47 292
Not Near London
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Anyway, when she is tired,
really tired, she can’t even
stand music. Not even
Bugz in the Attic, never
mind Jasper’s indie stuff.
The effort of selecting
something to match her
mood, the film in her head:
it is huge, sometimes, that
effort.
She looks at her fingers.
They are no one else’s
fingers. They’ve gone with
her all through her life, and
will carry on going with
her until she is old, which
is something that won’t
happen to her because
she is going to stay young
forever. Three years doing
art practice as well as
theory, and she still can’t
draw the five fingers on
a hand. They always look
like tentacles or soggy
chips or erect dicks. A
hand disguised as a chip
buttie. Her dad had the
same fingers, apparently:
long and slender.
The pencil just will not
cooperate.
Soon she’ll be desperate
for a piss and she hates loos
on trains. They wobble and
they stink. She’s had too
many wees today already.
She closes her eyes and
swirls away into slumber.
She is singing to some
people in a big open party
tent with a hammer drill
working next door. There
are about ten people
sitting there in smart kit
at the tables and she has
to duck under a flap in
the billowing sides of the
tent. Silky. She looks at the
words and wonders what
the tune should be: it is an
old-style song, an English
folk song, traditional with
a hand over its ear. What is
she doing, pretending she
can sing? The words are
stapled to the music and
the people are waiting.