30 292
Adam Thorpe
30
England’s
navel.
Ever
noticed? On a map?’
The thing is, you can
never really tell. Like you
can never really tell what
they are up to in politics
or what might be going on
agriculturally with those
acres and acres of snowy
fields fringed by trees that
are now passing them
slowly in the January
greyness outside.
Jasper won’t give up. He
never does. He’s way too
cool to carry around a
sketchpad, right? So he is
drawing on a bare patch
of the
Observer
, where an
advert for AT&T has left a
lot of square inches blank
to draw your attention.
Deft with a pen, is our
Jasper. She snuggles up to
him as his map of England
turns into a person with a
big East Anglian lard-arse
bum and a love handle
above the Bristol Channel.
The Wash is the small
of the back, so where
she was brought up for
eighteen years was the
tail bone. The rails are
uneven or maybe the bolts
have not been inspected
regularly enough so he has
problems keeping his hand
steady, but he does it well.
It looks better like that –
a bit shaky, early Hockney
or Emin or whatever. The
Yorkshire Moors are the
shoulder but there are no
arms. That reminds her
of the life class, second
year, when the bloke
with the amputated leg
posed and no one, but no
one, said anything – they
just drew light and shade
and felt virtuous because
they didn’t comment and
Suzie had felt a bit sick
as she drew the stump,
its puckered and glossy
skin. Bike accident on the
bypass, apparently. Pedal