For Talin. My living cathedral who inspired this.
“Words were originally magic…By words one person can make another blissfully happy or drive him to despair.” Dr Sigmund Freud.
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(excerpted from novel “T is for Cathedral” by Amanda Bransgrove.)
…. pp34-39….
SPRAWL
I can’t keep my hands off you, you say.
I had no plans of having sex with you today and here we are in bed, naked,
Me, sprawled on top of you.
Sprawled like a New York City block in a boom.
But I don’t think we are in New York anymore.
Not really.
I’m locked up inside myself. You my muse, my love, my everything. I have to block you out.
I am hating the person my love for you has made me become.
FLYING SAUCERS
William Orbit : You know too much about flying saucers
‘You know too much about flying saucers’, you said
Laughing.
Your laugh like tinkling piano keys
I laughed too
At your laugh.
So sweet, you honey, dripping onto me, toast.
I am sitting across from you eating morning tea. Sundays together always so pleasant. I relish this day of the week with you. He is always busy on Sundays. Football, or the pub or whatever. I don’t ask. I don’t care. I am not thinking about him. I have pushed those thoughts into a ball and have kicked it over the fence so I can spend quiet days with you. Wonderful you.
I never expected the ball to be passed back to me.
Sometimes when you say certain things, I told you once, I get this tingling feeling all over that explodes from my heart and then rushes down my arms and to my feet. It makes me shiver with happiness.
I am lap dog happy and yapping for your cuddles and time
‘Flyer saucers’ I said ‘were first documented in the middle ages’
‘A silver disc was reported over Yorkshire in 1290’ I tell you
‘Yorkshire’, you say, through mouthfuls of toast. ‘Yorkshire?’
‘You sure it wasn’t some airborne pudding thrown up in disgust?
It was silver, I said. Matter of fact.
Well, an enormously HUGE Yorkshire pudding made from pewter.
You laugh again and I laugh, out of enjoyment for you.
You refuse anything unknown or supernatural
You only believe in what you can touch and see.
Like my skin
And my hair
And your skin and your hair
And when they touch each other, you say ‘I feel amazing’.
You spell it out to me. Letter for letter. Cradling me in your arms. You kiss me on the forehead. ‘Stop thinking too much’ you tell me.
‘The thing is, I cant think TOO MUCH. I cant think enough. I cant keep up with my thoughts. My thoughts just wont stop. They gallop around in my head like a carousel gone out of control
I am my own Luna Park. Going loony. It’s not just the moon doing this to me. It’s not some out of this world experience. It’s concrete. It’s you and me. It’s US.
Thoughts of UFO’s is merely distraction from the supernatural sized mess we have created here. You and me. By falling in love. By loving each other.
This adulterous act. A crime well before 1290.
‘Jews were banished from England in 1290. Did you know that? By Edward the First.’
‘Maybe it was the aliens? You say. Still being ridiculous.
‘No it was the English’ I reply.
Head down staring into my tea cup. Politics has never mattered to you. You have always breezed through life untouched by such things it seems. Persecution never crossed your mind. You are innocence embodied even while from our bed we sing transgressions. I don’t know how you do it.
I can’t stop my mind. I can’t fly away from this huge world of feeling.
I am caught in my own trap.
I research adultery in legal books.
I discover that adultery used to be referred to as criminal conversation.
Even our words then, are illegal.
Even our words.
It’s words that started this.
Words between us. within us.
It’s all words.
Criminal minds now. Creating illegal words.
We are in this together.
But someone is going to be punished I guess
I can see it now
Judge peering at me over a raised gavel
Accusing fingers point at me from the dock
The bible requests death by strangulation states the judge
It’s the seventh of the ten commandments.
Punishable by death by strangulation according to the Old Testament.
I wish I could choke my mind.
Put a hold on these thoughts.
I never thought loving anyone could be so painful.
Your presumed innocence persecutes me.
WONDER WOMAN
I’m no superman.
I said to you.
Slumped against the kitchen cupboards
On the floor
Despairing
I told you what I want, you said
I just want you.
But you want the me without feelings
You want the me who doesn’t get jealous or upset or well, simply wonder.
You home with husband
Me here alone
It’s not like that you insist
It’s not
‘Well what is it like?’ I said
I’ve been sitting here using my x-ray vision to see through to your truth
And seeing lies. But you say to me, over and over, you are just too imaginative you say.
Too imaginative. Too imaginative.
I look at you. My wonder woman.
With your Wonder Woman black hair, Wonder Woman red jacket and Wonder Woman stars decorating your scarf
Your gold bangles jingle jangle
There is no justice here.
I do nothing but bring betrayal upon you.
PUZZLE
When we made love for the first time i lay there with you breathing
Catching my breath that was escaping from me and letting feelings of you fill me up
i remembered what you had told me
that you have never made love to anyone else but your husband before
but the pieces of the puzzle just didn’t match up
A jigsaw I couldn’t put together
I had to ask you again.
Is it true? I said. What you told me about your sex life?
What you said. That there’s only been you and my husband?
I am um, well, surprised i said
unsure of what to say i didn’t want to embarrass you or make you uncomfortable but on the other hand i found it impossible to believe what you had said
I have made love to women from all over the globe it seems
from Paris to Portugal to Port Louis to Pretoria
Places with names I couldn’t pronounce
Apparently my Swiss-German is flawless though. Admittedly i can only say my name and ask you if you know what time the bus comes. But there’s something about the Australian accent makes my Swiss-German perfect. Pure luck perhaps. Whatever it is. it worked with Luna.
But in the end, she too went back home. They all end up going home. I couldnt even pronounce the name of the city she lived in let alone her full name.
Just call me Luna she said i as struggled to say her name that she had written down for me. just call me Luna, ok?
And like the moon she was too. The way she had appeared, suddenly, one of those days when it’s a clear sky and you look up and find yourself looking at the moon in the middle of the day.
And when she went home she just disappeared one day too. Waxed in waned away.
I’m not saying to this to make myself out to be some kind of don juan. nor to condemn myself either. It’s irrelevant where you have come from. And if I could have been with the one woman all this time who I loved dearly I would.
I have looked for love for my whole life. In every country it seems. You just managed to stay in one place with it.
Each to their own.
But when we made love the first time it was just one simple movement to the next
No ‘there’ or ‘here’ or ‘more’ or ‘faster’
Nothing like that
Just you and me
Doing what came perfectly naturally
It wasn’t til later when i realised what i had done to you
après moi, le deluge
You can’t break that which isn’t yours.
But you own my heart. My body. And my heart.
I have surrendered control. I am waving to you on the shore. Can you see me?
Waving or drowning. I am not sure which. I am not sure at all.
We are on the phone and you are telling me about your dream last night. you know how you had nightmares? you say. well i had the opposite.
‘What?’ I say. ‘A wet dream?’ I giggle, you giggle.
Then state, ‘yes’.
‘It was great!’
‘With whom?’ I ask. ‘Your husband?’
‘No’ you answer angrily. You know and I know I just said that to stir you up.
I’m sorry. I say quickly.
‘I will give you one guess’ you ask me, still excited about your dream.
‘Me’. I say.
Its not a question. It’s a statement.
I knew you are telling me because you want me to know the answer.
‘Of course it was you’, you say.
‘What was I doing?’ I ask cheekily.
‘Tell me!’
You say ‘no’.
‘I will tell you when I am in bed with you. I won’t waste this on the phone.’
stretching my limbs after a long sleep
a slow walk on a beautiful morning
a cool golden ripe mango on a hot afternoon
a long shower after hot car drive home from work
What do you do when there is one piece of the jigsaw left to go and it’s the wrong one?
Your rational mind wants to know – how did that happen?
Did the jigsaw of London Bridge get mixed up with captain cook’s cottage?
Is this some other jigsaw’s sky?
The one with the Sydney Harbour on it perhaps?
You want to push it in, force it but what’s the point?
Another voice inside then tells you be calm, you know what the picture is, what’s one little space with little rounded corners?
One little tiny-weeny missing piece?
Whats the difference?
But thats the difference between a puzzle unfinished and a pretty picture.
The difference between you and me. One gold band is all that separates us. And your unwillingness to let go of that. You dont wear it around me anymore but you dont have to. I know its there. It’s etched in my mind and not on my hand.
It’s that fact that drives me crazy.
It’s the fact I watch you drive home. To cook him dinner. While I sit here in my broken kitchen full of unwritten dreams and an empty pantry because it’s been too cold too wet to leave the house and I’m too lazy and too full of words to leave my writing.
To leave what keeps me full.
And im always full of feelings of you when you leave.
But how quickly this deflates as soon as i picture you in your house. The house you share with him.
When I finish work, you ask me over. For the hundredth time. I say NO. For the hundredth time. I won’t come over while HE is HOME. I emphasize the words so you can’t possibly misunderstand me. Impossible for you to misunderstand me.
You seem lost in some schoolgirl crush with me. I am starting to distrust you.
But its fleeting. Like all bad feelings between us. Suddenly we are laughing again and it’s all ok.
How do you do that to me?
I say something, you say something. I feel sad and hurt. iI tell you i am going to date other people.
I tell you i cant cope anymore.
You say ‘ok, I understand.’
But I don’t. i don’t understand me. That’s the problem. and I don’t understand how you can just keep things the way they are.
I’m your dirty little secret.
I am.
But I’m falling down a big deep well and you are my rope.
I crawl up to the top where you have been waiting for me.
‘Why did it take me so long’ you say.
you smile and kiss me.
i fall into your arms and the well is no more.
‘Drink from me’ you say and I sup.
CARPARK
Shopping centre car park I can’t remember why I brought us here.
I was leaving work late and you had other things planned.
We had made love today with sweat coating me and sweat coating you.
Landed in my bed clinging like glad wrap to each other.
Then you had to leave quickly and get back to work. Too soon. My heart a sad tug boat dragging behind you.
It’s evening now. Cold outside. Black shiny road. It’s wet and damp. I think of your black hair stuck with sweat to your forehead as you lay under me today. A flood of you and me. I still feel your warm body full inside me.
I draw back my archer’s bow.
I call you.
I want to see you I say. Definite. Determined. Unswerving.
Now.
You say ‘Oh ok.’
I say ‘the shopping centre.’
‘Bookstore.’
‘We can get coffee.’
‘Be there in 15.’
It’s half way between your house and mine. An easy target. A bullseye to our cupids. You head north, me south. 15 minutes each.
‘Ok.’ You say. Unquestioningly. Unfailing in your constant love for me. Today.
A double bullseye.
Why can’t it always be like this?
I see you as you are walking a beeline from carpark to bookstore. I grab your arm. ‘Hi’ I say gently. You grab me again. Like you did earlier today. By the shoulders. Hard. ‘Let’s just sit in the car’ you say.’I have cigarettes and music. It’s dark there.’ You look at me from under your winter wool beret. Your hair for once isn’t straight. It’s naturally curly and loose around your collar. You haven’t brushed it since we made love today. It makes you look so much more relaxed. Your face smooth and soft. I want to take you right now. Tuck you into my bed. Explore your island home.
But we are in a car-park.
The fluorescent lights of the late night shopping centre are white upon white glaring burning white bright.
Not at all welcoming.
So we sit in your car. And still we can’t get close enough to each other.
‘Come here.’ You say. I come closer. Till I am sitting on top of you in the front driver’s seat.
I kiss you and sigh.
You laugh at me.
‘You are so beautiful’ you say.
I smile huge for you.
I can always smile with you.
What cupid sent us here? I think.
I look around. Beyond you, beyond the foggy windows. To the expanse of carpark outside. Cars. People pushing shopping trolleys. Hurrying home.
It’s just concrete. Painted lines.
Shooting us straight into heaven. Inside your car.
Filed under: excerpt from novel , excerpt from novel, T is for Cathedral, Talin, William Orbit
