Rosie Shepperd
“I love you,
Sheila Mackenzie!”
Apparently, Colin had not mentioned this
prior to the charity touch-down at Sevenoaks cricket ground.
There had been two office parties where, during the last dance,
Colin spoke of his Tuesday evening Samba class.
Tucked tightly in his arms, Sheila told of her burning desire to
reconfigure the LP3-1-7-0, finding similar pride in the solutions that
drew them closer and closer to data assimilation.
On Monday and Friday they met accidentally in Café Nero,
each confiding a weakness for short-full-fat-sweet-and-frothy.
Then, 11th November.
The Annual Kent and Weald Tax Accountants’ Ball
Where twelve senior staff members were selected
to receive the key to the fourth floor bathroom,
with a view of Edenbridge Spire.
Complementary soaps. Individual towels.
Colin’s head, shining in the lights,
his jacket hanging crisp, following the auditors’ sponsored slim,
his perfectly proportioned feet, walking purposefully
to collect his prize from Felicity Juniper, wife of the firm’s
founding partner, arbiter of all that is elegant,
harbinger of all that is triumphant
in the Institute of Chartered Accountants
(England and Wales).
And didn’t Colin take a second to wave to Sheila’s table as she stood clapping
until she thought her seams would burst,
didn’t he brush away the in-house photographer who
snapped for Living Ledger
to hold out his soft, plump hand and say,
Will you come to The Vine on Sunday?
I’m in the 2 o’clock free-fall. I have something to say.
I know I’ve gone too far when I think of papardelle with broccoli
It comes on just under a minute later that I miss you; that hollow
feeling when I remember you’re not here.
I have to go downstairs; cook flat, yellow ribbons made almost
too long with OO flour and eggs
from Puglia chickens, enjoying themselves and (I hope) walking through
fat fields where the grass is
tough and rich, almost deliberately salted from the Adriatic that seeps
into the land just there.
I bathe the noodles in fontina, melted into crème fraiche and think
how you called it sour cream.
It doesn’t matter and would not matter to you that you didn’t
like this dish, but even as I warm
your favourite bowl, I smile at my final stab, add purple sprouting
broccoli, diagonally cut.
You might like the colours, the way the steam holds the flavour,
of Alpine milk and the bitter
black pepper that falls in so many pieces like sand or gravel or ash.
I think we’re OK for salt and
I’ll keep the idea of finely chopped sage, a splash of hock or just
nutmeg and/or butter for next time.
“Now`.
What I need, Bernard, is a bit of notice;
Syzygy
During the 1953 storm that battered Britain’s eastern sea-board, strong winds on the
surface of the sea were exacerbated by syzygy, or the alignment of the sun, moon and earth.
As Mr and Mrs Jarvis flew past the bathroom window, I realised
I’d never previously seen them hold hands. He is in catering supplies.
She fiddles with crochet (that mostly resembles a cat’s-cradle rainbow) and
waits for the crunch of five-thirty and the rumble of the Riley in the drive.
When the storm spun them tight like a bobbin, their mouths sprang open
in a double O and I am almost sure I heard a gasp at right angles to the rain.
It skidded down the roof as Mr Jarvis followed MrsJarvis along the gutter,
their faces drained of colour, her all-weather mac blown out in a parade.
He wore tan driving gloves and put one hand on his wife’s left arm.
She held his finger in one of her mittens that started a lime green run.
With some shyness, they peeped inside the second floor of our house.
Mrs Jarvis, who goes out of her way to be friendly, smiled and waved
to our plumber (Brian) as he recalibrated both gauges on the boiler.
Mr Jarvis nodded, looked at his wife, then over her shoulder at the clouds that
lined the unexpected sky and, at a distance, I saw surprise in their eyes.
They laughed at the same time as their arms struggled, then joined in a circle,
their shoulders suddenly sure how to bend towards each other, to be together,
at once aligned, even if this was not really, quite the end.
