Behind the Curtain

All writing comes out of privacy, deeply lined drawers of private withdrawal. More and more we seem to be ashamed of this -- our private lives – so we make them public. We blurt, we hurt, we blurt some more. Withdrawal can be exquisite, that time spent behind the arras with the curtain blowing over shading your sight. Embroidered patterns flutter across the mind’s eye drawing out the shapes: your characters, their inner lives, what is barely seen or heard. All the spaces in between knowing and not-knowing ourselves and others. Myriad underground networks, the roots of trees, subterranean murmurings, half-forgotten thoughts. Daydreams.

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Behind the theatre curtain, behind the topiary --- it is all the same -- one thing becomes another in the imagination. Dorothy believes so, she even knows so, so here is her theatre – this prickly green bush rising high in front of her like a rood screen – I am covered, I am covered in green - this is her wish: Dorothy has always imagined herself covered in green. Mossy arms, mossy legs, body entangled in briars, a green offering. Titania enshrined in her bower but with no fairies to disturb her. She does not wish to be social; she never needed any beaux, no beaux-arts for me. Courting -- leave that to the other women – the ones with pearly giggles and back legs kicking up  like young deer. Courtly women, women waiting to be caught. Dorothy could hardly say she had been caught; she had meandered into marriage. Slow and sluggish, a stream filled with branches, she had taken her time to go round the bend. Henry was waiting on the other side, arms folded, laying out the picnic. A true gentleman, but Dorothy had always felt like Alice: more suited to a Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. Scones and jam piled high and toppling over with cream, Dorothy liked a bit of excess on the inside, although it was hard to see. Everything was so compressed – gentility -- but it is all taken away so easily, the tea-tray.

     ‘Henry dear, it is time to pour the tea.’

How does anyone learn to speak like that? People do, those who live in enclaves, those who live behind high gates and flint walls. They are all old now, they are all gone, and you might think they live in castles. I did, I do, and they do. Or on the bends in rivers, near moats, always with their guard up. Such people do not speak of money although they may think of it often. Henry does, or he did, but that is all arranged now. The stocks and shares are in the bank; nothing is climbing too much, nothing falling too low. Everything is steady. Henry likes it like that. He is not a dramatic man --- he has done all that -- the shooting, the lugging of metal barrels, the fusillades. Quick fire, quick sharp, march! The brutal pain, the hanging shoulder, the putted hand. Henry has barked his orders. He’s in retirement now, Henry has had enough.

     And Dorothy too; her dress is caught up behind her now and she doesn’t care. Only the bushes can see, the topiary. She doesn’t look – why should she – there is no one there. No need to smooth her hair or put on her lipstick. Why would you? Put on your lipstick to go to the post box; there are women who do that and cover their hair. Tie a scarf underneath their chin to keep out the wind; to keep order in. She writes to her sister, she writes to Hilary, whose life is seamless and far away, although she is only a few miles up the road. But it is another order: Hilary’s is a quiet and precise life. She has no pets, she never liked animals, Hilary doesn’t like any sort of shedding: no fur, no tears, nothing the cat can drag in. Dorothy is familiar with these exercises -- letter writing, sending away her feelings -- wildness tied up in a paper sack. Dorothy licks and licks the envelope dry. Nothing must show, no translucence, nothing letting the light in. Henry must never see. It is too much effort explaining, so she writes letters instead: letters to herself; letters to an imagined lover. She has an address - she invented it a while ago -- around the time Henry started sloping off to the club on the edge of town to hit some balls around. In between the elm trees, he explained to Dorothy at breakfast. In between the shadows, darned hard to see. The ball goes missing there, but really, we can’t cut down the trees.

     ‘No, you must never cut down trees, Henry.’

     ‘They did in the Ardennes.’

     ‘Let’s not talk of the war.’

     You are right, dear, and Henry goes missing for the afternoon: back to the club, back to the long, tall trees with aquiline noses peering down at him. Old school governors marching through dim and dusty corridors. When he looks up, he forgets his handicap, which is poor this afternoon. Golf means he can join up – to men, to trees, to men -- and the putt-putt is comforting, the swish of the club, the metal bar. Grip man, grip!  But Henry had let go and the body fell between the gaps – flesh upon metal – his hands were sweating. He found no place to hold, and the body was falling between the metal tracks. Henry had let go. All his life he will remember this: the sweating of his hands, the slipping of the skin. Flesh to flesh, dust to dust. Binks. Hold on man!   

(from POND LIFE, a work in progress)