze kicked up tiny breakers between here and there.  It was the last day of vacation.  The last day of too many cigarettes and too many beers in our scorched yard.  I felt sun-weakened and paper-thin, parched.    You latched me with your eyes, and the wind blew up a gale in my ears, filling the sheets, and the pillow cases looked like hot-air balloons.  I could taste something that was ending as the pool-water formed waves, crashing on my head.  Through sheets of spray, I saw you smiling and wondered how I’d look laying on the bottom, all oxygen pushed out of me, something wrecked and water-logged. 
In an instant, I made up my mind.  Better to be driftwood than flotsam.  I threw myself into the pounding surf, flailing arms and kicking legs, thrashing through the water to where I imagined you’d be on the other side.  Knowing that without reaching you, I’d forever feel your arms, lifting me up, pulling me from the pool.  Laying me on the stinging concrete, your lips pressed to mine, with the sun beating us down.
I knew as I took in mouthfuls of pool water that wherever I made land, you’d be there, forever beside me.  And the sun would be shining on your cappuccino skin, glinting electric in the silver of your hair.  And you would gently lay me in a shady spot.  You would lie down beside me.  Even if I sunk like a stone from too much of everything, you would make sure that our promises were kept.