Haiku, etc

        


        Dawn -

tentative paw prints 

In the snow

*

Startled awake,

a moth patters

behind the lamp

*

With blurry eyes

I approach the shower - 

wet socks

*

Her text, again -

wet leafs

cling to the threshold

*

In the gutter

        of a supermarket - 

melting snow

*

Again, at night

sitting on the floor

counting my books

*

the smell of new carpet 

             reminds me of childhood

*

Why is it

the ducks only quack

when I’m drunk?

*

I think about your bedroom

            - I bet the wind is howling

*

       Silent morning,
       foxglove petals peel
       then fall

       *

       Sleepless night 
       tracing your freckles
       in the stars

       *

       no phone call -
               just leaves falling

I think about your bedroom
       - I bet the wind is howling

Walking home
      I think of the wet leafs 
collecting under your front door

Diana Bates arrived early at the train station. She was still wearing her work uniform and a black coat with a belt that showed off her waist. It was late and the small ticket office was empty. The lights had been switched off and a draft ran through the open doors on either side of the room. Diana sat on the bench in the corner.

Meet me at seven he had said. Meet me at the station. Diana twitched. She was full of nervous excitement. She had tried to calm herself on the way here, to not get her hopes up, to not make him her world. But she couldn’t stop herself. He dominated her mind.
 

Michael had impressed Diana ever since he first took her ticket on a train to work. She was impressed by his youth and the softness of his voice. She never new a ticket conductor could be like that.
 

Michael worked on the trains every morning, and Diana grew more impressed by him as the days went by. She was impressed by his patience with children, and his gentleness with old ladies dithering in their wallets. She was impressed by his vivacious smile and his wide, brilliant eyes. And there was other things that impressed her too, like his strong, veined arms, and his collar bones protruding from under his shirt.
 

He was younger than her. He told her how old he was one day when she asked him to have a sandwich with her. Even so, she was shy with him, and she looked at the white plastic table between them as she spoke. He told her he hadn’t bothered with university. That he got this job when he was young, and he loved the sounds of the trains and smell of the station. The money wasn’t great, but he got to travel, and got to meet all kinds of people.
 

Diana found she started to think about Michael a lot. It was fun at first. She would think about him at work, at home when she visited her parent’s on weekends, and even in bed at night. In her mind she would map intensely romantic situations involving the two of them, and watch them play it out.
 

After a while however, she found thinking about Michael wasn’t much fun. On days she couldn’t see him, she would sulk, and would feel too lonely to talk to anyone. She felt nauseous at work, and couldn’t concentrate on her clients. At night she would lay in a strange half-dream, and wake exhausted and dizzy.
 

It had happened last Saturday. She had finished a shopping trip in York and had boarded the train. She chose a seat and looked out the window. The horizon was pink with great knots of clouds pulled across the sky. She heard a familiar voice asking for ticket, and her heart clenched then relaxed with a warm glow to see it was Michael.
 

He smiled at her and said “hello stranger” when he took her ticket. When he had finished the carriage he came back and sat next to her. She could smell him and his arm pressed on hers. He pointed at her three large shopping bags she had placed on the seats opposite them and asked if she had brought him his Christmas present. She giggled and touched her neck.

They had exchanged numbers, and she had waited a day until he had texted. She replied straight away and they had flirted briefly. She had kept all his messages, but the one she reread over and over said simply, “meet me at the station.”

She read this now, her phone screen glowing green and luminous. He was late. Her happiness on the way here had diminished. Maybe he had forgot. It had been four days since they arranged to meet. She had almost text him this morning to make sure they were still on, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t bare it if he had forgot.

She tried to rationalize the situation, tell herself his train was late, he had missed it and had caught the next one. But why not text her? Why not let her know? She concluded each hypothesis bitterly, and reproached herself for her excitement.

At last a train pulled in. She heard uneven footsteps and looked to see him standing in the doorway. He walked to her and embraced her more roughly then she would have liked. They left the station together.

Outside the moon had been covered by thick clouds and frost sparkled on the ground. Grey flakes of snow had just began to fall and dissolved on the fur of their coats. 

The plan had been to go to Michael’s flat to watch a movie, but Michael said he wanted to stop off at Tesco first. They walked down High Street then took a right down Portland Street. They passed a fireplace shop and the Co-op Funeral services, before reaching rows of squat, snow dusted houses. 

Michael breathed heavily and said little. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t the delicate boy she had dreamed of. She had fantasied of having him, of folding herself into him, this tender young man she had found on the train. But now she smelt beer on his coat and he staggered. She wanted to take his arm, but he was leaning on her for support.

They crossed a busy road and took a shortcut round the back of a costume shop. Ahead was the overpass, and just before it was a small square clearing enclosed by buildings. There was a rusted iron fence running around it with a battered sign saying ‘Archers Street.’ The walls were covered with graffiti and shadows moved beneath the underpass. In the middle of the clearing was a solitary slide, surrounded by a thin layer of undisturbed snow.

Michael grabbed Diana’s hand suddenly and led her through the fence to the slide. It had stopped snowing. They were both quiet and their footsteps crunched softly. Diana was aware of the silence.

“I really like you,” Michael said to her. His breath thickened in the cold and rose above them. He put a hand roughly on each of her shoulders and kissed her. It was hard at first and she tasted blood. She tried to resist, but then something changed and she let herself go. She pretended he wasn’t drunk, that he still was that wonderful young man on the train with the brilliant eyes. She put her arms round the back of his head.

His hand snaked down her back and started to grope at her thigh. “No” She whispered. “We mustn’t.” He pushed her back onto the slide. She felt the cold metal beneath her. “You want this,” he whispered, kissing her neck, “You know you want this.” He took off his coat and struggled a hand under her blouse. His fingers were icy on her bare skin.

He was asleep. He lay on his front on the slide, his breath steaming the metal. He looked uncomfortable hunched into a ball, forehead jutting into the side. She touched her neck. She walked forward and shook him. “Michael” she said. He didn’t move. “Michael, please.” She started to cry. She kissed him on the cheek, then picked up his coat and tucked it around him. He shivered and curled tighter. His face was like a young boy’s.

She backed away, then turned and headed back in the direction of the train station as thin, oblique flakes began to fall.

Miles’s dad drove his son to his house. He asked Miles if the car was too hot. Miles said it was fine. His dad said if it was too hot, he was too tell him. Miles said he would. Miles looked out the window. It was raining and the overpass was a blaze of traffic lights and turn signals. Factories and dreary furniture outlets lined the road. 
 

Miles’s dad asked his son when would he be back for Christmas. Miles said in a few weeks. There was silence, then he asked when would Miles be leaving the country for Russia. Miles said his contract would start in March. Miles’s dad laughed and said good luck to his son. He said he and his mum were ever so proud of him. He said he had once met a Spanish man who worked in translation too, and they had talked for a great deal about the Cathedrals in Barcelona. 

They reached Shakespeare Street. Miles said his dad could drop him off now, but his dad insisted on taking him to the door. It was raining outside and Miles didn’t have a coat. His dad offered him his, but Miles said no. Miles took off his seat belt and said to his dad he would see him soon. He got out the car, then opened the back door to get his bag from the passage seat. His bag had rolled into the far corner, so he had to reach into the car with half his body. 
 

As he began to withdraw, he saw his dad fidget, then suddenly take something from his pocket. “This is for you”,  he said, reaching over his seat and handing Miles what looked like a piece of paper. “Just an early Christmas present.” Miles took it and saw it was a ten pound note. He looked up, and saw his dad’s eyes wrinkled as he smiled at his son. “No, it’s okay,” Miles said, trying not to sound ungrateful. “I don’t need that.” He gave the note back, and shouldered his bag. 
 

Miles’s dad pocketed the note. “When will we see you next?” “Next Friday,” Miles said. “I’ll come home before work.” He smiled, but felt awful inside. He wanted to talk to his dad, but didn’t know what to say. He wanted to know more about him, to ask him about his childhood, what it was like to grow up in the war. He wanted to know it all before it was too late. But standing in late-afternoon rain with a heavy bag, he couldn’t find the words.
 

He said goodbye, then hurried to his front door. It was only when he was inside and had groped for the light switch that he heard the car engine start, and his dad drive away. He went to the radiator under the window and warmed himself as he watched the raindrops splash against the pane.
 

“It’s not fun anymore” she said.

“You mean you’re not having fun.”

“I’ve got a headache.”

“I knew you would be like this.”

“Like what?”

He didn’t answer,  but instead bended and continued to roll the snowball with his hand and shoulder. The ball had now grown to a considerable size. Its shape was irregular, not round and smooth like he’d imagined. The snow gathered and compacted in uneven clumps that made pushing awkward.

She stood with her arms crossed. “I want to go home.”

He stood straight and brushed the snow from his coat. His hands were numb through his gloves. “We’re been waiting all year for the snow.”

“You’ve been waiting for the snow. I hate snow.” 

He opened his mouth to reply, but decided against it. He would not allow her to ruin this for. He loved the snow. He’d always loved it.

He bent down and pressed his shoulder to the snowball.

“My feet are numb.”She complained.

“So are mine.”

“Well mine are worse, I’ve got a hole in my shoe. I can’t feel my toes. I can’t feel anything.”

“We’re nearly halfway down, if we both push we can be done in half an hour.” He looked down below where the ground slowly leveled out into scorching whiteness, scored with sleigh trails and footprints. Behind him, the wolds rose sharply, the top-edge rimmed with black-brown trees that caught the late-afternoon sun.      

She stood further up the slope, stout and pudgy faced, almost knee deep in snow. She might have stamped her foot, he couldn’t tell. “Do you think this is still fun?”

He shouldered the snowball once again. “What?

“Any of it.” She opened her arms slightly but kept her eyes on him. He kept pushing. The snowball made an odd crunching noise as it rolled. She followed him as he pushed. “I mean, what do we do? Go to the same book shops, the same tea houses. The staff at The Shed know us by our first names.”

He stopped pushing, but kept his back to her. He didn’t like to look at her when she spoke like this.

“You don’t like this?” he asked.

“I’m just saying, its not… usual.”

“Usual?”

“For young people like us.” 

“What would you prefer?”

“More than this. Normal couples do more.”

He turned around. “Don’t blame me for that. I always suggest places, trips to Nottingham and York. You never have the money.”

“Well I’m terribly sorry for that.” She frowned with her eyebrows in the way that always annoyed him.

“Maybe if you stopped wasting all your money when you get some you could actually save for someplace nice.”

“What? You have no idea what it’s like to live in poverty -“

“Well neither do you.”

“More than you mate. You’re dad’s an architect for fuck’s sake. When your poor and you get money, you spend it. That’s what it’s like.”

“You just need a bit of self-discipline”

“Your such a fucking closet Tory, did you know that?”   

He turned around and tried to calm himself. He could feel her seething behind him. In front of him the wolds enclosed Lincoln in a semi-circle. From here the city looked delicate, a compact circle of squat, dust-covered houses, interspersed by factories and spires. He looked at the cathedral, yellow in the light, crutched on it’s scaffolding. He leaned on the snowball. “Maybe Lincoln isn’t the city for couples.” he said.

She shuffled closer until she was beside him. She spoke softly. “What will you do after?”

“After?”

“After your Masters”

“I’ll get a job.”

“There are no jobs.”

“None here.”

There was silence. They watched a solitary man below walking his dog. “I’ve got two more years left here you know,” she said.

“Yeah.”

She laughed. “That’ll teach me to change course mid-semester.”

“Yeah I guess.”

“I couldn’t help it at the time. Things didn’t seem right. You remember how hard it was for me to get out of bed some days.”

“Yeah”

“But it’s okay now. Things are sorted. I’ve sorted things.” 

The sky was clouding again. A train could be seen winding purposefully through the city.

“You’re going to do well you know. You’ve got money, a  degree, everything you need.”

“So has everyone.”

“Not me. I’d give anything to have what you have.”

“You shouldn’t say that.”

“And you’ll have a job soon, a proper job, not just cleaning the fucking toilets like me.”

“A job doing what?”

She considered “Doing what you love.”

“And what’s that?”

She didn’t reply. The sky was thick with cloud. A few tentative flakes had already started to fall. The cathedral was almost hidden from view.

“I’m going to go” she said, “It’s going to get bad.”

“I’m going to stay.”

“It’s dangerous up here when it properly comes down. You can get lost.”

He considered. “Yeah, maybe your right. But I want to come back. I want to see how big we can get it.” He patted the snowball.

“Are you even enjoying that?”

“That’s not the point.”

“You can come back tomorrow, I’m staying at home.”

“Yes, I shall. I’ll come back and finish tomorrow.”

He ate his noodles. She didn’t speak.
     The kitchen was Christmasy. A tree had been erected in the corner and tinsel glittered on the walls. The room was warm and orange. A fat cat slunk in and out from the living room.
     “When will you dye your hair then?” She pulled the corners of her mouth into a smile, but kept her eyes on her magazine and didn’t reply. The wind whistled angrily through the letterbox. His stomach churned. The food was good - her cooking always was - but he felt full.
     He cast about in his mind for a reason for the silence. He scrutinized every topic they had discussed that night, turned over every word which could have offended.
     He looked at her face. It was a face a man could get passionate about. He enjoyed thinking about it a lot. He thought about it when he was waiting for a bus. He thought about it when he was at work. He especially thought about it when he drank tea in bed at night. He liked the small, delicate lips and the soft edges of her neck. 

      But its softness had gone tonight. It was colder, sternly beautiful in the orange light. It smiled weakly and unconvincingly. He searched for some words that wouldn’t sound strained.

     “You should have it short.” She didn’t respond. His leg fidgeted nervously. He remembered going to sleep the previous night, his mind full of every caress and whisper that has passed between them. He had woken that morning with a tenderness he didn’t think possible. He wondered at how quickly such a passion could pass. 

     She sat two chairs away from him. Her arm lay slender and white on the table top, downed with light brown hair. She carefully put down her magazine. “How is it?” She nodded at his food. The coldness broke inside him. He felt a surge of gratitude.  

     “It’s really good.”

     “It’s been reheated.”

     “Its still really good.” 

     “It’s nothing special.”
     “Better than what I could do.” 

     The wind blew against the front door and a short flurry of rain drops stung the window. She checked the time on her phone. “You’d better hurry.”

     “Are you okay?”

     “I’m fine, just tired.” She smiled again, weakly but deliberately. 

    He finished his meal. They both stood up. She watched as he put his plate and cup in the dishwasher, then told him to wash the chopsticks by hand. She walked with him through to the front door, where he put on his coat and scarf.

     “Thanks for cooking tonight.”

     “Yeah.” Her arms were folded. He put his hand on her side. He considered a kiss, but her face was downcast. He opened the door.

     “See you soon.”

     He walked down the few shallow steps. The wind was sharp, but it had stopped raining. Above him the porch light buzzed quietly. He waved goodbye, then turned to face the street as he heard the door shut and the latch click behind him.

They chose a small table beside the window. He put down their tray of tea and coffee and unbuttoned his thin black coat. She sat down and rummaged in her handbag.      “Sugar?” He asked.      “Huh?”      “Did you want sugar?’      “Oh, em, I’m alright, ta.” She continued to rustle in her bag.      A jazz CD tinkled in the background. He took off his coat with a minor flurry, and, after shaking off the rain drops, deposited it on the back of his chair. He sat down and proceeded to unload the tray with a series of small clinks that seemed strangely loud in the almost empty cafe.      He looked at her. She was now staring out the window, where a film of mist had thickened the air. Her skin looked grey, like a statue.      “Fog’s up,” he said in a cheery tone.      “Hmm.”      “It’ll be cold later on, won’t it, walking home.”      She stopped gazing out the window and looked at him. “What do you mean?”      “From the party. You know, the Christmas do Michael Fury is putting on up Bailgate. You can get lost in weather like this.” He chuckled and nodded at the plush scarf she had folded and placed neatly beside her. “You could unravel that and leave a trail when we leave home.”      She didn’t smile. “Why didn’t you remind me?” Her voice was soft, it always was.      “About what?”      “About the party, why didn’t you say anything”      “I thought we’d arranged it”      “That was a while ago. I forgot.” She took a sip from her cup and wiped a thin mustache of cream from her top lip. “I can’t go.”      “Why not?”      “I can’t. He’d know. He’s got the night off work.” She paused, looking down at her hands, then back up again. “You go though.”      He breathed out his nose, took the miniature jug of milk and poured it delicately into his cup. “I was looking forward to us going.”      “Then go then.” she said irritably, then turned her gaze to the window. He poured water into his cup, and dipped the teabag until the water was saturated.      The Cafe was on the second floor of Waterstones. The walls were light brown, decorated with photographs of coco beans and black and white cityscapes. A man with a mop busied himself between the tables.      He looked at her in profile, at her dark hair, the curve of her neck, the gentle push of collar bone beneath her pale skin. He tentatively pushed out his leg under the table until his knee touched hers. Her leg didn’t withdraw, so he gave it a gentle push, and smiled when he received a little push in return. He leaned forward and spoke playfully.      “Jessy, what are you thinking about?” There was a short silence. He saw her chest expand, as if she were gathering words in her lungs, but nothing. He reached a hand under the table and placed it on her knee, caressing it slowly with his thumb. “I bet I know what you’re thinking.”      She still looked out the window. “What would happen if we jumped?”      “Jumped?”     “Yeah, jumped out the window. Would we survive?”      He considered it. “Yeah, yeah I would have thought so. I mean, it would depend on how we landed. What we landed on. We’d be pretty shaken.”      “But you think we’d live?”      “I think so. It’s not too high up. We could be higher.” He looked out the window too. The mist was worse. Grey figures bundled in coats and scarfs rushed beneath them. It was getting dark and a street lamp had come on behind a tree whose branches segmented the light into shafts. 

 She took another sip of coffee. “It’s his graduation next week.”      He took his hand off her leg. “Really?”     “He’s going to be wearing his uniform and everything. I’m going with his family.”     “Yeah.”      “I can’t stand them really. They’re so common. They shout at each other you know. And he’s so horrible to me when they’re around.”      “Yeah.” Silence. She sipped her coffee. He gulped his tea and fiddled with a sachet sugar.      “Well, say something then.”       “Like what?”       “Something, anything. Something cheerful.      “Like jumping out of windows?”      “That’s not what I meant.”       He spoke carefully, keeping his eyes fixed on the sachet between his fingers. “It’ll be better, afterwards, won’t it? I mean, he could be posted anywhere. I could see you in the day time maybe.”      “Its dangerous. His family could see. And he’s still paying the rent, you know.”      “I know.”      “I’d feel bad.”      “You don’t feel bad already?”      “I don’t mean that.”      Another silence. The jazz had stopped. Outside, the mist was complete, hiding High Street under a grey, impalpable mass. He watched it swirl and eddy. They were the last two in the cafe.      “Maybe I will go to the party after all” he said.      “I thought you weren’t going.”      “I’ve changed my mind.”      “You’re so indecisive. I can never read you.”      He finished his tea in two strong gulps, and placed his cup in the centre of the table. She pushed her lukewarm coffee next to it. He noticed she had barely touched it. She fingered her scarf. “Shall will go?”     “Yes, let’s go.”