This is Artur Pizarro playing the third piece in Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin - Forlane. It is nicely played, the best I can find on youtube but the version I really like is Anne Queffelec's - it's lighter on the trills, with thoughtful, soft hesitations and ghostly sustain on the top octave. It's more even and she doesn't stress the slightly drunken discords in the way Pizarro does - at least only a little in the last quarter.

*

Later I don't like it at all. It was the echo of the Queffelec I was hearing, but this is so plodding and the waterliness of it is gone. 

-wake up wake up.

-yes, yes, yes I'm here. I'm here. of course I'm here. I sleep but I don't really sleep now. I'm just waiting for you, waiting for Jose. what did you do to her? I feel like you did something.

-oh don't, stop trying to pin it on me. you're not even sure I'm here most of the time but you think I did it?

-you're here. suddenly you're always here. and she's so different, I miss her. I want her, I miss her in my bed.

-you're different without her.

- I don't have anything. I can't say anything, can't do anything. people talk to me and I'm like a black hole.

- you were always like a black hole.

-she licked every inch of  my hands. every nerve was different. I wasn't a black hole then.

-and didn't you swell up? you swelled right up.

- I want her back. she doesn't mean anything to anyone else, just to me. give her back.


- you want to be that great big swollen you.

- yes.

- that's not very nice. fingers like great big sausages. what did you want with those?

- no, that wasn't it. she was kind and I was getting better. I was remembering things, could handle things, they took me off probation at work. John said now you're earning your keep. every morning she was there, every night. plugging up the plug holes. and my customers thought I was nice, one lady said to tell my supervisor I was very good and they should treasure me. every day every afternoon I came home, Jose was there. filled her water bowl up with clean water and it caught the light. she always had something to drink.


- didn't she lose a little weight? didn't the vet say she was dehydrated?

-NO. No that wasn't right.

-she did lose a little weight though?

-No, stop it, stop it. stop.

- but you want her back?

-I am good to her. I am, I love her more than anyone loves her.

- hadn't you better go out and look for her? I don't think you've been looking for her, have you? you took her with you out into the streets, and all the things that happened there... maybe you need to just go out again, if you miss her so much, and see if you can retrace your steps?

After everyone went to bed I went out onto the back deck to see whether I'd left my book out there. Jose was out in the garden. She didn't look up at all - just kept chewing whatever it was, snarling as she chewed. I walked over, talking softly, calling out - as I got closer she moved onto her haunches, backed away, turned the snarl towards me. It was a kid's t-shirt she was shredding, one of Tolley's, and she kept it under her paws as she moved. I went to bed and shut the door. About two in the morning I heard her come up the hall, her nails clicking as she approached the door. She scrabbled and whined for a while, then walked away.

The next morning Lacey came in before I was up and crawled into the bunk bed with me. I had been awake for most of the night, just watching patterns in the mattress overhead, but I'd dozed off for a while with the dawn.  I was thinking about Jose. In my doze I kept thinking I'd heard her moving beside the bed, scratching or licking herself, but she wasn't there. I thought she would come in once the door was opened, but she didn't.

"How was your night?" I asked Lacey, snuggling in to her flannel pajamas.

"AWFUL," she groaned. "Anna got sick and threw up - did you hear her? And then Ian's dad rang first thing this morning. His mum's worse."

"Is Ian okay?"

"Worried. The doctors are saying it's dicey, and his dad's not in a good way - all vague and dithery. We wanted to ask you something."

"You want to go?"

"Ian has plenty of leave owing, but we can't take Jose of course - that's the only problem. And the rabbits. And the builder's supposed to come on Thursday to finish the kitchen, and if there's no one here he just bloody won't..."

"But I can stay, it's no problem."

"Well, no problem except we want to see you! I like seeing you with the kids - and we just haven't had enough time, again."

"But maybe when you get back, I could stay a bit longer - we could see how it goes?"

fishing

blind cliff, water hears

its rock and its roots

hears the cliff nest

boils it in milk

hears the pink lace decaying

boils it in milk

sea-mews unheard go

into the jaws

the jaws milk the sky,

melt it to a yolk,

yolk at the eyes and the feet

gripping silver tear yellow

hollow in the sea

for spilled morning

Then they all came home and it was lucky, because of what he said I had already changed my shirt and was stuffing the other one into the bottom of my suitcase and when the kids came bursting in I just said woah woah and asked for a minute in the bathroom before we started playing wombats again. They didn't see the blood and when I went out the funny thing was there was Jose out on the deck with the others, and only I knew it wasn't quite right, either it wasn't her or she had been instructed not to come near me. She just lay on the deck by the water tank, chin flat to the boards,  and she watched, not me specifically, but us all. I knew it was just better to go along and not to try to draw her to me.

Lacey had made mint juleps and baked pita chips and mashed guacamole. Tolly was gripping the tree-rope with his teeth and hanging from it, twisting himself around - Look Ivo look Ivo look Ivo! he called between his performances and I drank my julep and watched and applauded as the sun seeped in and I could feel the strangeness melting. Lacey put her arm around my waist - It's so pleasant to have you with us, she said. You can't spend too much time on your own, it's not good for you.

I kissed her on the forehead -You're too sweet, I said. I know it's a nuisance with the kids on the couch.
-No, she said. Honestly, they sleep there half the time anyway, and I'd rather you were with us. We worry about you!

I laughed - Really, I'm okay. I know I don't SEEM like it sometimes, I just get caught up in what I'm doing.  But I love being here and hanging out with the kids. And the room - it's very comfortable.

-Do you like the mirror? Lacey laughed.

At that moment Tolly screamed - his grip on the rope had slipped and he'd knocked his head on the picnic bench. Shit, Tolly! Lacey exclaimed and wandered over to him. Jose stood up as though to go to him too - then turned herself around and lay down again, eyes open and her face just a few inches away from the water tank wall.

i come in with blood on my arms and tshirt and i tell him that the dog is gone. THE DOG IS GONE WHAT DID YOU DO SHE'S GONE.

then I reach my thumb to the bevelled edge of the mirror and i smudge there, the glass feels warm and smooth like wet skin. come on come on come back. you have to help me look for her.

shhh sh sh sh he says his voice very low. I can help you find her don't you think? we can.  you have to do some things for us and I thought you didn't want to do those thing any more?

but can you help me if you can help me i don't care I don't mind what i do just want her to be mine again.

well there's that and there's why she left in the first place. you know you have blood on your shirt ivo?  it is not very professional. professional dog-catchers would not show blood even and they are dirty fuckers. If you want to get back to work you have to clean up. and show me that you mean to give me what you can. Everything you can my dear. then we will think about whether it is enough, and what else we might like.

scarlatti sonaten played by ivo pogorelich lovely like children in a night-time room, safe to leave their windows open
but sometimes they press on the sore bruises over and over

heat swarms up the back of my neck and now the cold tiles don't feel cold, just clammy. standing's not an option and even crouching is getting suss, woozy. push myself up and over the bowl coz it's that or fall down and that's bottomless. prickling heat coming on in a rush, could be full rush of the codeine moving too fast or it's just the pain tipping over and numbing everything out. long way down. straighten up straighten up. I straighten up. yes. action crumples the numbness into a ball I can vomit. still some milk in there. relief. and more, and more. last bits bitter, bile or painkillers. last convulsion then the heat lifts. relief. breeze on wet skin. stomach simple and relaxed and the pain's scattered. now I've got about half a minute, 45 seconds. stay here and the next one's worse or crawl to the kitchen, get more milk, try more painkillers. kitchen. head low to stay out of the heat but it comes down around me. magnetic field pressing down, hissing. don't let it. pull up to the kitchen sink, straighten up, vomit again. back down, back against the cupboard doors for hardness. they're too soft, too warm. gotta get back. open the fridge for the milk and find the cold. there it is, the cold - the tiles pull up. ok now, just stay there. stay there.

pina was a blue tree higher a giant set of blue trees. pina I have to take you down. what you said in the taxi was I am the back of the taxi, blue, all over you in the front. I made a dance and you were something that came up in my one tree blue over another tree blue, you stretched from some of my roots out to that space by the cliff, you were there fragrant that's all and I danced you. but you weren't the dance. chainsaw. pina cakes ooze. now who you are pina. stacked slices oozing gum. I'm pressed up against the front window and the taxi's full of you, transport, blonde cakes and the sticky sharp stink. don't mind it driver, we're settling something.

dog come with me. blind with a cliff that is whiter, and a white cliff of hearing water right up to the cliff to its rocks and to its roots. hearing a cliff nest boiled in milk. dog dog me. whiter the sea-mews boiling up in the jaws of it, dog, we swim up through a hearing, all okay or see through in white pink mud coming up, scraping up against it, leave a breathing off, I don't have the hands for this. lung-ing the froth all the way up.  over there's a yolk, yellow sea-mew falling from the sun into the milk, someone we should meet. could be dry off sitting on the bench at the top. could be sun and then some clothes. later clothes-pines but please not yet. just looking down at the hearing coming up. fur being dogged for now fingers.

they are not autonomous they are symbiotic. the fungus grows around the alga encasing it and through the alga penetrating it but without invading its cells.

i'm in the milk


and the milk
is in me.

on the crumbling edge,
then on the hard substrate

soft,
recently fallen.

"Lichenes"

Ernst Haeckel

I'm in the milky quiet. the dog is asleep. the sheets are clean and white and they go on for a long while. where you let them fall onto the floorboards. the reading light is shone upon the wall. softly softly. a boy came, he touched his fingers to his mouth. now he sits somewhere near with his small, damp firetruck. I remember this book. I remembered every word as soon as I picked it up.

coming in underneath, like
the cliff walked in closer
and my echo bottomed out
contralto, clearly now,
thank you

when I woke up I went into the living room, checked my mail. it wasn't until H got up and picked her up from behind the sofa that I remembered - our daughter, beautiful little dark-haired thing. she was so happy to see us, full of smiles, reaching out arms. I put her on the breast and she bit just a little bit - drew blood but my nipple was okay. I told H I'd need to change her but he'd forgotten to buy a change table. we could move the tv and do it there. she felt nice against my skin.

practice

I had this student once who gave me, at the end of the semester, the comic book he'd made. It was explicit and sad, about picking up a prostitute and being unable to fuck her, unable to talk to her, and it was dedicated to me. black, white and grey.

he was a smart, forthright young guy, often very quiet in class but when something grabbed at his opinions he spoke passionately, at length, looking around for the other kids to catch up to him and respond. After silence he would sit back with a slight sigh, go back to his own silence.

but in his quietness he was never entirely settled - he had a pronounced tic, a contraction that ran from the left corner of his mouth down to his shoulder. it was worse when he was preparing to speak, sometimes so strong that for cover he would divert the movement into something else, scratching his face or looking for something in his bag.

I tried out the movement on my own a few times, in my office and at home. it was like an exaggerated version of the 'ugh' grimace that people do with one corner of the mouth, but with a full neck movement. since then I find that the grimace comes easily and strongly, at unexpected moments, and when I do it I think of him. the last panel had his two characters sitting at far ends of a sofa, with dark all around them, in  companionable silence.

There was an air of anger - I'm sure I could feel that within his emphatic calm, and this felt more than anything like one of the early chill winds of my own middle age. Catch the anger and keep it in a box with this first grey pubic hair. It seems he thought I'd tried to trick him by holding the information back, that I'd tried to appear naive while orchestrating, or willing, or simply failing to rule out a situation I knew intimately well.

-It's important, J, you HAVE to talk to H about it.

But I had already talked to H; H just didn't believe me.

G himself, then, was the only one I hadn't spoken to. But why would I? G had already ruled it out in every posture and response. Week after week, sitting in that chair, I was already aging; I walked in there and my chin sagged, brow collapsed, skin dulled, hips thickened then froze, the river of blood slowed to a black stutter. I felt sick the first time I realized I was older than him. And he seemed almost unconscious, still kept his forceful calm. But to be certain one day I mentioned the venues I now liked to visit, and I heard it in his laugh, a little tinkle of hatred. I was only confirming the truth. I remembered the first time we'd met - before our professional relationship - over cigarettes we'd talked about just these places. I knew that to him they were funeral parlors, full of the elderly swaying around their own open coffins. And I knew he didn't remember that first meeting. I suppose it was too long ago, and that he was far too young.

as soon as we alerted them to the bodies it was clear they would take us all in for questioning, but it seemed like we had some time. the cop talking to me told me, accusingly, how filthy it was to see all of this, how disgusted they were. the terrible smells; tarpaulins lain over the heaped up limbs. how do you think it's been for us, I asked, dealing with this for days?

-You've known for days?

-We didn't DO this!

-We've tracked your phone records, we know the kinds of things you read. We know what kind of person you are.

Dom came and pulled me away from him - we were going to walk over to a shop or an ATM, catch up with the others on the way before we ran out of time. I told him I thought I had already said the wrong thing, I didn't know what they knew, what we were supposed to keep secret. And I was scared about the questioning, what they would think when they really took my phone, and got the full records of everywhere I'd been. The things I'd read, sites I'd been to. He asked for the phone as we walked to the other side of the square. We talked, but there was no real information. We didn't take long but they were starting to make the arrests as we walked back. Dom gave me a side-hug, lifting me into the air a little as we walked. I took the phone back and tried to open a browser or the call record. It was jammed on the interface for a particular game. I couldn't even turn it off.

- What did you do to it? It's jammed - I want to clear the web history, delete everywhere I've been.
-Why do you think I loaded that? It's all gone now, they can't see anything.

Paul was with us now, confirming Dom's moves, walking fast and watching every other movement of our people around the square. I could see him calculating information, playing out the days ahead under arrest, how it would best unfold.

Meanwhile I was making a mental list of what I'd been reading. Sites I had been to, what I might have said. It was true, I was sure, that none of it meant what it looked like, that it was all just... human interest. I wanted to call my mother, suddenly and desperately, but the phone was utterly useless.

and in fact almost all of those books - almost all of them - were fake, empty. the library as a whole was as light as a feather because the covers were plastic, the sides plastic, and inside, nothing - like video cartridge boxes, the cartridges stolen or lost, never returned or never even made.

I slammed the sash up and gulped air. the chill burnt my lungs but I needed it; the feeling of warm asphyxiation had been powerful and sudden. I called Jose away from the mirror and beckoned her up and over the ledge. I followed, grateful for the full moon light.

the blood itself was like a garden. under the streetlights and the moon it turned into a bed of roses, took on unimaginable depth. flowers pooled one against another, snuggled, lit up.