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She’s leaving this planet, her roses neglected for spanners, bolts. I hadn’t read the signs, didn’t know she’d been working on that rocket. And it’s complete. I can’t think why I didn’t see it before. I see now she’s packed a small leather case. So few items. I know so little about this new earth, if there’s a moon, a sun, lakes, a tide. She’s changing into her silk dress and jacket, plumping her hair. She doesn’t look back as she shoulders into her coat. The kitchen door hovers in the artificial breeze. She’s left me everything.
It looked uncertain. I tottered in, heels skittering on the pink plastic. There were water trails before the pleasure boat rocked. My rocker was on board.
I say ‘my’, he was anyone’s, with his bleached blond quiff, curl caressing his left eyebrow, scar bisecting the right, so he looked almost symmetrical, apart from his hands.
His hands were all over me, before we’d even sat on the wet, moulded seats. And I never did. I sat on his lap. My neat, white pencil skirt, tight as a condom.
He couldn’t pull it up or down. It wrinkled along my untouched body, wedged against his heaving drainpipes. Yet we bobbed, as one, bashed into the fake grass and the fibre glass cave, together.
I had so little for him to squeeze, as we juddered through the darkness. His hormones masked by Brut, £1.99 from the precinct, and that gorgeous roll-up, which tasted all the better on his tongue.
He called it his ‘shag break’, his other recreation, aside from riding the dodgems, leaping from one to another with balletic ease in his narrow jeans, like a sexy bus conductor.
And he was thin, tight muscles alert in his black t-shirt, little more than a boy. Yet he looked so much older, cruising the dodgems with his sneer, chipped tooth and chiselled hair.
I knew enough to keep my hands out of his hair. I kissed him hard, slid off his lap in the sunshine. He didn’t help me out of the boat, just lit another cigarette, its tip sparking the way to the electric cars.
I saw the painting by accident. No room for accidents in my game. I’m not one for exhibitions, makes my head spin, all those colours, but a gentleman friend told me. It was above even his price range, I couldn’t credit it. He took me to the gallery. Of course, I dressed respectable, bonnet and gloves. No one could tell the resemblance, if resemblance there was, my legs fatter, my hair a shock. Odd to see myself as others do, hanging from the ceiling by a cord.
I hadn’t thought of you, hadn’t thought of you walking into The George, but you did.
And through the smoke and people standing up, you saw me lying on the carpet with
Andy, was that his name? I’m not too sure. I do remember how much I’d fancied
him. He was blond, while you’re dark, blue-eyed while yours are grey. I don’t think you’ve forgotten
have you? I don’t have much of an excuse, except it was lunchtime and I hadn’t
eaten, but I had drunk nine bottles of Becks, so lying at the back of The George
with, let’s call him, Andy seemed OK. Perhaps it was, until I was aware
of your leopard print shoes next to my head, and the way you said nothing. I’m grateful
for that. You put out your hand, helped me to my feet and walked me back to Lambeth North.
It was then that I knew I wanted you.
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