Broom (5)

BROOM (5)

As I de-scaled the kettle and washed up the cups, I spotted our girl in Havana (on reflection, perhaps, it's Savannah?)

Whatever.

I spied her curled up in the corner, as I rinsed out those filthy mugs.

You see, our girl from Exotica doesn't like teaching. So, she's convinced our superiors her skill is researching. You'll rarely see her around. For the most part, she's outward bound. But, her ethics are sketchy, her strategy crude. (Rationale, let me say, is verging on crude.)

She uses old cameras to spectacular ends (to aesthetize difference with an old, plastic lens). Now, doc-phot has recently taken a bashing (and, it has to be said, I endorse all that thrashing).

But, I have to admit that I found it astounding when she said she shot subjects in their natural surroundings.  It's something to do with an anthropological grounding.

The Sub-Editor - Tears

TEARS

I knew we should be together from the moment that we met. It sounds fantastic, stupid, romantic, but I couldn't get the thought - get her - out of my head.

As we lay together with the TV on mute we let the tips of our fingers touch, and our toes as well. No clinging or grasping, no suffocating. Her skin was soft and her stomach flat. Her hair was long and messy. In the night it looked black.

She exuded love, but seemed not to assume or expect to get it back.

She told me a story; 'let me tell you a tale', she said with a smile.  Her camera lay under the pillow.

'There was this small child, a girl, who every time she said want she wanted, something catastrophic happened. Or, perhaps, if she ventured to say how she felt, then someone always felt it more dramatically than her.

'So, she decided never to say what she wanted. She learned to keep her feelings to herself. As she grew older she became even more superstitious and refused to acknowledge, even in her thoughts, her fears and ambivalence. Instead, she became the mistress of bad faith.

'But, then, one day she met someone she wanted. She met him the day he was going away. She wanted to say "don't go, please stay" but the words got stuck in her throat.'

I asked her why she carried a camera. She laughed and said it was so she could remember. She said she used it to describe how she felt; in the moment, before she re-wrote it into something else, something that didn't hurt.

'If I took a picture now' she said,  'it would be seen through tears.'

The Sub-Editor - Ibis

IBIS

The night before I left England, I slept in an Ibis.

I ate in its diner and sat in its bar.

I knew from before it was easy to score; when people go travelling they are looking for more than their home life is prepared to afford them.

The bath-towels were white and soft; the bed-linen cool and white. We shared a bottle of cheap red wine and left the TV on all night.

I didn't expect her to be carrying a camera.

In fact, I didn't expect her at all.

I miss her.