Post by kath on Feb 12, 2007 21:41:21 GMT
Are you sure, Fiona asks, you’re not a priest? Ten minutes left
before her next, and she lies on her back, knees bent up, her red hair
fanned across the lilac sheet, dabbing her chest with a wet wipe.
I pour her a warm coke. Outside it's eighty-eight degrees; inside,
the fan grinds back and forth. From one wall come the usual sounds,
from the other, Caprice, ten hours into a twelve hour shift, saying,
trust me, it happens all the time. Have it your way, Fiona says,
I’ve been around too long. They come in here around Lent,
the young ones, before they take their vows. And then I see them after.
Two pigeons flurry at the skylight, fall exhausted and Caprice
is trying again when Fiona says, You know this place was haunted?
Lights coming on and off, ashtrays flying round. All that stuff. Bloody
punter, of course. Dead and nowhere better to hang around than here
the bastard. Didn’t bother me. I says, if you can move plates about,
why don’t you do the bloody washing up? But the wee girlies
were getting frightened. Voices. Touching their hair. And then it’s bad
for business. So there’s this one guy - one of my regulars. I had a feeling
about him. I didn’t ask, cause then it makes it awkward. I just says
to him, I’ve got this problem. Now could you maybe do something,
just as a favour ? Looks that d**n surprised, I tell you.
Then all serious, he says I’ll need to be alone, Fiona.
She passes me some tissue, sips her coke, and I see
him standing in this room, naked, his right hand lifted, quartering
the air. His breath slowing, the pulse of the fan, the cars outside, all
slowing, beginning the Liturgy of Deliverance and as he speaks
something growing present, clawing at his nerves, a burden in the air
an outline at the edge of vision, the muscles in his neck
tensing, sweat glistening on his temples, running in the hollow
of his spine and then, unasked, his throat convulsing saliva
flooding in his mouth and breaking in the room the tongue
of angels, harsh with the arid rhythms of the desert
the air opening to his words the way that eggshell opens for a bird
or snake. His palms scorching and all this, the bed,
the table with its folded towels, the plate of Durex, Asda talc, blazing
holy, their colours scalding, the light of every thing awoken, and then the peace
of nothing, the carpet, walls, fading to dullness, and him standing
here, the air chilling on his skin, the damp prints of his feet, his hair
matted, limp, and outside the shrill summons
of the pelican lights on Dundas street.
Right enough, Fiona says, he did the job. Not that I’m religious -
Christmas and weddings, me. But I could tell, he’d cleared it out.
I owe you, I says to him and then he says to me Fiona, you realise,
he says, I’m really sorry, hen. I can’t come back here now.
before her next, and she lies on her back, knees bent up, her red hair
fanned across the lilac sheet, dabbing her chest with a wet wipe.
I pour her a warm coke. Outside it's eighty-eight degrees; inside,
the fan grinds back and forth. From one wall come the usual sounds,
from the other, Caprice, ten hours into a twelve hour shift, saying,
trust me, it happens all the time. Have it your way, Fiona says,
I’ve been around too long. They come in here around Lent,
the young ones, before they take their vows. And then I see them after.
Two pigeons flurry at the skylight, fall exhausted and Caprice
is trying again when Fiona says, You know this place was haunted?
Lights coming on and off, ashtrays flying round. All that stuff. Bloody
punter, of course. Dead and nowhere better to hang around than here
the bastard. Didn’t bother me. I says, if you can move plates about,
why don’t you do the bloody washing up? But the wee girlies
were getting frightened. Voices. Touching their hair. And then it’s bad
for business. So there’s this one guy - one of my regulars. I had a feeling
about him. I didn’t ask, cause then it makes it awkward. I just says
to him, I’ve got this problem. Now could you maybe do something,
just as a favour ? Looks that d**n surprised, I tell you.
Then all serious, he says I’ll need to be alone, Fiona.
She passes me some tissue, sips her coke, and I see
him standing in this room, naked, his right hand lifted, quartering
the air. His breath slowing, the pulse of the fan, the cars outside, all
slowing, beginning the Liturgy of Deliverance and as he speaks
something growing present, clawing at his nerves, a burden in the air
an outline at the edge of vision, the muscles in his neck
tensing, sweat glistening on his temples, running in the hollow
of his spine and then, unasked, his throat convulsing saliva
flooding in his mouth and breaking in the room the tongue
of angels, harsh with the arid rhythms of the desert
the air opening to his words the way that eggshell opens for a bird
or snake. His palms scorching and all this, the bed,
the table with its folded towels, the plate of Durex, Asda talc, blazing
holy, their colours scalding, the light of every thing awoken, and then the peace
of nothing, the carpet, walls, fading to dullness, and him standing
here, the air chilling on his skin, the damp prints of his feet, his hair
matted, limp, and outside the shrill summons
of the pelican lights on Dundas street.
Right enough, Fiona says, he did the job. Not that I’m religious -
Christmas and weddings, me. But I could tell, he’d cleared it out.
I owe you, I says to him and then he says to me Fiona, you realise,
he says, I’m really sorry, hen. I can’t come back here now.
