DEAR DEAR I'M DONE

That's it, I can't read anymore. My eyes are done, at the very least. The letters of Louis' that I have come to call Dear Dear can now go glide a while, over a headland. I'm done. Translation tears you in two. How do you do. The camera I sold to a woman wearing in her hair a red swirly ribbon. The computer I sold to Hagerty, a local who answered the ad. He wanted it for his girlfriend for university, before her father jumped in and bought her one in his place. Beat him to the punch he did. That'll show him. Hagerty is due to pick up the machine in the morning. He's already paid full in cash. Good bloke they call him. I ask him what he knows about hostels in Melbourne. He shakes his head, says he might one day see me there. But says it could take a while. This is a record. I do not know what I will find. Letters are often a lie.

MASTORNAVINE, WATCHING THE LAMP

Soren - Watching the lamp won't suffer the bulb, you may as well wait for the switch - It comes hairless, forgets your name - Comes uninvited, laden with gifts - Removes borrowed stockings with a toothbrush - And examines cuticles under seaside strobes - Making amends with cuts and cold coffee sandwiches - While ordering in overdrive entrees with grapefruit juice - Eyes full of lightbulbs, it clicks on the band aid covered heater - Winding up as a timepiece telling fairytales with bad jokes every nineteen hours - In lines watching lamps on lent only legal pads - In a building left standing on a favourite Beirut street.

MASTORNAVINE, YOU CAN CONTACT ME

Soren - You can contact me at the next hotel when I reach another half century - Meanwhile keep gallivanting, and decline all offers to preside over any board of directors, for it would only make you crabby - Keep rotating too those trusty snow chains of yours, all the while maintaining a safe distance from the latest flickering shiny news - By noon yesterday, we found ourselves surrounded by workers’ struggles, eventually derailing in front of a Buenos Aires apartment block - Green uniforms rifled through the science of our injuries, shuffled through the different doors of our correspondence, and kept insisting on pushing through their own version of events they found gathering dust in the archives - Much depended now on the queen in the bed folded up in the best looking blanket, who would be, indisputably, leaving in the morning - Back out on the street again, I suddenly liked the look of every surrounding word burst - Behind a bombshell, a rack of Russian - And of the world’s hurt, I try not to think twice, until that instant when, without warning, a most notorious rifle shoots Roger - Mora

MASTORNAVINE, LATELY SO USED TO SOLITUDE

Soren - Lately so used to solitude sudden company seems strikingly peculiar - Occasionally so much so I need to determine whether the woman lying beside me is part of some elaborate dream - On her suggestion I rub some blood from the cut on my finger into her milk cloudy nipples - Back outside the hotel, heavenly lost in the laneways - Market stalls piled high with dry beans - Salamis in all shapes and sizes - Festooned ranks of cheeses - Early evening corn on the cob steamed in seaweed with lobsters and clams - Mora

MASTORNAVINE, DO YOU REMEMBER

Soren - Do you remember Seasons All November Fire? - Down on the wire, sharing seats with chickens, crossed blackened feet, bales of hay, and wailing toothless peasant women - Clutching their tickets and loudly lamenting their rapidly rootless state - In the mirror the scars resemble maps never before encountered - Leading the curious into corners never before seen - Drawing all desire through the apparition of perpetual doubt - Where everything is always at its beginning and nothing ever comes to an end - Then there's the latest picture postcard that takes turns fanning the brow - As the world awaits the four horsemen and whatever clowns are still hooked to such obsolete harnesses - Further from the owl and the ghost of a cowardly cactus - Still stranded under a yellow moonlit window of memory - Mora

MASTORNAVINE, AS THE STRAPS CUT TIGHTER

Soren – As the straps cut tighter into my arms, eventually I shall start crying –Not tears of pain or sorrow though – But rather laughter – A constant formidable flow shall pour down my face – Help carve out deeper and deeper lines into my features – The floor before long growing more and more slippery beneath what were once the steadiest of feet – While the keeper of the wolves walks steadily behind – Never lagging or needing to run – I’ll catch sight of him occasionally – Coming round a corner in the distance or appearing out of a wood I have only just left – No more than a glance though will I ever get of him – For it is never too long before registering his presence that I turn and start running again – And for years now these wolves have been on the chase – Before they finally catch up – And dive right in – But far from causing me any harm, their bites give me strength – My skin strangely welcoming their latest range of scars – Mora

MASTORNAVINE, IF I AM A CLOCK

Soren – If I am a clock there is a woman sitting in the sand at nine – Crosslegged – Her long blonde hair hanging straight down her back – Perfect posture – A small dog running around her, yelping at the surf – Nearby, a young girl frolics in the water – Kicking the froth around her ankles – Nobody else is around – And now the dog is in the woman’s arms – And the girl stands motionless knee deep in the broken waves – And I must shut my eyes – The now screaming ocean almost too much to bear – Then later, eyes open again, I see the woman still there – Now standing – Now walking toward the dog – And she picks up a piece of driftwood and throws it down the beach – Here comes the girl – They are getting ready to leave – I no longer know what time they are at – And again I have to shut my eyes – Mora

MASTORNAVINE, TENNIS TODAY

Soren – Tennis today down by the river – On the clay court – At one point watching my desperate attempt to reach one of those sly drop shots of hers – Inevitably leading to my falling first through then over the net – The momentum keeping me rolling and making me wonder whether I’ll reach as far as her feet – And she just can’t stifle her laughter any longer – Until finally I come to a stop, somewhat bewildered, and look up at her perspiring face – She says she’s thirsty, but all her water’s gone – I point over back behind my baseline to a near full bottle waiting in the shade – She passes by the net as I slowly get to my feet – I can see she’s watching me out the corner of her eye – As I brush the clay away from my thighs, knees, calves, backside –Tighten my shoelaces – Then go and sit down beside her and watch her gulp gulp gulp gulp down the water - And I bend down and kiss the inside of her thigh where the hem of the pleated white skirt meets her tanned skin – Listen, she says, I can’t think of anything right now I’d rather have in my mouth than water – Later tonight though, she says, when we’re out watching the stars and the rising moon, maybe we could sip some whiskey and make the most of this free time before being summoned back into the fold – And then, she says, before you know it, we’ll be tanned and taut with tickets in our hands and plans plans plans – Mora

MASTORNAVINE, AN ENORMOUS FOG

Soren – An enormous fog completely encompasses a hatred for the outside – As beautiful as anything can be to shatter the calm, though surely there can be no more for us – Who would like to see his seclusion of years? – Thinking at some point in space, a place: others of him – And somewhere within the million miles away, a flash – Light, they say, now carries her – The presence known across the momentary state of death, where light and dark are equal – All the while detesting those who land - Weeping tears falling from ten thousand stony eyes – And she fails to understand that it might be her only chance – Mora

MASTORNAVINE, BORED BUT STABLE

Soren – Bored but stable Anthoniszoon van Aken first counts up the remaining fingers of hope and then subtracts that figure from the complete comedy of distress caused by the lack of a properly sufficient emotional response – Next dividing the resulting nuisance with the number of visions of Ana left to him – Leaving a remainder just within reach – Held timidly in the space between and just above the eyes – Mora

COMMENTARIES, 8

We couldn't get on to the tracks to help. They had to keep us back. That’s okay, I understand. Seems like the whole town was down there that day. Some never managed to get properly back up again. They’re still down there in a way, mourning the mangled. At the memorial service, Father Justin said he had never seen so many injured before. So many maimed. So much destruction. So many dead. He cupped my elbow and wanted us to pray for peace. I almost joined him, out of habit. But this was something else, this was something else entirely. Any solace I might find could only fill a tea cup. That stuff’s not for me anymore, if it ever was. This kind of belief is usually passed on like supporting a particular football team, isn’t it? I’m sure even Father Justin would know that about me now. Not that we’ve talked too much about such stuff. He’s tried a few times but left it at that. He’s an old family friend. He values more highly the lofty climes of love than my sorry ass on a pew. We have an understanding. After what happened, they offered me counseling. I don’t know if they offered Father Justin any. The church probably have their own people who see to that. Justin saw people with their arms hanging off too. He saw the blood, he saw the pouring blood too.

COMMENTARIES, 7

They asked me to tell them anything I saw, anything to do with the man they think was seen around and about. Hair colour, they asked about hair colour. Different kinds of clothes. It sounded on occasion like they were trying to catch me out. But I understand. I doubt I was any help. It wasn’t long after breakfast. I was still trying to wake up. But I do remember seeing a man, a man who stood out to me. He was wearing a woolen hat, that I do remember, it was covering his ears, and I remember because my ears were freezing at the time. I remember because I was cursing myself for leaving the house insufficiently prepared. But I couldn’t stay in any longer, she was going to make me burst. I couldn’t even get down my bacon, she kept going on about the state of the nation, the kind of direction we were heading in, and how come Carl across the street could find some work and I couldn’t. I’ll tell you why, like I didn’t tell her. It’s because of where he puts his nose, that’s Carl in a cup for you, and where he also places other parts of his person, when he thinks no one’s looking, when he thinks no one knows. But a lot of us know, it’s not news anymore. Some women out there value his sort, that’s all, while the others of us on this side of the street are waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting.

ANOTHER YELLOW INSERT

Putting all the poison high on the shelf, I then knocked down the shelf, and used what I could for firewood. That night, the flames were impressive. You could have cooked a cow, a whole cow, if you were that way inclined. But no, nobody was invited over. Now it was time to get going. Leave Katoomba. My leads were leading nowhere. So I stayed long enough to picture the flames rapidly rising to the rafters, grabbed my bag, and headed to the station, a little after dawn. A train was due to roll in anytime soon. Here and there you could barely count your fingers through the thick mist. The platform was empty except for a couple who would appear every now and then and approach the edge, peering either way down the grey yellow tracks in search of the bright one eyed train, which according to their timetable should have pulled in by now. Otherwise they stayed cooped in the waiting room and compared climbing gear. Nearby, braving the weather on a bench, sat an old man wearing a long white beard, which narrowed toward the centre of his chest and was shaped like an arrow aiming at his heart. His head was covered with what resembled a tea cosy, atop a frame of admirable posture, and not just for a man of his age. If he stood up beside you, you'd straighten your spine in a second, lengthen your neck and tuck in your chin, otherwise what remained of your testicles might tighten even further, shoot up your trunk and permanently station themselves behind your chilled nipples. Then came the announcement through a cone from the station master, followed by a face to face debriefing, informing those waiting that the train would not be coming as expected. There was a delay further back on the tracks. Reports were coming through of an accident, some said incident, but for the moment there was nothing specific. Everything was mere speculation. Opinions spread like a house on fire. Soon the platform was crowded with commuters. The sun was sleeping in and the mist in turn was making the most of the sun's sluggish mood. Then I saw him, there in the crowd, waiting with the rest of them. Even if the light were even less than it looked, I still would have recognized him, no matter how many steps away. It was Ava, undoubtedly. He was suddenly a stray amongst a sleepy snake of commuters now about to go down the ramp and around the bend upon being informed that the train would not be coming and that some buses were on their way instead. Ava. He was here after all. And so it looked like I would be staying, staying after all, when I was oh so ready to leave. It's easy now in hindsight to say I was silly to assume that he would turn left at the bottom of the ramp and wait with the others for the buses, but I was, I was silly, I was plain stupid to take my eyes off him for even a second, so that by the time I changed course and ran back down the tunnel and over toward the south side of town, he was nowhere to be seen. After a cup of coffee, I booked a bed in a hostel for a few nights until I could find something more permanent. Then I called Susie to say I loved her and that I wouldn't be coming home after all, and went back to work on the translations.

COMMENTARIES, 6

The sun crept through a crack in the curtain, climbed and caught Jimmy's closed eyes, then turned and crossed the covers on spotting me crouched in the corner, waiting for him to wake. I didn't say a word, just got up, stretched, and went over and sat down beside him on the mattress, chin resting in the cup of my hands. The sun seemed to like what it saw, quickly deciding to do all it could to help me wake Jimmy, for he didn't look like budging anytime soon. So the sun sent its wild waking force through the crack, through the glass of the window, through the flimsy machine patterned material of the curtains, and then sooner rather than later, Jimmy opened his eyes. Then together we listened to the morning mail fall through the slot in the door downstairs and onto the handstitched rug that was a wedding present from my much travelled grandfather, and I smiled and put a finger to his slowly parting lips. Then watching the crack under the bedroom door I listened to his footsteps falling away, then return, more steadily. He closed the door behind him and held up two envelopes. The rest at best were firestarters, he said. He sat back up in bed, slipped his feet under the sheets and thumbed the first envelope open. It was from the university. He was accepted. I remember grinning, shaking my head, and saying over and over: I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. And I took the piece of paper from his cold hands and read it over myself, and then again, while he went about opening the other, smaller envelope, finding inside - wait for it - yes, a postcard, but no, I don't have it and I don't know where it is. Jimmy might know but you'll have to ask him. Of course, you'll have to find him first too. As far as I can recall, the card had no greeting, no words at all for that matter, just a painting, a watercolour if I remember rightly, depicting, as far as could be told, according to Jimmy, the discovery of precious jadeite beneath the surface of the earth by three masked prospectors, whose skeletons could be seen on the outside of their skin, as they stood atop pools of blood which seeped into the colourless soil all around them. That's what I remember at least. And I remember how it was that painting more than anything to do with the university that got Jimmy jumping out of the bed that morning and into the shower so as to be ready to catch the 8.23. Or, like I said, at least that's how I remember it. You'll have to ask Jimmy. If you find him. Is that what you wanted to know? Is that why you came back here? My name is Elise Blayney. This is my statement. Will that do?

COMMENTARIES, 5

I heard a woman there say: Human beings could not have done this. That’s silly. I mean, I think I know what she was getting at, but it’s still silly. I mean, who else is there? Is there an evil out there beyond the human kind? Calling them monsters won’t help either. They called Hitler a monster too, but remember: One monster does not a massacre make. I’m sure they had ample volunteers lining up outside beer halls in Munich, each with the name of their own personal jew stitched into the lining of their lederhosen, on the slight chance of a sudden influx of amnesia, or any disturbing signs of decency that may have suddenly arisen. No, listen to me. Humans did this. We always do this. It’s one of the ways in which we make our mark. One of the many ridiculous ways of trying to achieve an immortality project. And now we’ve reached the stage where it’s all stations go. We find ourselves destroying a train full of morning commuters and schoolchildren. It has become part of the parcel. I just happened to be there, that’s all. I was about to pass over the bridge, I mean, I was coming up to it, approaching it, I was close, but not too close, otherwise I wouldn’t be here now. Then it was as if the earth tore itself open from the inside. What use is democracy, one woman wailed, what is the point? I had no response to such an outcry. I admit, I almost laughed. I had to turn away. Then everything seemed to stop. I went about my day. Afterwards, they said I was a great help. I did what had to be done, that’s all. And I don’t want to talk about it anymore. There’s nothing I can say. All I know is that one moment I’m watching the police standing guard by the wreckage, the rescue crews toiling away under the sun, and then it’s night and they’re hauling away huge blocks of rubble with the aid of chains and cranes and consistent cooperation.

COMMENTARIES, 4

I was in the kitchen peeling potatoes when I heard the train going by faster than ever before. Then there was a huge bang. There was a giant cloud of smoke. The rescue workers asked me to bring blankets. I brought all the blankets and sheets I own. I saw a man climbing out of the train. His hands were covered with blood. He was calling out a woman’s name. I remember that clearly, because it’s my sister’s name too. Only for a split moment did he resemble her husband. I took a deep breath. It was easy to see who was dead so we set about covering the wounded. There were bodies on the line. One man was lying there naked. They covered him up. People were wandering around with blood all over them. Nobody knew which way to go. You could see the wreckage from my front window. I know one of the ambulance drivers, they call him Beni, but his real name is Constantine, or at least that’s what his girlfriend says, Maria, who I see at Marigold’s on Tuesdays. All day long Beni ferried the injured to hospital, and then once his shift ended he didn’t know what else to do with himself, and so he went back to the scene and sought some kind of higher authority I suppose. I wonder where he should send the bill.

COMMENTARIES, 3

You wouldn’t recognize me now if you knew me before. You’d know what I meant if you’d been here yesterday, when my sister came to visit. Seven years older than me she is, though you wouldn’t know it now for looking, no, not now. Only on the outside though, I must say, for inside it’s another matter entirely, I’m sure of it. Inside, I feel blessed to still even be here. Blessed, or just plain lucky, call it what you will, depending on your point of view, where you’re sitting, or how close you come to look into my eyes. And look, you should really look, because unlike some people I can’t hide behind my eyes. I’m as naked as a newborn. So look, see the gratitude. Of course you can see the sadness too, but that’s to be expected. Anything less and I wouldn’t be human. I wouldn’t be talking to you, I wouldn’t be telling you what I saw. The tremendous rattling, the tremendous shaking, like the land itself was trying to shake me awake. And tears, yes, they’re also to be expected. Infrequent, irregular tears. I stared at Tara’s shoes while she stroked my fingers. We didn’t say much but it was good for our skin to touch again. The shoes looked as if they’d been recently stitched. Maybe she’d just been to a cobbler. My eyes travelled over the red leather while her fingers travelled my fingers, rubbing my nails, my knuckles, massaging my joints, as pictures of stitches, welts and woe, circled the edge of my vision, that up till then was cushioned in codeine, and doing its utmost to deter further infiltration. But they inhibit wholeness, these types of medicines, and I won’t be taking them anymore. Tea will do. Tea will do fine. Trying to push down all those sights and sounds is not an option. Let them rush all over me. If that's what they want. Let them lick me clean. If the actual attack couldn’t kill me, then how could the memories? So I will sit here and wait and see it through. Tally my scars, or connect them in my mind like a dot to dot puzzle, and go on from there.

COMMENTARIES, 2

You could just as well say it all happened yesterday, you could, and I wouldn’t be wrong. Such matters show that time isn’t what we think it is. That’s what I say anyway. I wondered aloud to the man beside me how easy it would be for the flames to pass through the carriages, if a fire broke out and nobody acted in time. It was strange because I wondered this aloud to the man beside me with whom I had only exchanged the most cursory of greetings when we'd boarded. I wondered this, full of wonder, but it was obvious that we were not on the same page. He merely glanced over to the cafe and then emitted from his shut mouth a sound that could only be an acknowledgement that he’d heard me, and not much else. He went back to reading his newspaper. Maybe the newspaper got me thinking such thoughts in the first place, I mean I recall reading an article once, before I finally stopped reading the papers altogether, before any of this happened. It happened in Cairo I think, a few years ago, or it could just as well have been last week. Yes, it was Cairo. The morning train to Luxor. A fire broke out, it might have started in the cafe, or maybe a gas cylinder burst. The flames quickly spread. Witnesses said that the bars on the window prevented more people from escaping. A lot of them died anyway, those who did get out, as you would, jumping from a speeding train. I wasn’t a witness of course, I was more than that, I was right there, in the bloody filling of the chaos sandwich, destined for a stomach already way past full. I’m a survivor. I was. I am. Time starts to play tricks on you. In your mind’s eye you can see the newspaper photo at the scene of the devastation. Remnants of bodies burnt beyond recognition. You can’t help but look and wonder: Is that a skull charred to the bone? But as to what exactly happened to you yourself, you remain unsure. Though certainly I remember the sound, the sound that seemed to signal the tearing open of the sky. I almost expected horns to follow. Then a black faced man, one of his shoulders the width of my two, carried me out like a doll into the cool spring air, despite my telling him that I could walk, despite my telling him that I was fine, put me down, there’s barely a scratch on me, go, go help someone who needs it.

MARGINALIA, 2

Here in this neck of the woods I could either sink or swim. The locals stress on sticking to the path, especially at night. For not that long ago some drunken english went to watch the stars at the end of the world, stumbled on some crag and caused at the very least a crick in one of their red necks, tearing their flesh and tumbling one or another over the edge like a tangled ball of beer soaked string. I spotted Joseph Balam making the rounds of the rotisserie. Eventually we came to chat again by the club's coffee machine. He looked different. The neat manicured beard gone in favor of a thin mustache that if anything only accentuated his potential mischievousness. He said he was surprised to see me again. I spoke of a persistent desire to make everything clear, once and for all. But why, why come back, he wanted to know, before confirming that yes, he did receive in the post a picture postcard a short while before the crash, and yes, it'll still likely be around the house somewhere, and yes Louis, you can have it if you want, before adding:

MARGINALIA, 1

Still living alone with two cats, Danby was much as I remembered him. I did not doubt for a moment he would open the door. We caught up a little while he made some tea. He wondered what had brought me back. I gave him some answer about smoothing out all the edges of the story just as my eyes were catching sight of the postcard pinned to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a seashell. It was true. The man in the hotel that night was right. There it was, right in front of me: one of the handmade watercolor postcards he was talking about. There, on Neville Danby's fridge, amongst all the other shotgun splattered memories vying for space and attention amid old shopping lists and a parking fine. Then he offered me some bread. Good, I thought, he's at least baking again. He's a master. But there was nothing from his oven for a good while after what had happened that morning on the train tracks. Neighbors said he simply stopped baking. Just like that. They said the walls around his house suddenly smelled lonely. They were missing the dough magic of a man who could warm your belly like the sun. Poor peeling walls. They must have got plastered when he picked up his pastry brush again.

COMMENTARIES, 1

They called me a witness, and requested, no, demanded my presence down at the precinct. Did the voice on the other end of the line really say precinct, or did I suddenly see myself as a guest in some gritty New York crime drama? They said I might have seen something of value. I don’t know. But we need to catch them, whoever did this. We need to put them in chains and block up the lock of their cell with quick drying cement. People like that should be only fed through bars, and fatty fried food at that, so they come down with a coronary. And spit in their water bottles if you like, I don’t mind. Piss in them for all I care. They deserve the darkest dungeons, the lot of them. Or maybe there is just one out there who is responsible for the lot of it. I don’t know. But I kind of doubt it. These things take time, piles of planning. I knew it was no accident. Not that I’ve seen anything like that before. That was certainly a first. I went walking down that way again earlier in the week, just to look, to see if anything jumped out at me, jogged my memory. I just want to help. They need all the help they can get. How are we supposed to go on after something like that? So anyway, I crossed over and turned down the narrow street that runs past the bungalows and lush gardens, rising towards the bridge that now ends in the middle of the air. It was all so quiet. I stood around a while and waited to see if a train would come past. But I couldn’t even hear a bird. I was pretty sure that I could smell something distasteful somewhere but I might have been imagining it. All the same I checked under the soles of my shoes. Nothing was there, just some sort of dust, from all the crushed concrete perhaps. The concertina I inherited from my grandfather now reminds me of that morning, the way the carriages were piled up.

A YELLOW INSERT

Here a handwritten page can be found, inserted just before the part of the manuscript entitled: Commentaries. It's in Louis's hand.

Start anywhere said the reporter, between sups of whiskey - While awaiting a flight to take him far, far from the no longer satisfying smell of foreign climes - Start anywhere I said, he said again - Regardless of their names - What they were called - Before - Before their names became a number in a queue - Sure you might only be freelance now but you're still one of us in a way he said- It's changing every day - Credentials however can be a godsend - It can be the difference between a scrape and an almighty scar - Or a box back home - Then he orders another drink that comes and nods hello before leaping down his gullet like a frightened brown mouse - They're calling his flight - We're heading in opposite directions - He's back to Europe - Meanwhile everything is becoming more like a dream - Then I'm waking again, this time on a train slowly climbing some mountains - Gradually leaving behind any trace of the flatlands - Later in the afternoon a blue boisterous spirit breath along with an awesome age old silence - Encountered on the outskirts of the thin vein of humanity that fragilely runs through the wilderness - The town of Katoomba - Have a closer look, it could just as well be Clonmel today, or Crouch End, mainly on account of the mist, the soft rain, though largely jet lag I guess - I get a bed for the night and play ping pong with a friendly Israeli, who finds the score 7-11, each time it comes up, considerably funny - Later we eat vinegar splashed hot chips with his recently acquired Scottish girlfriend - Countries, it has to be countries - For the moment, further identification remains unnecessary - In these our times of terror - Between consistent steady breathing and passport photos - Post offices - Postcards - Convalescence

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 3

The bridge just broke, but everything seems to contradict it. My eyes shift uneasily, and even begin to shake, before being summoned back to the spot where the young mother still stands, curtains draped around her shoulders. ‘Alison,’ she cries, ‘Alison, Alison, it was purer than sound, really. No serious damage done. Tell me where you are, honey, come on, please tell me where you are.'

One of the rescuing troops still hovering around, unsure of what to do next, speaks of the 'absolute devastation,' before he turns up his sleeves and sits straight back down on the scorched ground for a while, staring into space.

The others first who are first upon the scene are the surveyors who ably partition the unsullied soil into patches for all suitable suitors. Behind a boundary marker, a disembodied voice says: ‘I watched the remains and hoped I would soon wake up with something like cramp, or pins and needles. Just something to remind me of the extremity of the situation, but nothing like this. Something I could later use as a reference point, instead of these blunt details which somehow insist upon their own separate existence.’

Another voice says: ‘Raging at my stupidity, I saw, with horrible clarity, the angel deliberately till the earth and the sea until they seemed as one, especially when the train jerked upwards.’

A young girl swings from a railing while posing for photographs for one of the witnesses, her skin stained with blood, not all of it her own. A voice then inquires of her: ‘Are you an acrobat? Are you a gymnast? Please tell me who you are.’

Another passenger recalls standing in one of the groups squeezed together on the diminishing islets of unstained ground, secure in the knowledge, it was assumed, that they were indeed good at the game of life, at least a bit better than those others who perished so suddenly, so simply. And these survivors can now be seen consulting silverlined maps in the hope of securing some sort of destination far from where they're currently found, but all they end up doing is just rowing around in circles.

A tremendous rattling and shaking keeps going on in one of the nearby carriages, now solely situated inside my head. Blue lightning brings along more mass electrocutions. A burnt black piece of corrugated iron flips over in the wind and lodges itself at the bottom of the embankment.

The shuffling, hooded man passes my way again and says: ‘My legs are firmly set on the side of the road and yet I’m still able to hitchhike over chimneys. Here, take my orange pencil and catch a fish before the engine derails and piles into others. Bark to comprehend balance. And pay no attention to my frazzled features.’

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 2

Seen from far below the bridge, the multitude of girls he’ll never see again, quietly appalled by the carnage.

All the colour in the stationhouse has gone. The fire spreads from the bridge right up to the embankment. And yet still wild roses continue to bloom along the only approaching road, extremely conscientious, and occasionally wavering into a single clear flame.

The order came from out of the dark, deriving more than likely from one of those hovering surrounding images, which upon first glance seem so harmless: a cave, a snug, a thicket, an unattended altar.

Now only the remains of the carriages protrude somewhat, hollow and ghostly in the smoky air.

A shuffling hooded man nears a little closer. I notice him out the corner of my eye but pretend otherwise, until finally we’re within speaking distance of each another, and I hope he has something to say, for I myself can think of nothing. ‘It’ll be a lot colder in the morning,’ he says. ‘Expect some frost. And don’t bother hiding behind a windbreaker. Are you afraid of spiders?’

Torn by the force of the impact, the connecting passage at the end of one of the rear carriages stretches skyward like a gaping mouth, directed toward daytime despondency.

Later I see the shuffling hooded man again, crouching beneath a roof of corrugated iron, warming his hands over the few flickering flames left to him, safely out of sight of the authorities. ‘Never fear,’ he says, ‘sunlight will hold up the preciousness that was originally planted in the virgin earth. Don’t you worry now.’

There’s no light in the coach but still plenty of coal, and it makes no sense to speculate. Several of the carriages lie wedged together due to a whim in cursive scratching. The backup safety system never celebrated any flow of success, not even a trickle. And still the shivering notices continue to pile up. 'What about the tip of the final, flattened carriage?' Well, for starters, it couldn’t keep on carrying the burden. Then one of the other committee members points over his pencil and says, ‘Now, despite all the disregard for duty you so eloquently displayed the last time we requested your assistance, we are still obliged in asking you to return once again to that smoke filled hallway. Turn your jacket collar up if you have to, make good use of a scarf, and tuck your hands somewhere away from the grisly scenes going on all around you. Just remember to take your time, have a good look around. Try to notice any discrepancies, anything unusual. Perseverance here is the key.’

THAT WHICH AILS YOU BRINGS YOU CLOSER, 1

The remains of the commuters encompass the railway line as well as the crushed carriages. The next of kin have all been notified and by now nearly all of them have arrived on the scene. Next comes the arduous process of identification.

'Look, there by the flashing light,' a woman cries, recognizing the left shinbone of her dearly (and clearly) departed husband, beloved father of three devoted children. And look, there, closer, nearer to the bloody tracks, a young girl successfully identifies the gnawed through fingernails of her older brother, still attached to the bloody stump of his hand.

Somewhere along the line, seeing no other option, the Earth started its own proceedings. To make it easier to soak up the carnage, it encouraged the human remains to blend together with one another as orderly and quickly as possible. But the growing overwhelming stench hasn’t really helped matters run along smoothly.

Then, from out of nowhere, the City issue a decree for an all-at-one mass cremation. One final, fitting ceremony to end all ceremonies. Complete with punch. Everything connected with the events of the day will be burnt to a cinder. Furthermore, taking into account their well developed principle of utility, the City also come to the conclusion that it would be in everyone’s best interest to give the public the opportunity to add their own personal touch to the ceremony. The ceremony they now predict will one day go down in history as the Great Fire Of Remembrance.

Many of the folk now gathered around have decided upon the option of offering flowers to the flames, ones purposely picked for the occasion. Some simply fling in freshly purchased greeting cards, with personal messages scrawled inside. Others just can’t find the time to select something appropriate and so instead they chuck in cards signed to commemorate some other notable occasion. Some even make the most of the arrangement and add whole boxes filled with cards they no longer need or want. And still others decide that to offer photographs to the flames is the best option of them all, as it’s considered appropriately poignant. Of course, a few try to take advantage of the situation. One man throws in a shoebox collection of love letters long kept from his impetuous youth, reassuring his wife with the words: It’s all for the best, it’s all for the best. Another man, an avid collector of the daily newspaper for over the last twelve years or so, now decides he needs a change of direction in his life. So he adds pile after pile of crusty brown paper to the fire, watching the flames climb higher and higher as he contemplates the void of his days to come.

Soon the streets are paved with all kinds of debris, and it’s not long before pandemonium reigns supreme. Decrepit old ladies get thrown headfirst into the flames and the police take advantage of their position by exacting revenge on those poor sods considered to be persistent troublemakers. And the flames keep climbing.

Sit back and watch as the creditors and debtors start tearing each other to pieces. Screams and cheers easily drown out any futile waves of protest. Many can only look on at what’s happening with their mouths agape.

Don’t forget though, please don’t forget, that beautiful doe eyed girl standing back from all the wreckage in the safety of a dream, seemingly bemused by everything going on today, especially the supposed revelation of an entertainment society.

THE CONDUCTOR

It begins once you awake from that heavy night of sleep, when you slip out from the warmth of the covers and rest your feet on the compartment floor until the cold runs up through your legs. You rise and wipe the sleep from your eyes, open the curtain. Apart from a shadow of reflection, there is nothing to see but darkness.

You are seated, patiently waiting. A faint outline, resembling a set of hills, appears in the distance, but nothing can be confirmed as closer and more prominent sights also pass by the window: namely, masses of shadows, shapes, and various figures that suddenly appear and almost as quickly vanish, only present long enough to distort somewhat any other sights that may or may not be seen.

You approach the glass and look for something to fix upon, something in approximate line with your eyes. The reflection of your pupils, the whites of your eyes and your eyebrows, and the lower part of your forehead, together of course with the darkness, prevent any chance of a clearer view. Look for something in line with your nose, or ears, your mouth, chin or neck, shoulders, chest or stomach: not one angle has a view better than any other.

You return to the bed and sit on the edge and immediately feel the cold bedspring through the thin mattress. You close your eyes and listen closely to the wind outside speed past and in through the small opening at the top of the window, the one and same wind earlier keeping the compartment cool and fresh all the while you were sleeping, completely dressed, snug under the covers. The curtain rings make the exact same sound each time as they slide back and forth on the railing. Soon other sounds fall within reach, bits and pieces that vary in loudness and clarity. You concentrate on them, follow them, but it is not long before you want to stop and move on to something else, as it grows harder to distinguish the sounds you can hear from the sounds you imagine you can hear so as to further pass the time.

Your eyes open. One hand rests on the other, knees not far apart. You try to fix upon a thought but fail to do so, the different images pass back and forth too quickly, and then only leave to be replaced by something else just as fleeting. Some snippets from letters or conversations may appear, or perhaps some colours, distinctive smells, different sights, different settings. You wonder how long it will take before you dismiss all distracting images from your mind for something more substantial.

Your eyes slowly fall and settle on the hills that are now a little clearer in the distance. The shapes, figures, and shadows still appear but they no longer cluster in such a mass, and, although the darkness remains, some of the shadows are a shade lighter than others, and others seem lighter than ever before. Looking up at the sky, albeit sure you are facing the east, there is still no sign of the sun.

Straighten your back. Press your feet flat on the floor. Sit and wait for the break of day. Briefly rise to pull down the window a little further. The figures and shadows and shapes soon disband to reveal a long empty plain stretching to the foot of the hills. A faint but notable orangecoloured glow appears, flickering momentarily, quickly vanishing. Press your face against the glass. The hills overlap behind one another, fold after fold. Since the darkness remains and there is no sign of it changing, you return to the edge of the bed again, and watch the window again, and then rise and see again, somewhere in the darkness between the ground, hills and sky, a similar faint orangecoloured glow. But still nothing happens afterwards, the glow still vanishes, not once does it grow even a little in size.

Your eyes fall and fix on the stopped watch still strapped to your wrist. There is nothing but silence. An old wooden chair from the corner of your room appears, and it captures your attention, along with the question how cold the chair would be if it were the only seat available in a damp, abandoned room, situated somewhere in the countryside, where outside there is one empty plain after another, leading away to where the ground meets the sky, where the sky hardly changes colour from the ground, a pale bluish grey. There is nothing but silence.

You close the curtain and return to bed. You prop your head higher up with the coat on the pillow. Then you pull the covers to the bridge of your nose and close your eyes. Amid the masses of shadows, shapes, and various figures that suddenly appear and almost as quickly vanish (the kind so associated with the darkness behind the eyelids), the gradual image of a train appears, until finally the train station from the night before comes to mind. The clock high up on the station wall is about to strike the hour. You board the nearest carriage and pass empty compartment after compartment, only catching a glimpse of the occasional face with tired eyes looking forward to a quiet night of undisturbed rest. The compartment corresponding to the number on your ticket is also empty, and nothing changes from the moment you first close your eyes and once you awake from that heavy night of sleep.

You unstrap the watch and slide it to the furthest corner under the bed. Then you return to a comfortable position, this time on top of the covers, still facing the window, in particular the small part in the top lefthand corner, where the curtain begins and a small section of glass remains visible. When your feet rise underneath the curtain, resting flat against the glass, the cold is not long in numbing the thickened skin of your soles. The skin of your wrist is soft and white, with little sprouting hairs initially pleasing to the touch. Still the silence remains. Focus on your breathing. Count to ten, then back down to zero. Then count to what you think is a minute, two minutes, three, four, five and six and so on, until you reach another apparent hour, and you open the curtain, and you pull down the remaining window, and you position yourself so you can lean the whole of your head and part of your body out in the early morning air. You begin to see through the darkness a wood. You can smell the pines and the bark and the animals hidden inside the wood. The hills, as if in a dream, are more or less covering the sky, and small flickering patches of faint orangecoloured light break through the leaves and branches of the trees and onto the side of the train. As the train arches round to the right of the nearest hill, and through the remaining wood, you begin to see the sun shine down through the trees and onto the tracks laid out before you.

THE COMPLETE SHORTER WORKS OF LOUIS ALBUQUERQUE

Some of the pages in the manuscript Louis sent are typed, some are handwritten, and some are typed with lengthy handwritten amendments in the margins. And that's just what he got up to before he shut it down and took up residence in some hostel in the south of Australia. The rest he sent - the originals - which he suggested I finish translating, can wait a little longer, it won't kill them.

IT WAS HERE THAT I LEARNED HOW MEMORY

Fold, unfold. Unfold, fold. I don't know what to do with it. I don't know what book Boris was talking about. And I don't know if I want to know. I thought about looking, but I just keep coming back to the pen and ink. I thought about looking but I just keep coming back. Fold, unfold. Unfold, fold.

He knew immediately that I was watching him, loneliness had sharpened his instincts. Orange trees and jasmine were growing in the courtyard and the arches were covered with vines. If life has no intention of doing you any favors, I’d rather go out where I can’t be expecting any. Selfsufficient and indifferent to the suffering of the rest of the world, with the unquestioning straightforward glance of an animal. She led me on along the littered slopes, past shattered china and bits of wire and broken springs and rusty pipes, all glimmering grotesquely in the moonlight. In a way you look older, and in another way you look younger, first one and then the other. It was here that I learned how memory can keep the diseased heart beating. None of it felt real, and for one paralytic moment I was sure that I was gliding away into another sphere of sensations. I feel a small electrical flash of love go out toward anyone I am in contact with, no matter who it is or where. The real remembrance lies in a momentary fragrance. It’s the thing hiding inside that gives us shivers. I knew he was awake, staring straight ahead as if he were gazing into a mirror, searching for something neither on earth nor in the sky. I began to hate him. Physical uneasiness can instil odd thoughts into the mind, thoughts frilled up in all their elaborateness, in all the bizarre intuitive fullness of a dream. But of course the truth is that intimacy and closeness were all an intricate hoax, an ingenious dream, a subtle but halfhearted mirage. Be fragile, be tender, humiliate yourself, and let the discolouration of dream close in on you. The reality becomes a cruel dream while the dream fades into a tender manmade reality. But all attempts at verbal communication he had surely dismissed as vanity years and years ago. A penetrating yet unseeing gaze, as if he were looking through me as through glass down corridors scarcely human. You remain alone, you can’t get inside the rest, they can’t get inside you. A million little spirits each with its own peculiar tastes, hopelessly far away from one another. But as I was beginning to doze off I heard a sound, a low buzz, steady and quite unexplainably frightening, the sound of time rolling past, and the world turning on its tiny axis. In my dream it appeared, among other things, that the oranges had dried out, had turned hollow and metallic, had changed into little bells.

TILL THE LAST TRICKLE

1 - JR - And how goes the camera? - The computer? - Hope they're working for you somehow - And I wonder whether you're doing any reviews - Or have left that malarkey behind - There is a pizza here that tastes as if it has been mysteriously transported straight from the best wood fired oven in Italy - Served by dark haired, dark eyed slender beauties - Kind, gentle - So gentle and kind - Susie is better off - For me monogamy at best has only ever had the slightest of holds anyway - Do you remember those girls when we were about 13 or 14? - Nicola something or another with me - Siobhan something or another with you - It was an Irish name at least - Even though she sounded as if she was mere steps away from ascending to the english throne - God we thought we were in love - At first -And I suppose in a way we were - I don't know about you but I felt in some kind of love with each of their friends too - Yes even Siobhan - There were about seven or eight girls in that group and I desired them all - And listen, I don't think much has changed

2 - No I don't think much has changed at all - There is an older man here at the hostel who says women will always be a torment till the last trickle of testosterone has left and packed up for new climes - Jesus it's a wonder I ever got married at all - Growing from a boy I would observe various men who had sworn loyalty and dedication and who knows what else to the woman beside them - White white white - At various functions - In hotels - Embassies - Wherever - And even before I first needed to shave they struck as belonging to either one of two kinds, as a result of marriage - Or if they were particularly unfortunate, both - Drunks or Idiots - And so I swore eternal bachelorhood - And yet - And yet, here I am - Stuck on the underside of the world - Looking for something likely no longer there - Likely gone, gone for good - Good

3 - Good - She's better off - Besides everything else, I got tired of terrorism too late - What in the end does it matter who did what to whom? - What the hell was I looking for? - Some secret - Likely in the end some silly secret - And then all of a sudden it's too late - Your world, your world in the end evaporates - And yet all the same I can't help but wonder what has become of my papers - Those I sent you - Way back when - And I wonder whether you took a stab at translating any of the ones I never got to - I mean, if so, you could have made Mr Dunnerly proud - Wherever he is - He was a good teacher - He was a good man - Melbourne's mighty cold - A different kind of cold - Wait, there's a Sudanese cab driver I know trying to catch my eye - Later - LA

KEY OF THE DOOR

Boris is dead. I found him. He was sitting in his spotted armchair. Not sleeping. Dead. Appearing to be asleep. But not asleep. Dead. He didn't come to bingo. He said he was going to come to bingo but he didn't come to bingo. We spoke earlier in the afternoon. He was working on another wall. I said it was that time of the month again, come on, let's go have a drink together, and just listen to the numbers as they come up, they might remind us of old phone numbers in our lives, that kind of thing, and bring up associated memories, and what not, who knows. He chuckled at the phone number idea but all the same said he'd come. But he didn't, he didn't come. Numbers were being called. I surreptitiously sank some sauvignon blanc and then snuck out the side entrance between the calling of numbers. There was no answer at his door. Boris, I said, between knocks. Boris, Boris. But still no answer. I knew he wouldn't have been outside, it was getting too late, the sun was setting, the wind was picking up, and history showed that he would have by now called it a day, he would have by now popped a stout bottle open and quietly supped from a glass (in the meanwhile) before his early evening comedy came on. Boris. Boris, come on, open up. So I turned the knob and found it unlocked. And there he was, upright in his armchair. I knew as much then as I ever would. The crux of the matter being that I had to get out. No, not the room necessarily, but the whole place. The retirement village. There was something wrong with the whole set up, the whole idea that these elderly live out their last breaths surrounded by one another, each in a lonely room, with framed photographs on the walls of family and better times. There was just the other day the man in 23 needing a lightbulb changed, and the handyman was away, so I said I'd take care of it. He was a teacher in times past. On the wall were framed photos of his family, as well as framed handwritten poems from his students over the years, and what looked like framed examples from students' exercise books. English composition. Spelling. Comments on Blake's Songs of Innocence. Earlier in the day I'd been talking with the woman in unit number 17 again. She'd mentioned how in Yorkshire during the Second World War she and her co-workers at the bank would take it in turns to go up onto the roof after hours to help keep watch for German planes. I want to fly away. I want to fly again. I want to fly away, Boris. Boris, look at you. In your lap a piece of paper, betwixt thumb and forefinger, unfolded, and the prominent creases reminding me of the streets in a simple well laid out city in which I might like to one day take a casual tram ride around, cold bottle of beer in hand, cute girl by my side, and a conductor checking tickets with the gab of one Harpo Marx. Boris, come on, wake up. But he wouldn't wake up, of course he wouldn't, he was dead. Come on, man, he's dead. Get it together. So I took the piece of paper from his lap and carefully folded it back up, put it inside my inside coat pocket and then went back to the recreation hall to go look for Mrs Shearer and let her know what had happened. She was in between calling out numbers again. I went up and whispered about Boris, and she nodded and then went about calling the next number. Then someone called out bingo. Motioning me with a tilt of her head, I followed her to the head office and she closed the door behind me. Are you sure? she wanted to know. Yes, I'm sure, I replied. They're not supposed to do that here, she said, and which I took to mean to die. They're supposed to be able to look after themselves, she said, they're supposed to be in better health than that, otherwise we would have sent them elsewhere. A hospital, or one of those places where there's a nurse to take care of your needs, feed you, wash you, if necessary, that kind of thing. Then her cheeks suddenly went red and she started crying. I was about to tap her on the shoulder and say 'There there', but something better immediately came along and told me to do otherwise, which meant to do nothing. And I had no idea if she even knew Boris.

A SOLITARY PERIOD

A letter from Louis arrives, it's there waiting in the cold metal mailbox when I get back from another day pulling out ivy cascading down a rocky embankment. It's written over three postcards, numbered, and placed in an envelope.

1 - JR - The entries in the journal I've been keeping - Since coming here again - To look for Susie - Have been getting shorter and shorter - And it's not a matter of finding the time - Oh there's time - I'm still at the hostel, and there's an arrangement now for board in return for helping clean the rooms - Vacuum the halls - Sign in new guests - Oh there's time - But still the entries are getting shorter and shorter - So I've stopped - Stopped before I make an entry under a date that has nothing more than a question mark - Or maybe not even the squiggle of a question mark - Just a period, a solitary period - She's gone - Susie - I don't expect to see her again - Or at least anytime soon - Maybe she's somewhere in London after all - I don't know - It doesn't matter - Too late - And yet still an old scene plays over - As I hand over a room key to a couple of Swedish girls in shorts and long shiny tanned legs

2 - An old scene - Back in London - Before all this unfolding - This unravelling - Leaving our London flat one night to follow a lead - A meeting in a hotel - When Susie wanted me to stay and talk it out - Sort it out - But there wasn't time - I had to go - They were waiting - No she said - Something's not right - There's too much left unsaid - Something's awry - Awry she said - Her fine senses kept speaking to her - Prodding her - They wouldn't shut up - She yelled after me down the hall - We haven't finished talking she said - Don't walk away we haven't finished - But to me nothing looked as if it was going to be resolved - It's hard enough to argue with a woman at the best at times - Impossible when time's against you - Everything has to be explained - Clarified - Laid out fully - But the cab was waiting - She yelled after me some more - South Kensington I said to the driver - And left - And the following week I was on a plane to Sydney - Susie was staying with her parents - Or that friend in Clapham Common - I don't know - She was somewhere - It was hard to say - There was no note - And no answer when I called

3 - I thought keeping a journal would help me find her - I was looking for an answer - But I should have listened more carefully on that first day when I wrote that first sentence - Outside at a pub on a headland in the dot town of Tathra - Overlooking the sea - The great heaving sea - The great heaving silent sea - I should have known right then - I should have let it all go - Go over the edge - Into the great heaving silent blue - When I wrote down those first words - Never never never never - That's what I wrote - Shakespeare it wasn't - But it was a start - And I drove on from there - And now here I am months later in Melbourne - Washing sweeping wiping mopping - Smiling - Making do - Like a determined monk - LA

MAN ALIVE

Maida Vale, Marylebone, Paddington, St John's Wood, Queen's Park, Victoria, Westminster, Paddington, were the libraries most frequented by Boris on his walks around London. It had been a while since he had seen her, and then suddenly there she was again, sitting at a table across from him in Paddington, reading the same edition of the International Herald Tribune. He couldn't help but imagine that she was reading the same page as him, and not just the same page but the same article too, and not just the same article but the same part of the article, the same line, the beginning of the same word. Everything seemed to stop then. The light in the library took on a hue more akin to a dream, or at the very least a balmy dusk, when it was in fact midmorning. He knew he had to act. Now was his chance. He knew, but he did nothing. And he still curses, even now, his behavior that day, although the distance of time has, of course, made it all a lot easier. He can, in fact, actually laugh about it all now, and thereby proceeds to demonstrate. Ha ha. Ha ha. But yes, it still haunts him, like a hungry ghoul sometimes, he says. The ghoul can go get out of here. Go on, ghoul, go on. It's funny, he can remember the girl clearly, he says, and the day that his brother arrived in London too, and even how the city smelled that particular morning, whether at the airport or inside the library, but when it comes to trying to recall that book he was reading, that book whose lines still come to him every now and then, no, he cannot recall the name. At best he can scramble after a line once it appears in his thoughts and try with all his might to hold on to it, reach for a pen, if able, and jot down what he can, before it disappears once again into the aether. Then Boris changes the subject and says he hasn't seen me around much of late. I've been working on the other side of the village, I tell him, ripping up ivy which has overrun the garden beds near the hospital, climbing up and sucking the life from some of the surrounding trees. It's been a monotonous slog. And there's a resident nearby, I tell him, who doesn't appear to approve of me sitting under a conifer tree to eat a sandwich during lunch break. I overheard her the other day hanging out some towels to dry and saying as much to another woman, and that I shouldn't be entitled to a lunch break anyway, but that even if I was legally entitled to one, the least I could do would be to stand and eat my sandwich, if I insisted on being in view, for the residents of the village are, after all, helping pay a percentage of my wages, and by sitting under a tree it makes me look as if I'm lazy, which reflects badly on everyone, don't you know. Boris seems to know the woman in question, laughs, and shakes his head. German she is I'd say. So don't let it worry you. Some of them are still smarting from losing the wars.

RED RAW

He could barely meet her eyes. He was so, so timid then. Terribly timid. Often he'd shed weight in shame, it was really that bad. Such a strange, strange sense of self disgust. Often a run, only a run, a wild silly run, would do the trick. He would, afterwards, feel sort of clean again. So strange. Run run run. But never enough, to ever escape. Are you, Boris wanted to know, aware of the relationship between the word timid and the word intimidate? It was a horribly excruciating time, he said. Do you know what it means to be lonely? I mean lonely. I knew menus better than men, and yet I had nothing to pay. Eventually I forgot how to speak. Women looked at me like an untamed dog. And I never knew that that could be an advantage of sorts, not until it was too late. I was simply hungry, that was all. Clueless, and hungry.

WAS SHE WORTH IT?

One day, at Paddington, Boris spotted a  dark haired beauty, who he guessed must have been an Italian. Yes, she must have been a student of English, an Italian student of English who thought that the best place to learn the English language in all its glory would be the English capital itself. London. Of course. How could she go wrong. Oh. Oh. But he never knew for sure, no, Boris never knew for sure, he simply guessed, yes, she looks Italian, she's Italian, that's what she is, that's what she must be, Italian, yes, Italian, unless proven otherwise. 

MAKE THEM WAIT

I tell Boris he's the first Boris I've ever met, and ask if there's any Russian blood in his lineage. No, nothing at all, he says. Apparently his mother had a fondness for the works of Boris Pasternak. He was also close, he tells me, to being called Leon. Boris is a strong sounding name, I say, and I remember watching as a boy Boris Becker win Wimbledon at the record age of seventeen years old. Yes, he remembers that too, watching the match surrounded by two of his daughters, eating turkey pies and mushy peas. After a tea break, I watch Boris from a distance working on a wall. He's seated on a plastic milk crate, rolling a piece of rock around in his hand. Then he stops and reaches into his shirt pocket and takes out a pen and a piece of paper, which he unfolds carefully, as if it were a treasure map. He jots something down, recaps the pen, and folds up the paper again, and puts it away out of sight. A small smile comes to his lips, and then a slight shake of the head. I finish my tea and think about approaching him to talk, but something in me makes me think to leave him alone, I don't know why exactly, but there's something incredibly private about the way he's sitting, pondering, and wondering, and trying to imagine, I can't help but think, the next place to place his latest piece of rock ... He looks as if he's reminiscing, or in some kind of meditative state more akin to a monk. And then it's like he all of a sudden comes back again, it happens just like that, all of a sudden, from a private world of a dream to the public world of being - just being - and I seize my chance and walk up to him, and as I do so, I can't help but try to think of something suitable to say, and silly thoughts such as how much has he seen since coming here, to these parts, to this retirement home, come to mind, how many different people have come and gone, that kind of thing, and then, as I get closer, he seems lighter, younger, and I say as much, and for some reason add that he looks as if he's just found out that he's picked the right lottery numbers. That's nothing but another tax, he says, the stupid tax I call it. He tells me he's thinking of his brother again, he can't help it, it just comes, just like that. He remembers picking his brother up from the airport, Heathrow, or Gatwick, he can't remember which. And he remembers a book his brother brought with him, a book highly recommended that he should read. But Boris, for the life of him, can't remember the name of the book, no, it just won't come. He can, however, remember, and easily, what his brother was wearing, for instance - brown jacket, white shirt, red scarf - and the bags he brought with him too, just the couple, if he remembers rightly, one beige and leather, the other a dark canvas  ... But no, not the book, not the book at all ... Not the book that Boris can recall reading in one sitting once he had it in his hands, the book he felt as if he'd almost devoured, once it was in his grasp, no, not the book.

ALL THE FEATHERS

Unlike Boris and his cockatoos, the sound of a lawnmower, for me, is starting to sound like the end of the world. The upside, apart from the smell of freshly cut grass, is how you notice the slightest sound once the machine is shut off. It is the end of autumn here, some of the last of the fallen leaves get caught in a slight breeze, emitting dry, crunchy whispers as they hit up against and swirl around the corner of a wall. The lawn is mown again, likely one of the last times before the onset of winter and the sleeping of the grass. Hopefully the last. I keep checking the machine but can't figure out why the catcher isn't working properly, the result being that lines of grass are left behind, that remind Boris, he says, of the lanes in a swimming pool in London that he used to frequent, where most mornings he would swim lap after lap after lap. Looking back now, maybe I visited that pool so often in the hope of meeting some pretty girl that I otherwise never would have had the nerve to approach. But now there was an opportunity, we had swimming in common! Strange how such things can suddenly come back to you. He says he was in France for a while too, and starts to speak in French, to which I reply 'Oui. Ca va?' and he laughs like he's heard one of the funniest things in the world. He taps me repeatedly on the shoulder and then says he's going for a beer, before adding: Mind those birds, my boy. Today could be the day. 

GATEWAY TO HEAVEN

Boris has been a resident of the village longer than anyone else. He secured one of the units soon after completion, way back when, he says, around the beginning of the eighties. So he lives in number 2, having been beaten to number 1 by a whisker. A cat's whisker, as it turns out, for pets were forbidden, and it took Boris a little longer than expected to find a home for his moggie, since each of his four children spread around the country were reluctant to receive a fluffy ginger addition to their household, a daughter finally acquiescing on condition of a sufficient monthly financial incentive. She'll ask for it now one way or another. A cheque here and there. That first day just got the ball rolling. And the cat's now been dead for donkey's. But at least I get photos of my grandchildren. One of them could pass for my wife, she really could. Unless the weather is particularly foul, Boris can usually be found somewhere on the grounds, working on one of his dry stone walls. His inherent modesty prevents him from detailing his achievements, but according to Mrs Shearer, whatever wall you come across within the boundaries of the village, chances are Boris built it. He tells me that he was never a builder before coming here, that it was just something he picked up, bit by bit, as he found all kinds of rock left behind following the village's construction. A lot of it he moved too, bit by bit, to the unused space beneath his building. And then, bit by bit, he would start making little walls here and there. Something to accentuate a garden bed perhaps, or to add a little texture, or counter balance the boredom of the tarmac with some nicely arranged stones. It wasn't rocket science, he wanted me to know, but what was, apart from rocket science? Usually he'd just set off anywhere and start fiddling around. He'd pick a piece, roll it around in his hand, get a good feel for it, and then take it from there. He'd familiarize himself with the edges too, and essentially, he said, in the end, it was just like a giant jigsaw puzzle, except that, more often than not, there was always more than one place to go for any particular piece. And so it became second nature after a while, a part of his day as important as washing his face with cold water in the morning, before a strong cup of tea. Besides, he didn't want to agitate himself with the superficialities of the newspapers or the nightly news anymore. The world is always ending. I may as well build a stone wall in the meantime. Often he lets the screeching cockatoos late in the afternoon signal the end of his day. They made him think, he said, of the sky tearing open in two, and he half imagined shiny brass horns to follow, almost as if announcing the final meeting of the world above with the world below. And then we would all be able to see how his walls held up.

BUCKLE MY SHOE

From a flier passed around during the last Friday of the month happy hour by the man in unit number 12.

Do you remember when

Water trickled down the butcher shop window

The postman blew a whistle

Petrol was sold on the curbside

The night cart never failed to wake us in the morning

Police on point duty wore a white summer helmet

A bag full of broken biscuits could be had for a tuppence

Bread was sold from a basket

Clothes were lifted from boiling water with a copper stick

STUCK IN THE TREE

Before the handyman leaves for the pastures of working in a state prison, I help him build a railing above an embankment, in case car passengers get confused, disembark on the wrong side and take a tumble down to the road. Then he's off to be trained in a life behind bars and I'm left to plant out a flower bed. At lunch I check out the library in town and make enquiries at the local nursery to see what would suit planting. Back at work again, and beginning to turn the soil, I hear a voice and turn to see a short old woman looking down from her balcony, the number 17 stenciled on the balcony base. I said now at least I'll get to see some colour from behind these dreaded iron grills. There are no restraints on her windows as far as I can tell, just the bars of the balcony that I can see, so maybe she's shrinking, I've heard that happening to women as they get older, yes, she's maybe shrinking and her view is starting to resemble more and more a prison cell. Then she says: I'll give you a thousand dollars if you break me out of here. It's tempting, but I decide not to act on it right away, in case it's needed further down the line. At least you're trying to make something beautiful. That's the very least we can do while we're here. But unfortunately your flower bed will be a small part on an otherwise enormous canvas irreparably damaged by an onslaught of grey. She calls me a sweetheart and says it wouldn't be so bad were the house she'd lived in for the past thirty years not six minutes drive away. Once her husband had died, her sons decided that she was in no fit state to be living alone anymore, and so arranged for her to be moved into this: old people's home. That's what it is. Why don't they just say it? You look like you need a whiskey. I tell her maybe later, and mean it. Alone. My sons don't know what alone is. I lived alone the last few years with Otto anyway. Otto? Her husband. Apparently he'd retreated more more the last few years of his life into the machinations of his increasingly muddled mind. She first noticed the change in him when he would suddenly burst out laughing for no particular reason. Then he started dancing in the middle of the street, usually dressed, and she ended up having to lock the front gate, but it never stopped him from trying to climb over. Often she would find him passed out from exhaustion under a nearby tree, impossible to wake, and far too large for her to move. So she would sit there with him, whatever the weather, and look at the tree stump which they had oiled together all those years ago, to preserve the rings, for they knew the rings would outlast them all, and it was the first tree they felled when they came to these parts to raise a family.

TROMBONES

From what I can tell, the majority of the residents appear to be female. And of the men, there are only a few with wives, the rest either widowers, or bachelors from the very beginning (as it's said, a bachelor knows a woman better than anyone - that's why he's a bachelor). I meet one of the couples when asked to deliver a repaired kitchen drawer. They're in unit 15. A white haired woman with glasses half the size of her head lets me in, and the moment I step inside I'm struck by heat and a wave of eucalyptus oil mixed with the unmistakable aroma of recently fried eggs and bacon. My eyes are soon stinging and I can only comfortably see when I squint. Across the room, a giant of a man sits in an armchair. A blanket covers his lap. A ventilator sits on the ground beside him. He waves me over with a hand the size of a bear paw. He used to run a winery, he says, almost single handedly. And then he makes me promise that I will look after my knees, in fact he makes me swear that I will look after my knees. Closer, closer, he says, I want to see the whites of your eyes when you swear to me. But I'm not sure there's any white left after the aromatic onslaught, but I lean in closer anyway and look at him, and yes swear that I will look after my knees. His wife reminisces about running their small farm, the children who would be running beneath her feet, the roast chickens, neighbors, friends and family who'd come round for Sunday dinner, their own proudly produced wine freely available, the bottles they'd leave for guests to take home. As she tells me this, he interjects every now and then to provide some names, and with some names would come an associated memory, a particular tractor or axe perhaps, the time they all built that barn together, him and his brother in law, his brother in law's best friend, Jeffery something, he may have just been passing by, passing by, why would someone just be passing by like that, right there and then, it doesn't make sense. The man and woman's sentences often overlap, seem to blend in to one and the same. Or else they simply speak as if the other is not speaking. Then he asks me to help him up, so I take hold of his forearms, gradually lean back, and pull him to his feet. His shoulders are stooped, and yet he's still a head and a half taller than I am. She smiles, speaks as if he's not even in the room with us anymore. He was the strongest man I'd ever known. The absolute strongest. And the kindest man too you'd ever likely come across. I've a photo of him somewhere holding our four children up in the air, one in each arm, one on each shoulder. The strongest. Without a doubt the strongest.