Giving it the office ...

I've known Richard for many years - I first met him, I'm sure, at a party, or in The Village Home - he's a poet - he crafts poems which take root in your heart - we've aged together - but my hair is now white, whilst his is still dark brown -

I can remember the smell of the leather seats in the MG Magnette - there would be a crate of Gales HSB in the boot - Richard was training to be a teacher -

We've experienced many things together - we've reeled out of The American Bar, honed verse in the garden of the King Street Tavern - in Sautens, we played Fuchs und Jaeger in the kegelbahn - in Verona, there was a difficulty about a railway ticket - with Jay, we gulped whiskey and ate fruit cake on the Isle of Skye -

Richard places bets on the horses - he rings up tipsters, considers form - he calculates odds with the assurance of a Bletchley Park code breaker - Richard spent the winnings from one race on a Cathay Pacific ticket to Manila -

When Richard visits us, he will sit at this lap top, in the snug, making his choice of horses - he will later murmur into his mobile phone - I marvelled at the names of possible bets - A Goliath and a  Super Heinz were my favourites -

I am much taken by the arcane lore and language of the turf - one phrase Richard used especially stuck in my mind - when a horse really got going, galloping as though carrying an angelic messenger, the excitable commentator would exclaim that the jockey, whoever that was - was giving the horse the office - 

I would sit next to Richard, whilst he reckoned up his prize money, murmuring - giving it the office - giving it the office - 

A parliament of rooks, a murmuration of starlings ...

I often look out the window of the book lined snug - I put down a feverish novella, to see blackbirds questing for worms - these elegant murderers prowl in wary zig zags across the lawn - sharp yellow beaks stab into the soft earth -

Jay once told me how he'd seen a murmuration of starlings - I whispered the strange lovely word - I pictured the swirling unsettling shape, low in a darkening sky -

Walking with Penny, south of Affpuddle, I saw a parliament of rooks - we were heading towards some pine woods - the icy rain had eased -

I stared at the gathering birds, listening to their urgent cries - they wheeled as one over the empty fields - I felt suddenly afraid, as though I was fleeing the morthbrood -

Once under the cover of the tall pines, I felt safe from ancient eyes -I thought of Coleridge - he'd looked out of the window of the London coach at dawn - starlings in vast flights drove along like smoke, mist - some moments glimmering and shivering - now thickening, deepening, blackening -

Holmes writes that this image is one of shifting energy and imagination -

I wanted to know the meaning of those subtle, shifting, patterns in the sky -

A black sedan at Briantspuddle emerges from my TV memories ...

I can remember watching, every week, The Untouchables on my parents' TV - the glorious clatter of tommy guns would fill the lounge - Elliot Ness would rasp a wisecrack - Agent Rico Rossi was at the wheel of the Packard -

I especially welcomed the spectacle of drive by shootings - you'd see a doomed mobster in a barber's chair - there'd be towels wrapped round his neck - you'd hear the Lincoln's tyres screaming round the corner - then a fiery rain of lead would shatter glass and bump off the snitch -

When I had my first car, I fondly recalled the series - I'd sit in the blue Sunbeam Rapier, imagining I was wearing a fedora - I'd forget that I was a newly qualified teacher - in my imagination, I was a lantern jawed agent -

All of this glorious nonsense returned to me recently - I was walking towards Briantspuddle with Penny - we were on the outskirts of the village - we'd just made our way through a tract of coniferous woodland - I could still feel the subtle influences of the silent trees -

Suddenly we heard tyres, scrunching gravel - to my joy, a black sedan slowly passed us - its coachwork was immaculate - its engine growled softly - I felt dizzy with the glamour of this dark shape, emerging so serendipitously from my TV memories -

Storm torn apples ...

There's an apple tree in our garden - in the summer, I loll in the shade of its kindly foliage - I put down The Owl Service, imagining a girl made from flowers -

I look up at the wavering lacework of twigs and leaves - a warm breeze blows across the sheltered garden - I'm half asleep - I can feel each blade of grass against my skin -

Every other year, this venerable tree brings forth a rich crop of apples - the fruit weighs down lichened branches - early each morning, I see yet more windfalls, marvellous globes heaped up like a plundered hoard -

So it was this year - but last night, an Atlantic storm swept over Purbeck - grave heads in TV Studios had issued warnings - visuals showed cruel swirling masses of air - there were shrill prophecies in the Daily Express -

I'd lit a log fire in the snug - I flung fir cones into the pulsing flames - You Tube clips about Travis Walton diverted me - outside The Old School House, the wind gathered strength - heavy rain fell from the troubled sky - in my dreams, the chimney boomed with voices -

The next morning, I looked out of our bedroom window - the lawn was strewn with apples, torn from the tree by the storm -

Later, Anne and I gathered up the best of the apples, filling two large wicker baskets -

The apples left behind lay nestled in the damp grass - they were like abandoned dreams, I thought - beautiful, yet bruised, pierced by cruel beaks -

Paul's birthday dinner, mermaids singing in Kemp Town ...

We met Varnsey outside a tumultuous pub in Kemp Town - I thought I saw Kit Marlowe, swaggering through the tee shirted bravos - I imagined mermaids, waiting at the end of the narrow street - they were looking up at the esplanade, with their backs to the ageless sea -

We had drinks in a bar nearer the magical waves - Varnsey lolled, like an exhausted emperor, upon a red sofa - Jane sat upright on a straight backed chair - Anne wore a beautiful green dress -

Later, Sally led the way to Bom Banes - she wore high heels - a raven haired slender woman greeted us - the interior of the raffish eatery was shadowy and mysterious - we were beckoned down a wrought iron spiral stair case -

The tiny basement smelt of spilled wine - there were alcoves, with bench seats from Ford Zodiacs to canoodle on - ukuleles hung from distressed walls - there was a bar with an exciting regiment of bottles -

There, in front us, was a rough hewn monastery table - sitting around it, upon benches, were Paul and Clare, together with Paul's two daughters, Natasha and Jessica - the girls had their boyfriends with them - the two young men were courteous and attentive to their darlings -

We toasted Paul with icy Prosecco - I slyly drank bumper after bumper of fiery red - we fell upon the buffet - I babbled to Clare about Coleridge - she was very patient with me -

Then the raven haired woman reappeared - she wore an elongated gold fish bowl upon her head - I swear I could see the fish darting about inside the glass -

She sung us a haunting song, accompanying herself upon a venerable harmonium -

Her face as she sang was like a stylised mask - she smiled as might a siren, beguiling a lost boy - she told me later her song was about falling in love -

To be a dare devil at Dancing Ledge ...

I wish now that I had been born a dare devil - I lament the fact that I was a shy and timid boy - I avoided scaling the tallest trees - I hung back from diving into rivers - I clung to the walls at discos - I recoiled from leaping dogs -

But since then, since those days of my mum's notes to the PE teacher, I have, little by little, discovered the pleasures of being fool hardy -

I have galloped across wide, thistle choked, fields, whacking the horse - I have abseiled down the side of a disused railway viaduct in the Peak District - I have plucked pointed mushrooms from damp pastures, and gulped them down - I have danced, rapt, to Algerian Rai - I have embraced tawny girls - I have gone wild swimming, my legs tangled with kelp -

But I have yet to swim in the tide pool at Dancing Ledge - a mad headmaster had this basin dynamited out of the rock - you scramble down a small cliff, to stand upon a shelf of Purbeck limestone - there, in front of you, is the pool - even in mid summer, its water is icy - behind you is the vast wreck of the old quarry -

The sea current here is deadly - swimmers have been sucked down under the swell, drawn into the underwater caves - you swim, therefore, if you do so, within the pool -

Anne has dangled her long legs in the glassy water - but we lacked the courage to jump in, to swim furiously from one end of the pool to the other -

Then, recently, with Penny, we saw three bold women approach the pool - one stayed above the cliff, with a questing, anxious, dog, while two climbed down to the shelf of rock -

After only a few brief moments, we heard loud splashes and rapturous screams - the two dare devils were skinny dipping in the pool, fearless and laughing -

I vowed then, that this must be the next thing to do - to swim here, to be just as brave -

A Paddle Steamer emerges from my dreams ...

I have never had the good fortune to board a paddle steamer - I imagine myself, dapper in a blazer, standing upon a pristine teak deck - bright paddles are churning through choppy waves - I could be one of the idle coves in Three Men in a Boat - I am devouring a vast ice cream -

A boyhood hero was Isambard Kingdom Brunel - I was fascinated by the iconic photograph - there he was, chomping upon his cigar, his boots and trousers spattered with clay, insouciant in front of immense chains - I gazed with awe upon engravings of The Great Eastern -

We were walking along the river, downstream from Wareham, when we came across The Monarch - it was late afternoon - all I saw was suffused with a sweet melancholy beauty -

Sea gulls flew overhead - a gentle wind barely stirred the reeds - the river flowed more swiftly with the ebbing tide - each side of the river there were silent wetlands - dark birds gathered upon the shallow pools -

The paddle steamer was moored to the bank opposite - it was as though she had just emerged from my dreams - small, elegant, shimmering with memory -

Lost amongst suitcases ...

When I took the wounded Peugeot to Howards of Dortchester, I headed straight for Rustix Antiques - Anne had first led me into this cave of dusty wonders -

A charming buffer had greeted us - a ledger lay on a writing desk, flanked by two diving helmets - he invited us to wander around the marble nymphs, stilled 18th Century longcase clocks, burnished wind up gramaphones, 1920's cocktail dresses -

We'd spent an hour or so, losing ourselves in the labyrinths of dark furniture -

This time, I stared at the piles of suitcases upstairs - they were heaped up in waiting pyramids -

I remembered an exhibition I'd gone to in Valencia - it was held in a Gothic chapel - there was an installation made up entirely of children's little suitcases - the contents spilled out, upon the stone slabs of the chapel floor - teddy bears, pyjamas, toy horses - I realised that this was an evocation of Canada - my eyes filled with tears -

I felt, again, the anguish of that moment - then, suddenly, wonderfully, my heart was eased -

I saw a large brown trunk, plastered with 1930's pin ups - glimpsing those buxom American beauties was a shameless delight -

You could think too deeply about things, I reasoned - you could not carry the sadness of the world -

Geoff Achison at "The Golden Eagle" ...

The Golden Eagle is just around the corner from where Richard lives - when I first went there, I was more than a little apprehensive -

Richard had painted a vivid picture of a raffish, edgy, drinking den - I expected to see geezers, rough diamonds, smouldering women - frenzied boys might be playing passionate guitars - Spike might be igniting aerosols to end the disco - Lou might offer me a chilli vodka -

It was all of this, and more - I felt immediately home in the crowded bar, jostled by tipsy blues lovers - a calm boy served pints of Traitors Gate - Phil and Richard joshed each other mercilessly - I'm only sayin!

Varnsey would love this pub, I thought - Cliff was generous with his lock ins - I often reeled out after midnight -

When Geoff Achison and The Soul Diggers played there, I wanted the music to go on forever - he played his guitar like a noble savage - there were wild cries and whistling from the audience at the end of every song - encore followed encore -

In my dreams that night, I headed a band, playing fearless guitar - Richard and Phil were backing vocals - Cliff was playing bass -

Karaoke in South Ferriby ...

I've always been wary of karaoke - I sing out of tune - as soon as my voice broke, I perfected miming hymns - I've a horror of being led to the microphone - I can hear myself, stammering pitiably, longing for the song to end -

Richard told me he once got trapped in a videoke booth, singing Lola -

But I'm now a potential convert to karaoke - I have not yet summoned up the courage to sashay up to the DJ, to whisper, can I do Hole in My Shoe? - but I have started to appreciate the karaoke experience - I feel that I might be induced, after three pints of Adnams' Broadside, to give it go -

It was when Paul sang Suspicious Minds that my fears of karaoke left me - we were at his mum and dad's Ruby Wedding Party -

Linda and George were very warm and welcoming - we felt privileged to have been invited - I felt at home, and happy, grazing upon delicious eats, sipping special wedding ales -

A DJ played Ride a White Swan - I met uncles and cousins - then, I saw Paul at the microphone - he was the first of that night's karaoke singers - he was singing, without nervousness, or any sliver of awkwardness, that haunting, yet unsettling, song -

After Paul, singer after singer came forward - I was spellbound - I remembered how it had taken me years to loosen up and dance unselfconsciously -

Perhaps, even now, though, I thought, I might be able to shed some further scales of reserve -

Bold parrots, The Ropewalk, memories of the Happiness Machine ...

Paul recommended a hotel for us in Barton upon Humber - there were two bold parrots in one of the lounges - I was much diverted by these raffish birds - they wolf whistled whenever a girl passed by their cages - they had clever, knowing, eyes - brass fans revolved slowly overhead -

There was a view of the Humber Bridge from the hotel gardens - a gateway provided access to the southern bank of the estuary - sandbanks were like the backs of sea serpents, barely covered by rushing water - shoals and deep water channels formed an intricate, shifting, pattern -

Outside our bedroom, there was a bookcase containing volumes for the use of the guests - there were creepy breeze blocks by Graham Hancock about lost civilisations next to stout yarns by John Buchan - Anne devoured Pollyanna -

Paul and Sophie guided us around the ancient, quirky, town - they took us to The Ropewalk, an arts centre housed in a former rope factory - the narrow building was almost a quarter of a mile long, a reef of venerable brick - we walked in bright sunshine -

Inside, we visited the rope museum, with its exhibits of ropes and bizarrely shaped machines - I was moved by the poignant testimonies of the workers - a widow had donated the small brass lighter given her husband as a retirement gift -

We looked into the galleries - I stared for a long time at the brave abstracts - I tried to gauge the meaning of the shapes and colours -

I remembered the fracas in the Venice Guggenheim, when Anne had tried to tidy up a happiness machine -

Humber Bridge, waiting for angels ...

We left York in the late afternoon - the park and ride bus was full of benign Northerners - raindrops beaded the windows - clouds thickened over the story filled city - I imagined Vikings, prodigal with gold, boarding the bus - perhaps George Hudson was keeping his head down at the back -

I'd looked at our route to the Humber earlier in the day - I'd been confident that the drive would pose no problems - I'd traced my finger over the bright maps in the big AA road atlas -

But soon I was driving around the ring road, at the height of rush hour - both lanes of the dual carriageway were the habitat of merciless drivers - turning onto the A 1079 required the mad confidence of an early balloonist -

It started to rain heavily - the rear screen wiper malfunctioned - we drove south, through growing darkness - I felt as though we were entering a desolate zone - we passed tiny secretive villages - I became aware of huge fields - I sensed an empty, ambiguous, countryside -

Then we saw the bridge - this immense structure rose up before us, brilliantly lit, the portal to some flawless Alphaville - far below us was a wide estuary, lost in rain and mist - slender towers marked the limits of the span -

The next morning, I gazed at the bridge from the banks of the estuary - in the pale, uncertain, light it still drew my eye -

I felt that, any moment, I would experience something miraculous - angels might alight upon those sweeping cables - silver trumpets would sound within the clouds -

Visiting the shrine of Saint Margaret Clitherow ...

I can remember scribbling, in a dusty lecture theatre, Elizabeth Tudor's words - I have no desire to make windows into men's souls - outside, red buses sailed down Gower Street - behind me, two detectives sat each side of a Prime Minister's son - dust motes waltzed in shafts of May sunshine -

Later, I wrote an essay about Elizabeth's religious policies - each sly page of my essay was barnacled with footnotes - I narrowed my eyes when I read intricate paragraphs in The English Historical Review - 

But I could not write about what I was really thinking - Walsingham's cryptographers, long galleries, the evisceration of Jesuits -

I was loitering in The Shambles, when I came across the shrine of Saint Margaret Clitherow - I stepped into a sad dark place - there were heavy beams above my head - a stark altar was illuminated by electric candles - sombre panelling absorbed my melancholy -

I learned more, later, about the manner of the saint's martyrdom - I felt a sense of shame and helplessness, imagining it -

Yet such cruelty still abounded - men drew up weekly kill lists in bland offices - they wore beautiful suits, not velvet doublets -

Re-entering the world of alleyways in York ...

Whenever I see an alleyway, I am drawn to enter it - I leave the broad pavement, with its innocent pedestrians - I step into a narrow world, one bounded by stone or brick, twisting away from certainty -

I have lost myself in Venice, many times, wandering past silent courts, smelling the dark sinister water in canal basins - I saw crumbling palazzos in the moonlight - I crossed over piazzas, turning around to watch my shadow - I followed sleek cats into blind alleys - I saw a priest, staring down from a brilliantly lit window -

Idling in York, I spied some outposts of that unsettling realm - I dived into the alleyways near The Shambles - there, between high walls of worn brick, I could only hear my own footsteps - I passed by elegant drinking dens - I heard tinkling laughter - I was led into a dark church, like a cave, full of box pews, arranged like traps -

As ever, my head was full of dreams - but too soon I was back upon the crowded pavement -