O Why Do You walk Through The Fields In Gloves?

O why do you walk through the fields in gloves,

Missing so much and so much?

O, fat white woman whom nobody loves,

Why do you walk through the fields in gloves, 

When the grass is as soft as the breasts of doves 

And shivering sweet to the touch?

O, why do you walk through the fields in gloves, 

Missing so much and so much?

Down the road she went between high granite hedges splashed fuschia with fuschia and orange with mombretia. Loud as a kingcup, big as a bull, yellow clad, undulating like a great perambulating duvet.

She didn’t know where she was going. She had never walked so far as an adult but she hoped in her heart that the road would take her down to the sea. 

Down to a little rocky cove she would go, where she would take off her big yellow dress and step naked into the pellucid water, light as a feather Caressed for the very first time, she would slide on the green slimy rocks, popping seaweed beneath her feet, watching the anemones wave their rusty tentacles in the glimmering depths.

‘Goodbye, goodbye’.... they would wave as she sank beneath the oil dark swell and the water would close over her head. Safe.

‘Goodbye.’

It was hot and soon her thighs began to chafe, she adjusted her gait slightly, rocking as she walked. Sweat stood out on her brow and her lungs wheezed like a pair of leaky bellows. 

Wrens whistled excitedly in the scented, stunted gorse. The road twisted up and to the left ahead of her.

Up, was surely not the way to the sea and she feared  someone would come and take her back soon. The thought was unnerving, she increased her pace looking left and right for a gateway to duck into should she hear a car. She needed the sea. There must be no going back now. She must not be stopped.

A trickle of sweat ran between her breasts and the sun thumped down on the narrow grey road creating mirages - cool pools of water that vanished as she passed. A flight of crows roared overhead and she cowered instinctively. There were spies everywhere. Perhaps it was time to leave the road, to cut across country. She could squeeze through gaps in bramble hedges, clamber over a granite stile, pick pink campions  to scatter on the cool cleansing waves. 

Goodbye.

At the top of the hill she stood to catch her breath for a minute gazing down across the fields. The land unfurled at her feet and the thin grey ribbon of road twisted on and down. The sea glittered beyond, just a thin silver line, but it beckoned. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen the sea. She bent and took off her shoes. They were sensible, beige and laced. Wide fitting. Her feet were slashed with red, not wide fitting enough it seemed. Most things weren’t.

A woman like her had to wear sensible shoes they’d said and they had chosen these for her. She regarded them for a minute with acute dislike and suddenly reckless, threw them with a little gasp over the hedge behind her. She had chosen the dress herself, not prettily cut but, Oh, what a colour!

Downhill was easier, a passing car made her heart leap in her throat, but the driver, German and bespectacled, waved cheerily, thanking her for cramming her bulk against a bramble bush that hung from the hedge like a curtain, red studded with unripe berries. The car passed, missing her bare toes by inches.

Out from under the trees she came, bold as a sunflower, rocking from side to side and blowing heavily.She passed some small granite cottages with salt blasted doors their gardens festooned with fishing nets.

A black quay cut the sea in half. Near to, it was turbulent, dark, crashing, beyond, green and still and the sky above filled the heart and the eye from the top of the world  to the horizon like gauze.

The yellow dress billowed and snapped like a sail in the breeze that blew off the water. Her hair, cut sensibly short, whipped off her forehead. She breathed deep.

To the sea she would go. Out there, past the fishing boats she would climb round and down. There would be a way,she would find it, down to a rocky cove. 

She would put her feet in the cool water. She would take off her dress and unhook her great grey bra with it’s biting straps, she would strip off her knickers, grey too..and heavy and hurl them high in the sky.

‘Goodbye!’

John drove me, Evil and Maisie to Paddington. This is always a Bad Idea. 

John tried to avoid the Congestion Charging zone. King’s Cross snarled up like you wouldn’t beleive, and we hit the Red Wave on Marylebone Road. As we approached, each set of traffic lights turned red in perfect time, one following another. Dispatch riders carved us up on their Hondas, their Moto Guzzis and their BMWs. . Evil began to whimper. John said, 

‘There’s plenty of time.’

I went off Boris Johnson as a Bendy Bus got stuck on a corner and took up three lanes. A Black cab driver leaned on his horn. Road Works sporting orange plastic bunting lay abandoned near Madame Taussauds.

‘ Never ever drive me anywhere ever again.’ I said.

‘It’ll be fine.’ said John.

In the back of the car, Maisie rolled her eyes and hugged Evil close to her chest.

We arrived at Paddington with seconds to spare. John got in the wrong lane and drove right past. ‘No U Turns’ said a sign angrily.

‘Do a U Turn ! I yelped as we roared up Praed Street and swerved into the Congestion Charging Zone.

‘If you were going to do that, you might as well have  done it half an hour ago and given me an outside chance of catching a train today !’ I shouted. ‘Look, let me and Maisie get out. We can walk from here.’ I said. Blood was pumping in my ears and I kept forgetting to breath.

‘You do realise that people like me are constitutionally unable to be late don’t you?’ I shrieked.

‘What do you mean “People Like You” said John ‘There are no other “People Like You.” John hauled the car round in a U Turn. A Black Cab Driver leaned on his horn. I think it was the same one.

‘She means People Who Are Really Fussy.’ said Maisie, helpfully from the back seat.

John drove the car down the ramp to the station in the Taxis Only lane.

Maisie and I leaped out. We hauled our suitcase. Luckily it has wheels. Evil gets tangled in her lead. Luckily I already have a ticket. The train is leaving in two minutes.

‘You’ll be fine.’ said John ‘Bye.’ He drove away trying to look like a Mini Cab Driver who has forgotten his Private Hire sticker.

Maisie and me run for the train. The guard is shutting the doors beginning at the front. Suddenly Evil stops on the clean shiny platform and does a giant pooh.

I really hate dogs.

Thursday 29th May 2008. 

Lesbians. The Fly In The Ointment.

Cornwall shimmers beneath a pale yellow sun. 

St Michael’s Mount rears up, ancient, arcane, unknowing and unknowable from the centre of the bay. 

The granite hedges are verdant with fern and pink campion. 

Hawks soar over sheep studded fields.

The silence is sublime.

My chest pain vanishes and whilst Maisie and my mother shop in Penzance I walk to Mousehole with Evil slinking, a blue black shadow, at my heels. On Raginnis Hill, Evil crouches, stands still in the road and lifts her lip in long low snarl. A badger has died in the hedge. A river of maggots errupts from it’s pelt and pours in a stream into our path. we step carefully by and the smell follows us long afterwards. Two walkers come by. They wear rucksacks. They have special boots with velcro straps. They carry ski ploes. They have purpose. Suddenly  I feel that perhaps Deisel Jeans, a French Connection vest and a pair of Topshop sandals are somehow inadeqate. 

‘Can you tell us, where is Lamorna?’ asks one.

‘Can you tell us, is it possible to walk in two hours to Cape Cornwall ?’ says the other.

Perhaps the ski poles are justified.

I point behind me. 

‘Lamorna is away down over there, but you’ll not make Cape Cornwall before dark.’ I say. 

I am going native, I almost add, ‘And beware the woods as ‘ee go.’ but forebear.

In Mousehole boats bob in the harbour. I walk past Squire Keigwin’s house and pay homage to his bravery as the soldiers of the Armada struck him down on his very doorstones. I pause by the bus-stop and listen in on a teenage conversation.

‘Hey Tamsin.’ says a girl wearing a hoodie and giant flares (they are very behind in the fashion stakes down here.)  ‘Here come Wesley.’

“Hey, Wesley !’ says her friend, pulling a string of gum from her muoth and winding it slowly back in, twirling her tongue suggestively.

‘Wes?’ she says 

A boy lopes over, golden haired, golden skinned, furnished and burnished by West Country sun.  He is honed to his physical peak by the surf.

‘That’s my name girl, don’t wear it out.’ says Wes lazily.

I love teenagers.

I walk up Duck Street. Deedee Duke has an Open Studio today and I hope to buy a pot or a jug. 

Deedee is a very good potter.

‘Hi.’ says Deedee as I poke my head round the door of her little Duck Street cottage. I have known Deedee all my life. 

‘How are you?’ says Deedee. ‘How are your children? They must be incredibly old by now. Are they down with you? What are they up to?’ 

Deedee has a dazzling smile. She wears a faded fisherman’s smock and espadrilles.

‘Oh,’ I say airily ‘They are all much older than me now. And I have no idea what they are up to. Infact,’ I add,  ‘I can hardly remember their names.’ I am nothng at all, if not affected.

‘Now, Deedee’. I say ‘Where are your pots? I have come to buy a pot.’ I glance round the patently pot-free room. 

‘Oh’ says Deedee ‘I am painting at the moment. There are no pots, just my paintings and the sculptures belong to Becky. Becky’s my partner.’ she adds.

Deedee calls upstairs, 

‘Becky! Come and meet an old friend.’  

Suddenly a beautiful girl stands in the room. She has short, fair hair and slanting green eyes. She wears short shorts and has long brown legs. 

Her sculptures are of sandstone horses. 

‘And you,’ says Deedee to fill the gaping silence, ‘What are you doing, when not mooching around Mousehole looking incredibly cool and ignoring your grown-up childen?’

‘Oh nothing at all.’ I say ‘What a wonderful painting.’ I say. ‘I’ll have that.’ I say.

‘Grown-up children?’ says Becky in the softest Scottish accent. ‘Surely not.’ she says ‘How old were you when you had them? Why do you look so young?’

‘Oh you know,’ I say ‘Filler, injections, a bit of laser resurfacing, that sort of thing.’ I say.

How they roared !

I think I might be a lesbian.