God from His heaven. Let us feast on snot, blood, pus and sperm; only save your tears for vinegar, to serve to martyrs who thirst.
•
‘That’s a love letter?’ he says.
‘It’s a Karlsson love letter.’
‘Doesn’t know much about women, does he?’
Debs opens the patio door and pokes her head out. ‘Hey, Hem-ingway,’ she calls, ‘your daughter’s got a poopy nappy. Chop-chop.’
I wave to her. ‘Gotta go,’ I tell Billy. ‘Family day. We’re taking a spin out to Drumcliffe for lunch, it’s time Rosie visited Yeats’s grave.’
He drops the shades, gives me a one-eyed wink. ‘Cast a cold eye,’ he says. It’s hard to say if he means his Newman-blue or the sucked-out prune.
I hold up the Sermo Vulgus excerpt. ‘So what do you want to do with it?’
‘I don’t like it as a love letter,’ he says.
‘I can kill it if you want.’
‘See if we can’t work it in somewhere else,’ he says. ‘Somewhere it doesn’t have anything to do with Cassie.’
‘Will do. See you tomorrow.’
‘On Saturday?’
‘Oh, right. Monday so.’
‘Cool,’ he says. ‘I could do with a sleep-in tomorrow anyway. All these early mornings are killing me.’
‘Try having a kid,’ I say. ‘You’ll know all about early mornings then.’
He glances at me then, something hawkish in his eye.
‘That’d be up to you, really,’ he says, ‘wouldn’t it?’
‘You want Cassie to get pregnant?’
‘I think it might be good for us.’
‘She’s on the pill, though, isn’t she?’
‘She is now. Maybe you could swap her pills for folic acid or something.’
‘Without letting her know?’
‘Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason,’ he says. ‘Isn’t that what the best stories are about anyway?’
•
Buddhist monks have this thing going on where they construct complex mosaics comprised of thousands of precisely delineated sections of coloured dust. It can take years. When they’re finished they sweep the whole thing into a corner and start again.
I appreciate this perversity while I mop the tiles in the hospital corridors. By the time you reach the far end of the corridor, people have trampled all over the point from whence you came. Ashes unto ashes, dust unto dust. The priests say this so as not to scare the horses. It would be more correct to say ashes from ashes, dust from dust.
It would be even more correct to say nothing at all and let people decide for themselves.
People bring mud into the hospital on their shoes. They carry in dust, dog-shit, germs, saliva, acid rain, carbon monoxide and blackened chewing gum. But they’re not allowed to smoke in the overflow car park.
I ask about the possibility of wearing a facemask while I’m mopping, so I won’t inhale the second-hand pestilence of human perambulation. Because I am a porter this is regarded as facetious insubordination. Only surgeons get to wear facemasks, although the official line is that this is for the patient’s benefit as opposed to that of any surgeon concerned about the invisible dangers wafting up out of a diseased and freshly sliced human being.
A man is standing in the middle of the tiles, so I have to mop around him. His shoulders are slack. There’s a looseness to his stance that suggests his elastic has stretched a little too far this time.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Could I ask you to move to one side, please?’
But he turns to face me. His eyes are huge, round and too dry. He says, hoarsely, ‘My daughter just died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say. This would be hypocritical if it weren’t true, but I find his words offensive. I wonder why people always seem to think their pain is interesting. I wonder why people only share their pain these days. If the guy was standing in the middle of the carpet munching on a bag of toffees, it would never occur to him to offer a toffee to the guy vacuuming the carpet.
‘She was eight years old,’ he says.
‘Think
•
‘That’s a love letter?’ he says.
‘It’s a Karlsson love letter.’
‘Doesn’t know much about women, does he?’
Debs opens the patio door and pokes her head out. ‘Hey, Hem-ingway,’ she calls, ‘your daughter’s got a poopy nappy. Chop-chop.’
I wave to her. ‘Gotta go,’ I tell Billy. ‘Family day. We’re taking a spin out to Drumcliffe for lunch, it’s time Rosie visited Yeats’s grave.’
He drops the shades, gives me a one-eyed wink. ‘Cast a cold eye,’ he says. It’s hard to say if he means his Newman-blue or the sucked-out prune.
I hold up the Sermo Vulgus excerpt. ‘So what do you want to do with it?’
‘I don’t like it as a love letter,’ he says.
‘I can kill it if you want.’
‘See if we can’t work it in somewhere else,’ he says. ‘Somewhere it doesn’t have anything to do with Cassie.’
‘Will do. See you tomorrow.’
‘On Saturday?’
‘Oh, right. Monday so.’
‘Cool,’ he says. ‘I could do with a sleep-in tomorrow anyway. All these early mornings are killing me.’
‘Try having a kid,’ I say. ‘You’ll know all about early mornings then.’
He glances at me then, something hawkish in his eye.
‘That’d be up to you, really,’ he says, ‘wouldn’t it?’
‘You want Cassie to get pregnant?’
‘I think it might be good for us.’
‘She’s on the pill, though, isn’t she?’
‘She is now. Maybe you could swap her pills for folic acid or something.’
‘Without letting her know?’
‘Sometimes you have to do the wrong thing for the right reason,’ he says. ‘Isn’t that what the best stories are about anyway?’
•
Buddhist monks have this thing going on where they construct complex mosaics comprised of thousands of precisely delineated sections of coloured dust. It can take years. When they’re finished they sweep the whole thing into a corner and start again.
I appreciate this perversity while I mop the tiles in the hospital corridors. By the time you reach the far end of the corridor, people have trampled all over the point from whence you came. Ashes unto ashes, dust unto dust. The priests say this so as not to scare the horses. It would be more correct to say ashes from ashes, dust from dust.
It would be even more correct to say nothing at all and let people decide for themselves.
People bring mud into the hospital on their shoes. They carry in dust, dog-shit, germs, saliva, acid rain, carbon monoxide and blackened chewing gum. But they’re not allowed to smoke in the overflow car park.
I ask about the possibility of wearing a facemask while I’m mopping, so I won’t inhale the second-hand pestilence of human perambulation. Because I am a porter this is regarded as facetious insubordination. Only surgeons get to wear facemasks, although the official line is that this is for the patient’s benefit as opposed to that of any surgeon concerned about the invisible dangers wafting up out of a diseased and freshly sliced human being.
A man is standing in the middle of the tiles, so I have to mop around him. His shoulders are slack. There’s a looseness to his stance that suggests his elastic has stretched a little too far this time.
‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘Could I ask you to move to one side, please?’
But he turns to face me. His eyes are huge, round and too dry. He says, hoarsely, ‘My daughter just died.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I say. This would be hypocritical if it weren’t true, but I find his words offensive. I wonder why people always seem to think their pain is interesting. I wonder why people only share their pain these days. If the guy was standing in the middle of the carpet munching on a bag of toffees, it would never occur to him to offer a toffee to the guy vacuuming the carpet.
‘She was eight years old,’ he says.
‘Think
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