Category: Creative non-fiction

Reading John Clare On The Gatwick Express

I missed my flight.

On the way, I kept thinking, I’ve forgotten something. The last thing I did, take something to read. I took — I didn’t want to, but couldn’t help myself — John Clare, selected poems. I needed a someone from the asylum.

On the page, boys ramble. Out of the window the last slope of the Downs, smokey in early blue morning. A black deer. Heedless, no-one looks.

I opened my phone, there’s the boarding pass, there’s the vaccine exemption reference, the entry permit for the Isle of Man. In one or other pocket the passport, the Covid certificate. My wife found my watch and I look at it unthinking. The Gatwick Express smooths along accompanied by its multi-lingual announcements.

‘Is this the right queue?’ No-one knows. In the lift I can’t breathe. Some-one sees and lets me through. Bustling, another queue. ‘The gate’s closed. You’ve missed your flight.’ Blank. Like a night between lightening bolts.

I slump, a child without an adult, slumped on his red suitcase in the hollow of the airport. Someone comes. She leads me back through the crowd to hear it repeated. ‘You’ve missed your flight.’ Then she shrugs, she’s done her best.

‘Is this the way out?’ ‘’Wha?’ The luggage man in the yellow jacket seems never to have heard that question. ‘Out of the airport’.

Outside, the controlled ordering of traffic in undisturbed grey: bus parks, car parks, roundabouts with tame greenery. Signs and warnings and instructions are multi-colour. Wire fence, perspex and metal keep you from harm. Across a road — they all go round, not straight — there’s a finger-post. I get there. One finger points towards a muddy path into some trees. It’s name-tagged: Sussex Border Path. I rest against it. I wrap my arm around it.

‘Are you all right?’ A woman, a lone pedestrian behind me, from where the trimmed grass edges into the mud. ’No’. Then, softer. ‘I’ve missed my flight.’ ’So have I’ she says. We converse: she was going to Greece, a holiday, me to a family wedding. She’ll try again tomorrow; for me, I say that’ll be too late. ‘That path doesn’t go anywhere’ she says, as we part.

I head along it, under a canopy still green from the summer, the branches freely pleaching, pulling my suitcase on its glib wheels in my town brogues and wedding-smart overcoat.

Cherry, elder, ash, hornbeam, maple. Are those willow-herb? (Thinking of Edward Thomas now). No, the pinks of Himalayan Balsam welcome me, pinking the culvert which guards the woods from the road. White clusters of snowberries peep. Some trees are leafless, dead. Some cherry stumps cut and piled. I taste a haw: bready and slight. Rose hips I see. I suck on a sloe then spit out the stone and skin.

I stop to hear a robin. A young man, wearing black shorts, strides by. He’s carrying his suitcase. ‘Are you going to the Holiday Inn, too?’ But he hardly lingers to hear my answer: ‘No’. I reach a metal footbridge over a brown stream, sheltered by willow and ash and then into the carpark of a Travelodge hotel.

The man, with a few others, stands outside the lobby. On the lawn protecting the drive is a proud eucalyptus from where a magpie chatters hoarsely. From a poplar a fellow magpie clacks back. I join in. No-one hears.

On the way back, I follow the runnels along the muddy path made by the wheels of my case.

above: remains of a wedding, stream near Gatwick Airport; top: a black hart Š Steve Byrd Moore

With thanks to Tara Gould ‘Nature Journaling for Wellbeing’ at The Book Makers, Brighton

Maradona in Harlesden

Midsummer 1986 I went on a weekend retreat at Avebury.

A bunch of us, nine or ten, met that Friday afternoon near Notting Hill station, outside the studio of the man who was to lead it, a reiki practitioner. I’d found out about it through an ad in Time Out. We were to do a sun worship ritual and dowse for earth energy. We got in a mini-bus, the usual procedure, and a few hours later disembarked at a communal farmhouse in Wiltshire. Late that night, with the sun hardly set, the Reiki Man led us through a meditation.

Why, I don’t know, but I must have said I thought I could do better. He said, alright, you lead the meditations and handed them over to me. I’d been meditating for all of half a year at a Buddhist centre just off the Portobello Road: this was my first retreat.

On the Sunday afternoon we were dropped off back in London. On the way we’d stopped to look at at Silbury Hill. There was warm, blue sky, the same blue as over the stones at Avebury, but here in Harlesden the air was steeped with dust mites, sun-flecked above the tired Victorian streets. Coming out of Willesden Junction by myself I saw a board outside a pub advertising the football, the World Cup was on: England v Argentina. I remember thinking ‘Why not?’.

The pub was one of those — back then there were hardly any others — that sucked the light out of the street, sucked it into the matted carpets, the moulded plaster walls and the high ceiling. When my eyes adjusted I was in a large, smoke-filled room of maroons and ochres. It was crowded, but most of the men paid little heed to the screen, a kind of projection sheet hung at one end. The shadowy images and the muffled commentary were hardly advanced on the moon landing. I found a stool at the bar and took a Guinness. I was 30 years old, had short salt-and-pepper hair and wore my summer jacket of pale blue linen.

Then they scored. Everyone cheered. The men stopped playing pool, held their cues aloft, laughter and cheers all round. Black, Asian and Irish. I couldn’t say the cheers were malicious: ironic, mischievous, comradely: a common enemy had got his comeuppance, that’s all. On the screen some blanched out England players were hovering round the referee. ‘That won’t do any good’ I thought, not knowing what they were complaining about.

The game ended. On the screen Terry Venables said something about if Shilton had a weakness it was dealing with crosses. They showed Maradona’s mazy run again. Amongst the crowd of men who were beginning to disperse a woman circulated; almost middle-aged, she was dressed in a light summer coat and holding a rattling collection box: ’Have you anything for the Bhoys?’ She was asking, ‘For the Bhoys?’.

As she drew up to me she said ‘You wouldn’t be an Irishman yourself would you, sir?’ The sun had dropped and its light caught her face. I shook my head and we both smiled slightly. Days later I heard of the Hand of God.

A Day In Southern England

The day started with me sitting on the lid of the cat’s litter tray after I’d taken it off to clean the base out. It cracked down the middle with a splintering noise. I don’t know why I did it, maybe it just seemed like the kind of thing that wouldn’t happen, defying the logic of my weight, the angle of meeting and the flimsiness of the plastic.

Outside the pet shop, with my new litter tray, in the huge carpark that had once been the home of Brighton and Hove Albion, I got a call from my youngest brother saying that Dad had had a fall the day before. The hospital had put in place end-of-life-procedure. I’d had to call him back, the connection was bad or it might just have been my clumsiness.

One thing after another. It was a warm and sunny day, the last day of June. Now I’d have to take the train across the country. That train ride was something I looked forward to, usually, but on a Sunday, in England?

I told my wife. She started to make preparations to come too, with our daughter. Another thing. Usually I go by myself. Look out the window, read, take a beer. But in truth it was rather lovely. The three of us, a kind of rural ride by train across the south of England on a green and sunny Sunday afternoon. Shoreham by Sea, Lancing, Worthing, Angmering, Chichester, an incantation along the crowded south coast; inland, Salisbury, where I’d jumped off a few weeks before on my last home visit, to see the cathedral, Warminster and its uncanny hill, Dilton Marsh, Bradford on Avon and memories of its Saxon church, Bath. England were playing India away off in Birmingham. The girls mocked me as I checked the score, so far so good, on the mustard coloured BBC app.

We were met at the station by my brother. When we got to the hospital Dad seemed as he had 18 months earlier after another fall: stony but visceral: bones, veins, paper skin with bruises and blotches. He roused himself and straightaway recognised my wife and daughter, ‘Ah! It’s you!’ He hadn’t seen them for two years. Then me: ‘Which one are you?’ I was the last to leave, ushered away by one of the nurses; I hadn’t thought of much to say.

At my brother’s we watched the cricket highlights together, sharing a beer. My daughter explored the garden. It’s got four or five ponds and she went off looking for frogs. We watched the coverage of Glastonbury (which flags, we wondered, might be unacceptable to wave there). I was deeply asleep and had no idea where I was or the time or what was happening when my brother came into my room. He’d got a call from the hospital. It was just after midnight and the two of us walked there through a sleeping village in Somerset.

The hospital appeared like an eerily lit alien presence, we were let in via a video intercom and were led by a nurse into a visitors’ room and offered tea. You’ve got to have tea, I thought, though I didn’t fancy one. There’d been a moment’s hesitation when we’d got to the ward as one nurse whispered to the duty nurse; in the dim light I could see a screen up round my dad’s bed. A little later a doctor came to see us: a young woman, blue uniformed, blonde, calm and good-looking to tell us he had passed away ten minutes before. She asked if there was anything we wanted to know and scanned our faces for any emotion. There was nothing to ask. We thanked her.

A while later another nurse came to see us, sombre but bouncy, somehow. The three of them had held his hand and stroked his hair, she said. We saw the body, still on the bed, in the ward, with the bleeping of monitoring machines and another patient’s rasping breathing going on. ‘I always talk to them’ the nurse said, ‘listening is the last thing to go.’

My dad died on 1st July, 2019, a little after midnight.

    Bitter Shrovetide

    They don’t look you in the mouth, as such.

    Eye-to-eye. Tall enough, broad enough, drunk enough, but no more. He calls you Joseph; today you can call him Thomas. You thee him; he says you, for form’s sake.

    ‘How’s thy missus?’ A smirk from your pals.

    A figgy smile back: ‘You’re looking older, Joseph.’

    You’d say that’s France, but you can’t; it’s too bitter and you’d rather forget: ‘And thee still in the bloom of youth, Thomas.’

    Eye-to-eye over the brim of the mug. Another smirk.

    ‘I’ll need some men come harvest time.’

    ‘Thou’ll need someone afore that.’

    So you stand, foot-to-foot, a chill breeze at your back. Then it’s settled: ‘Alright. Come and see me at Easter.’

    But the bitter day is coming when he’ll pass you over, like the others. Then, for charity, give you a broom to sweep. But for now, sweetened, the year turns again.

    Not The Devil’s Dyke

    I said, ‘To be honest, I can’t do this anymore.’ Her question had been ‘How are you?’

    ‘I can’t do it, I’m sorry.’ I said, staring at the webcam, I couldn’t do business as usual, I couldn’t be my LinkedIn profile. ‘It’s not you,’ I added, hoping she’d understand.

    ‘Are you getting any support for your mental health?’ she asked, thoughtfully. I answered with a short history, then we said goodbye and good luck and I logged out of Skype.

    I headed for The Devil’s Dyke, on foot. I’d said I was going to take a long walk. I wanted to get away from myself. I couldn’t do it. Hove Park, then up and through overlooked, red-brick Hangleton where swifts were seeking a home. Access Land (‘Within the meaning’ — a board announces — ‘of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000). This late in spring it’s wreathed in the cream of cow parsley and may blossom.

    A foot bridge across the bypass, onto the old railway track, beloved of dogs and their walkers and lads on off-road trail bikes. Birdsong mingled with the traffic noise; a pair of whitethroat scooped from thorn bush to thorn bush, hidden again. At a bench I knew I could go no farther. I couldn’t do it. How could such scrawny legs be so heavy, a windless chest weigh so much?

    On my way back a tiny viridescent lizard skimmed across the path, as dainty as a shadow.

    IMG_5968

    A Sunday In January

    I opened the bedroom window to throw out some tat.

    The tat is the stuff and dregs of my pockets: dried skin (heel and finger), screwed up Co-Op receipts, mini Post-Its; the waste bin in the bathroom seemed too far away. The Velux window is hinged from the top, quite smart but weighty so I can sneak out stuff without it being seen. Two floors down the garden would be a desert of slate gravel speared by two dried and sickly palms, but for the unopened celandine and stonecrop greening out of winter slough. It belongs to The Downstairs, who aren’t above reminding us tenants of their ownership. It’s Sunday in its January grey when the day hardly wakes.

    From left, a dark arrow, dark, quick, barely an armslength below, an absence of light, flint-arrowed wings, silvery trine low on its back. It must have been haunting under the eaves. It’s ushered away by a plump and purple pigeon, beyond the Victorian villa opposite. It? The Collins Bird Guide says, Do not hope for or pretend reliable identification of all birds of prey in the field — ever. And anyway, who ever sees a bird of prey from above?

    I clomp into the living room and announce to wife and daughter, “I’ve just seen a peregrine and I’m going out to see it I can see it again.” Neither says anything.

    I followed where I’d last seen it, around the old soap factory alongside the railway line, looking up when I could, assuming I was on a hopeless chase, but at least I was out of the house. Then there, after a hundred yards or so, it is: it’s blackness etched into the colourless sky, being mobbed by a gang of grey gulls, much bigger than — him (not it: too small for a her). And then, flap and glide, he was gone.

    I went back home, completing a circuit, still finding tat in my pockets. They didn’t seem  surprised I’d seen him. A few days later the snow came.

    Peregrine IMG_5611

    photo from What’s That Bird? / Hayman, Everett / RSPB

    African Blood

    IMG_3059

    ‘Can I ask you a question? I was wondering about your ancestors; do you have any ancestors from the Mediterranean or The Middle East?’
    ‘Well . . .’
    ‘Ah, perhaps you’d like to be there now, in the Mediterranean?’ He was conspiratorial, trying to put me at ease, we both knew about the British weather.
    ‘I used to live there, the Mediterranean’, I said, not wanting to sound too eager to please.
    ‘North or South?’
    ‘Oh, I see.’

    The Haemotologist was tall, slim, slightly stooped, as if from deference, rather than age, although he seemed near to sixty, with receding, crinkly hair and a trimmed, greying beard. Handsome face and eyes that looked like he enjoyed being intelligent and dapper and charming. Complexion of coffee colour; you’d say North African, with the clipped accent of the well-educated. He ran through the analysis of my blood at speed, noting where it was less than optimum. Quickly moving on to the next graph or table, always finding ways to reassure. My blood, with it’s laggardly white blood cells, who nonetheless, according to him, managed to get the job done, was universal amongst Africans, he said, wherever they are.

    I could hardly keep up with the statistics he generously showed me on the computer screen as they scrolled by. Was it me, or did other patients understand these kind of things, well-versed by the medical pages of the Daily Mirror or Google? I dismissed the thought that all this  — he shared his gorgeously hand-written notes, too — was for the benefit of the young female medical student who sat demurely behind my left shoulder. Kidney, liver, bone marrow and creatures known as the scavengers were his only concessions to my vernacular ignorance. How did he learn all this?

    But mostly I was thinking about the journey. Exiled from the Dardanelles, when we got away from the Greeks, us no better than Helots. From Italy to Libya, when the Mediterranean was one, undivided. There we must have stopped off for a while, took on provisions, tarried, we might have called it; the Balearics, leaving behind our cairns; then Morocco, last pleasures and civilisation before the grim Atlantic, with its mist and black rocks and fierce gales, then to the edge of the world, Totnes, our New Troy, so called. Brutus would have left me there; he had bigger fish to fry. And my ancestors? After that we moved only when we had to.

    ‘So you’re saying that if I were African, my blood would be normal?’
    ‘Yes, that’s right.’ He was gently ushering me out of his office.
    ‘Thank you’, was all I could think to add.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, as I shook his hand. And I went off for another blood test.

    Expert

    Angels In Sussex

    On a walk to the exhibition, William Blake in Sussex: Visions of Albion.

    Angels in Sussex IMG_2668

    Start at the railway station, Pulborough. (Let the train go on to London, without you). This is off The Downs, off the chalk, in a dip, but the Downs stalk alongside. The way leads you over suburban metalled and gravelled paths, then red-green sand, wet meadow, sand again.

    Copses where the beech trees have grown free of the serfdom of crop and cut, crop and cut. Pines trees tall and straight like retired officers (whose hearts are in the Highlands, but who look south, seaward). A dull regimented wood where the art of murder is declaimed by cages and barrels and the odds and sods of shooting. A pheasant clacks and belches erratically into the air, then slumps into cover, relieved.

    Halt at a church. A high saddleback tower, three tiers of undecorated Norman windows. A yew is black with age. They say that one of the names on the war memorial (of those who didn’t come back from Flanders) is the same as one who fought with Charlemagne. This is a land of names, houses, manors.

    The Big House, Petworth: Fuck — the ladies, officious, said I was too late, the gallery’s closed.  They’re in charge. At The Angel, Angel Street, a local says, in parenthesis,  — oh dear, they are not very — a pause for words —  community-minded. I open Blake at: I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise.

    I thought he meant them, the guardian angels of our culture. But the next day I got a phone call — you can come back another time, free. Perhaps he had me in mind, after all.

    SaveSave

    That Was Then: The Bayswater Faith Co-operative

    Kilim BayswaterIMG_3714

    A whodunit

    “Well, it wasn’t me,” Steyne sounded offended, his voice smooth and clear.

    “Never is” said Wilson in the kind of cockney drawl he used when he was sexually interested – not in this case – or felt his interlocutor to be beneath him.

    “Now, now,” calmed Ghita. She left the “children” unsaid. They’d known each other for years.

    Rachel looked startled, although she’d seen scenes like this many times before. Then Hurst threw in: “Maybe it wasn’t anyone?” He seemed to be making a philosophical point.

    “So what happened, then?” Wilson was taking control.

    “I came in, and the door to the office was open,” Ghita looked at Wilson for approval. “It shouldn’t be.”

    “No, actually, you think it shouldn’t be.” Steyne went on the attack, his eyes fixed on Ghita. At sixty he could have been played by the same actor as at thirty, his years carried so little weight.

    “We’ve been through that so many times.” Ghita tried not to sound flustered.

    Hurst looked round, from face to face, then at the dull blue carpet. He wondered whose job it was to clean it. Sitting on cushions made it feel like a prayer meeting; he didn’t know if that was good or not.  The room was in its perpetual twilight.

    “Yeah, yeah,” said Wilson, not much more than grunting. He meant carry on.

    “At first I thought . . . ” She looked at Steyne; they all knew what she was thinking. “And, so, I didn’t think anything was wrong. Anyway, I checked the answer machine.”

    “Yes, yes.” Steyne said sharply; he wanted to get to the point.

    “Was there anything on it, the voicemail?” Wilson was having fun, his heavy face lightening. Steyne laughed: they were friends again. Hurst noted the use of ‘voicemail’, Wilson had an ear for jargon, he thought. Rachel looked blank.

    Ghita had to indulge them, she knew. “Then, I went to the top drawer to get some cash and it was open.”

    “What was?” Wilson again.

    “The drawer, it wasn’t locked. And the cash box. It was gone.” Ghita’s black hair had become even more unruly, as though joining in her disapproval.

    “Well, I wouldn’t take it, would I?” Steyne sounded as though he had no need of money, he lived on a higher plane.

    “Someone would.” Wilson added; he could have been rubbing his hands together. “What time was that?”

    “About one, just before” Ghita, being practical.

    “A bit late, then,” Wilson said. It seemed to be a private joke between him and Ghita, and she smiled.

    “I know,” said Rachel. They all turned; they’d forgotten about her. “Why don’t we ask Woody? He’ll know what to do.”

    “Woody?” said Wilson, disguising his hurt. “What could he do? He wasn’t even here.”

    Woody Mathews held an honorary post; unluckily for Wilson he took it seriously. Rachel’s face had the glow of faith: “No, but he’ll know what to do.”

    Ghita looked slighted on Wilson’s behalf. “That’s it, then” said Steyne, getting up, drawing the meeting to a close.

    “I’ll give him a ring” said Hurst, as they knew he would.

    *****

    The room was in a semi-basement, light penetrated weakly through frosted windows with bars on the outside. It was odd-shaped, following the contour of the Victorian villa, an oblong with a cut off corner where a potted palm stood. There was no furniture, save some folded chairs stacked against built-in cupboards and the pastel coloured cushions on which they were sitting.  On the cream painted walls were two high-quality reproduction mandalas while the walls themselves gave out a foggy, damp smell that mingled with stale incense. The carpet was enlivened with a wine-red kilim, its elaborate arrows pointing uselessly away from Mecca. Even when sitting on the floor the ceiling felt too low. The whole was like like a sanctified cave set among the flux and flow of desirable, capricious inner London.

    Woody’s face was uncorrupted and incorruptible; the ageing choirboy who believed the words he sang. He looked around; beside him the others seemed careworn, all except Steyne, steely as ever. None of them had had a good weekend.

    “What about Simon? Wasn’t he about?” asked Woody, when they had all settled. He’d been waiting for a while.

    “The yogi? No, he wasn’t. It couldn’t have been him.” Rachel was sure; even if he’d wanted to, he couldn’t, her face said.

    “How much was in it?” Woody played the doctor, getting down to practicalities.

    “Well,” said Ghita “there was the mindfulness course on Thursday, most people paid cash, they don’t have cheques, they think we can’t do cards . . .”

    “We can’t, can we?” Woody wasn’t sure about the ‘we’.

    “We can, actually, yes.”

    “The wi-fi’s very bad.  It’s very slow, we should get a new router,” Wilson put in firmly.

    “Yes . . .” Ghita continued, “so most people paid cash. And there was the addicts’ group on Tuesday, they put something in.”

    “Yes. But how much? How much was in it?” Woody was trying to be patient.

    “I borrowed some, on Thursday about £20” said Hurst. He meant ‘took’.

    “About?” growled Wilson.  He was keen on semantics.

    “Well, yeah, twenty, £20.” Hurst slurred slightly, but no-one paid him any attention, they moved on with only a murmur. He tried to forget about the drawer, which he’d left unlocked.

    Ghita was leafing through a ring binder, at pale grey  sheets of paper, photocopied and overwritten in different coloured handwriting. She was the only one who had brought along anything business-like; thoughtfully she’d also put out a large jar with a selection of biros, markers and pencils. The others glanced at it from time to time, but didn’t take from it.

    “I don’t know how much from the addicts’” she looked briefly at Hurst, “but there were nine people on the course, three paid the full amount, and there were four concessions . . . it looks like two didn’t pay. There’s nothing here.”

    “They arrived late. They paid me” snapped Steyne, reddened, continuing: “the usual amount.”

    “He means concessionary,” said Wilson and Steyne looked at him gratefully.

    “So, how much was that, altogether?” Woody pressed on.

    Ghita had a ledger of some kind, it was scribbled with figures, notes and initials. It looked out of place, like money-changers in a temple. “And we sold a book,” she added, looking at Woody.

    “But doesn’t that go into the bookshop safe, upstairs?”

    “No, because it was from the library.”

    “The library?” Now Woody was shocked.

    “We don’t really need a library,” Wilson was sharing his superior knowledge “It’s all online. We should just sign-up to one of  the  universities.”

    “It was Steve,” Ghita was determined to go on.

    “Steve?”

    “Steve Wednesday. The musician”

    “What does he want books for?” Woody knew he sounded ridiculous, but he couldn’t stop himself.

    “He’s into films, too,” Rachel piped to everyone’s surprise.

    “It’s his wife” Wilson said with authority. “She’s very middle class. Catholic. A therapist.” He spoke as though he could handle them all.

    “She did a session here. Last year” Added Ghita, to her own annoyance.

    “Yes. It was packed” Rachel looked up, her face clouding with the memory of the lovely scents of the smart women, their intelligent voices and their shoes  lined up neatly outside the therapy room, assured in their wealth.

    “He wanted to buy the Waugh on Campion, the signed copy.” Explained Ghita, then added quickly, for the benefit of Rachel and Hurst: “Evelyn Waugh”. Woody stared at her.

    “Christ!” hissed Steyne.

    “At least it didn’t get nicked” said Wilson; Steyne suppressed a smirk. They were enjoying themselves. No-one added they needed the money.

    Ghita tried to force some kind of order: “He said, well he gave us £240, that was cash too. He said he’d get us a replacement, too, you know, a modern paperback”

    “Hardback” put in Wilson. “From Amazon.”

    “Amazon?” Echoed Woody, perhaps surprised by their  initiative.

    “There was  card from them, this morning.” For Rachel it was like a message from another world.

    “Yeah, they tried to deliver them today. But there was no-one in. It’s at the post office. I’ll . . . “ Hurst’s voice trailed away.

    “And a friend of yours came by” said Steyne, looking at Ghita, “on Friday.”

    “The day . . . ?” she sounded alarmed. “What friend?”

    “So you were here, in the morning?” Wilson spoke slowly.

    “Yes, yes.” He wanted to get it over with, quickly. “I was here.  Then I went out, to the gym. I thought you’d be here, too” he looked at Ghita and was suddenly very young again as she stared back, stoney. “Early, that is  .  .  .  a chap came to the door” he sighed, “he asked for you. The Asian lady who brings the flowers, he said, he seemed a bit upset, and you know, I thought you would’t be long.”

    Ghita tried to take it in; she didn’t just ‘bring the flowers’ and she wasn’t really ‘Asian’, she considered herself ‘Anglo-Indian, actually.’ She composed herself: “So you just let him in?”

    “Yes, yes . . .”

    In the silence, they each  began to fill in the story: the doorbell rings, Steyne, answers and a man  – he’s in his early 20s, younger than most of the regulars, wearing a dark padded parka, zipped up –  he says he’s come to see the Asian lady. Everyone knows her, she’s lived around here for years, shops in the market, puts out publicity.  Steyne lets him in, it would’t be good form to ask for a name; he doesn’t show him into the reception, with the locked cabinet of books, the Buddha statue (a family heirloom, brought in by Ghita) and Rachel’s soothing  semi-figurative paintings. Instead, with patrician friendliness, he leads him into the office, in the sub-basement.

    The young man calmly takes his place in the comfortable battered office chair behind the desk, ignoring the two plastic ones. Steyne goes to make them tea in the small kitchen next door. He whistles to himself,  uses the nice tea, the Darjeeling  he keeps hidden.  He has his own pot. But the milk, does he call out  “Only soya, I’m afraid,” or root around to find Hurst’s little carton of full-cream? The man grunts back, indifferently.

    After a while, Steyne returns and tries to make small talk: “She’ll be in soon” or “Have you done many events here?” but the man is abstracted, he doesn’t drink the tea. He gets up carefully, saying he’ll come back later; he pulls a small day bag over his shoulder. Steyne emits a few relieved pleasantries and the man sees himself out.

    *****

    They sat there, on their cushions. Hurst stared stupidly at the carpet, as though for comfort. He realised Steyne was gazing too at the same spot, his eyes lost.  Hurst opened his mouth, words, a question, began to form: was – he – black? The others were  all silent, as though at that moment receiving a benediction. He closed his mouth again.

    “So. That was it, really,” said Steyne, shifting on his cushion.

    “Why would anyone steal from us?” Rachel hoped for an answer, but she knew it would never come.

    “Yes. I see,” said Woody with weary finality.

    “I think we should all meditate,” offered Rachel.

    “I’ve got to go and do some work,” said Wilson, briskly. Then added, as they looked at him with amazement “On my book.”

    They muttered assent, as if to some higher mystery.

    “I’ve got to go, too. I’m giving a talk tomorrow,” said Woody.

    The rest looked on in wonder as the two men rose and sauntered side-by-side to the door. There was a brief business as Wilson ceded and let Woody leave first, then he passed through and shut the door firmly from the other side.

    They gathered themselves into a circle, Steyne snorting audibly to re-assert seniority, then they sat there, like children determined to prove they could behave when the adults had left.