70

Midnight. Chi chi had washed her hair with conditioner instead of shampoo and was feeling manky. Then the rain lashed the window. In the dark I felt for my hanky like a Mancunian charwoman looking for teeth. The red light of the transistor on the dresser was Aldebaran low in the south. The strings on the concert programme grated my nerves; a squeaky white board marker. On the floor Beckett’s Malone Dies laughed at me like an unlucky steal under the coat from a second-hand store. What story did you want then? You read it and then you just seem to go back to the end again. I thought of the photo she showed me before she left of the Austrian Doctor in the white coat pointing at something out of shot while a boy looks on. 1938. He worked with children. She gave me the book when we had our little talk while we were having our little walk. Now I’m back here again in my black lagoon.