Joe VII – Hawkeye

‘MASH!’ says Joe as he enters, making me jump a little. ‘My favourite. How is Miss Hotlips anyway? Have you spoken to her much?’
I shake my head. I don’t want to talk about Lucy just yet, and she’s all I want to talk about.
‘Oh... Ok. So, what was it about MASH that you particularly liked?’
I sit and think for a while. My mind is blank. Why does he want me to talk about MASH? Was it something he learned in counselling classes or something? I don’t want to talk about MASH. I want to talk about Lucy. Why on earth did I tell him I didn’t?
‘Erm... I don’t know’ I begin vaguely. He gives me that look. ‘I mean it. I can’t think...’
‘Take your time...’
I sit and think for quite a while. Lucy comes into my mind – I can’t get rid of her. She’s nothing like bloody Hotlips. Hotlips was sort of thick, and she was with that stupid guy – what’s his name?  Major Burns. I really didn’t like him. Lucy does have nice lips though. There’s just the faintest trace of a moustache along her top lip – just a very fine shading. You’d think that would be fairly off-putting but somehow it just makes her even sexier.
‘What are you thinking?’ he prompts.
‘Major Burns and Hotlips’ I say, fairly hurriedly. ‘Why did she like him so much? He was a complete wanker.’
‘I don’t know.’ He thinks about it for a while with me. ‘Do you think it was bad writing – unrealistic – that a woman like her would be interested in a man like him?’
I consider it – it doesn’t seem unrealistic now I come to think about it.
‘I don’t really understand what women see in men to be honest’ I say. ‘I always think they just sort of tolerate us.’
‘That’s fairly harsh’ he says. ‘You don’t think much of men then?’
‘Well, look at them...’
‘Who exactly are we talking about? Me? You?’
‘No. I don’t know. No, not you, not a lot of men I suppose. Some men.’
‘Ray and Harry?’ he suggests. I nod. Absolutely. ‘Women seem to really like men like Ray. I have no idea why.’
‘What about Hawkeye Pearce?’ he says, grinning at me. ‘What about Trapper – what about Radar?’
I have to grin. I remember them. They feel like old friends. ‘What about Klinger?’ I say and we both nod and laugh.
‘It’s weird,’ I continue ‘because they were in the middle of a war, and there was all blood and guts, and yet...’
‘And yet?’
‘They were together. It felt like they were really close.’
‘Like a family?’ he suggests.
I pointedly ignore that. ‘They were all in it together’ I say.
‘You feel like you’d have been comfortable with them there?’
‘Maybe. Apart for all the shelling and so on.’
‘Obviously.’
‘Oh I don’t know though. Maybe not. Usually, sooner or later. I suppose... I make people feel...’ I cast around for the right word.
‘Uncomfortable?’ he says.
I nod. ‘Sort of’ I say. ‘They feel...’ I shrug. I can’t think of the word – pissed off? embarrassed? frustrated? ‘Awkward’ I say finally. ‘Not relaxed anyway, with me around.’ I sit and look into space for a while. I know it’d be exactly the same as it always is. And there’d be nowhere to go. I’d be trapped with them, at MASH 4077.
‘I always wanted to be like Hawkeye’ I say after a while ‘you know, sort of cool and witty, and sarcastic, but not nasty – d’you know what I mean?’
‘I preferred BJ’ he says.
‘Excuse me?’
‘B.J. Honeycut. You remember – I’m not sure if he replaced Trapper or Trapper replaced him. They were both cute’ he muses. ‘But enough about me - tell me more about why you liked Hawkeye.’
I think about it a bit more. ‘Women liked him’ I say. ‘He always had women around.’
‘He rather used them though didn’t he?’
I feel slightly affronted. ‘How do you mean?’
‘Well, different nurse every night – BJ wasn’t like that.’
‘Maybe he had something going on with Radar.’
‘No, Radar had a thing with the colonel. Definitely. I think maybe BJ just went with out the helicopter boys.’
‘I think – getting back to the subject (ahem) – I wanted to be Hawkeye because he was in the middle of everything – everybody liked him, or respected him anyhow, but he didn’t try too hard – he didn’t try to impress anyone. In fact he just said what he thought didn’t he – people respected him for that – even if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear – he got away with it. I guess he was a good surgeon too, which helped...’
‘Plus he had the war to be sarcastic about, which everybody agreed...’
‘Do you remember the episode where he’s cracking up and he remembers seeing a Korean woman kill a chicken to keep it quiet so the enemy won’t hear it? They were on a wrecked bus – but it turns out it wasn’t a chicken, it was actually her baby she smothered, and that’s why he’s so messed up.’
‘I remember that episode.’ He nods slowly. We take a moment to think about that.
‘But they all still looked after him when he got back’ I say, ‘and helped him, even though he was seriously losing it, even though he was a real mess...’
Joe looks at me for a while – frowning a little. ‘Well of course. Why wouldn’t they?’ he says.
‘I don’t know’ I shrug. But I do know and it makes me feel very sorry for myself. I can’t imagine what that’s like – to have people care that much, to try that hard. They’d have just told me to pull myself together and got on with what they were doing.
But I wasn’t in a war. I didn’t see a woman smother her baby so the enemy wouldn’t catch her and rape her. All that happened to me was I couldn’t keep up at school and I got dumped. Boohoo. Poor old me.
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Voyage XI – Jamming

I’ve started to hang out with Lucy and that lot more. It took a while before I got the nerve to ask if I could sit down with them. It was like a school kid wanting to sit with the seniors. When I finally did, Matt and Damian were really cool about it and Lucy didn’t object, even though I can’t stop looking at her boobs and she keeps having to tell me off for it.

We tend to hang out in the forward lounge – there’s a lot of big sofas there, or up on deck, on the deck chairs. The weather is a lot brighter now, but still a bit fresh for sun bathing if you ask me. Damian is really skinny and pale, but he takes his shirt off and lies there with his sunglasses on nevertheless. I did him in charcoal a while back and Lucy thought it was hilarious – black spikes, white forehead, black shades, white nose, black choker, white ribs, black drainpipes, white ankles, black plimsolls. I don’t think it’s possible to get a tan here. You either have one or you don’t. You don’t have to cut your hair or trim your nails either
I talk quite a lot more with Lucy. She seems impressed that I know who George Elliot and Nina Simone were. We discuss all sorts of things – university, feminism, travel, and sex. We talk a lot about sex. My whole sex education has been my Dad’s Mayfairs and there’s quite a lot they don’t cover. She told me about the clitoris and the female orgasm. She even drew diagrams. I think I’m obsessed with sex, which is funny for a person who is still a virgin at nearly nineteen. All I could think was how I wanted to have a practice on her, and it almost seemed like it might be worth asking but I didn’t. I’d heard of oral sex but I’d never realised what we were aiming for, if you see what I mean, or that there was a thing, exactly, to aim for. I guess I thought you just sort of, I don’t know, licked it, generally.
I think I really envy women now because they have all these different sorts of orgasms that can apparently go on for hours and we just have this one quick spurt and that’s it.
‘A man is just totally fixated on his penis’ she said. ‘All he wants is to get in there as quickly as possible and...’ (She makes this rhythmical grunting noise in my ear – ‘Uh uh uh uh...’ over and over until it’s really beginning to bother me. ‘That’s what it’s like’ she says eventually) ‘and then it’s all over and you’re left with the washing up, as usual. Or, which is worse, you get a guy who thinks he knows all about foreplay, but he just thinks it’s about going on and on and on until you’re both rubbed raw and wondering what's on the telly. You men – it’s just like you haven’t got a clue.’

She’s right, I haven’t. I don’t even really know what foreplay is but I don’t like to ask.
One of her favourite topics is pornography (It’s one of mine too, but in a different way and I keep quiet). The way she talks about it though it’s as if it’s nothing but violence, like it’s all under-age girls being forced to have horrible things done to them. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like that. Well there was that one thing I found in the lorry park. That was horrible, so I do know it goes on. I suppose it never occurred to me to wonder who all these women are, having their photos taken, or how they feel about it. Most of them just look bored to be honest – just smiling woodenly for the camera and holding their vaginas open. It’s pretty crass. But then sometimes, the ones I like, they look like they’re normal women having a laugh, or maybe even actually enjoying it. I don’t know. I can’t believe they all hate what they do. They must be bloody good actresses. Lucy says you can tell it’s really all about child pornography because they force the women to shave but I always thought that was just because you could see everything better. And anyway pubic hair can be a bit off-putting. I never liked mine. I used to shave it off sometimes and then the stubble got bad so I didn’t do it any more. I know for a fact she can’t stand men with beards anyway so she can’t talk. Maybe she likes young boys, which would be good news for me.

Another time I remember having this heated debate with her about breasts, because she’d noticed me looking – again. Well, hers were quite hard to miss to be honest. I’d find my eyes homing in on them in the middle of a conversation and it was very off-putting. All the blokes commented. She wore these tight, low cut tops too, which didn’t help.
‘My god! What is it with you people?’ she said, amazed, aggrieved and amused at the same time. ‘It’s just a pair of breasts for god’s sake. Men! You’re just like children, just transfixed...’
I looked at my book, embarrassed. We were in the lounge. People were listening. She was talking quite loud.
‘What is it? Tell me, what is so fascinating? They’re just big blobs of fat for feeding babies. Look’ she said and took hold of them and wobbled them about in my face. ‘Fat’ she said again, grinning. She evidently thought it was amusing, making me embarrassed.
I gave my usual considered opinion, that is, I shrugged and said ‘I don’t know.’
‘Look at them’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Look. Get an eye full’ and she pulled her shoulders back and thrust them at me. I still thought they were fantastic.
‘Tell me what you're thinking’ she said, challengingly.
I was struggling to say anything at all. ‘I just...’ and I tailed off, shrugging again. I looked around. Nobody was overtly listening but I knew they could hear.
‘I don’t know why I like them. I just...’ I said finally.
‘Doesn’t it bother you that you’re just automatically adopting this crass stereotypical male behaviour? (She does a thick voice) “Ooh, look, there’s some tits” you say to yourself. “This woman is clearly in need of some ogling.”’
‘I’d never say anything like that.’
She pauses and looks away. She’s taking time to think.
‘Ok. You see a woman in the street and you don’t know anything about her, except she’s got these huge breasts. So obviously you’re interested, but you don’t think “Maybe she’s got a Phd in psychology – I’d love to go and talk to her.” do you?’
‘Well I can’t tell if she’s got a Phd in psychology just by looking at her can I? And any way, I wouldn’t fancy her just because she has big boobs.’
‘No?’ she looks sceptical ‘What else?’
‘Eyes?’ I say, without much conviction.
‘Oh give me strength. You want me to believe that? I’ve never met a man who’s attention extended anywhere above the neck for longer than it takes to – I don’t know – light a cigarette.’
I’m silenced again. But I do like women's eyes. Always have. I loved Camille's eyes. They were a gorgeous olive green colour and they really sparkled. Lucy’s eyes are lovely too but it’s hard to ignore that cleavage for long. In all the excitement her breasts seem to have swelled even more than usual.
‘I do like eyes’ I say, finally, quietly, ‘and hair. I love long hair.’ She appraises me suspiciously, ‘and she wouldn’t need to have big breasts, necessarily, just... nice breasts.’
‘What about no breasts?’
I think about that. ‘Not really.’
‘So you would dismiss a woman completely on the grounds of being flat-chested, no matter what else she may have to offer?’
Actually I think I might. It’s a bit too masculine or something. It’s just sort of weird.

‘I don’t think it’s like that really’ I say after a while.
‘What isn’t?’
‘Attraction. It’s not just about physical stuff. It’s the whole look of her. I don’t know – it’s like the way she dresses or the way she moves. Subtle things. Like the expression on her face...’ I go off into a bit of a dream, thinking how that feels, to see a woman like that.
‘You’re still just working out how to get into her knickers Gabriel’ says Lucy, laughing sarcastically.
I study her face as she shakes her head and goes back to her book. My feelings for her shift slightly. Sometimes she’s not very attractive at all.
‘So why bother to ask me at all if you’re not going to believe me?’
She turns her head and looks hard at me. ‘I thought you’d at least be honest about it’ she says.
‘I am being honest’ I say. She goes back to her book, still smiling slightly. Why is she being like this? What can I say to convince her?
‘We could be friends’ I suggest hopefully. ‘I wouldn’t just dismiss her completely. I just might not want to have sex with her.’
‘I don’t think men and women can be “just friends”‘ she says, which seems a bit sad. ‘There’s always something else.’
‘But if he doesn’t fancy her at all...’
‘Still. There’s always something, sooner or later. Trust me.’ and she looks a little sad. I didn’t really fully realise until much later that she was talking about herself, about her life, about how men had looked at her – her and her breasts and how they’d never really wanted to be “just friends” with her. No, I didn’t realise this until I was at the retreat, but I got my first inkling of it at this moment. She wore her breasts like that, as a challenge – gawp if you dare, fantasise at your peril.
‘I just like looking at breasts. I don’t know why’ I said finally, not looking at her. ‘I mean, why do people like looking at flowers? It doesn't have to be logical.’

Anyway she seems to like my work – I showed her some of my pictures and she seemed really interested. I want to do one of her soon. She said she’ll pose nude for me... I think she said that. Probably she was having me on. Anyway, a few days ago we were all sitting around talking about what we’d do different next time – it’s a common subject with us. Nobody else I’ve met seems to want to talk much about their past life or their next, just stay in the present, but Damian especially can’t shut up about it. He’s got this idea about getting a punk band together by 1974 so he can “be there” when it starts. He wants to call them The Sex Objects. We all think that’s very funny, all except Lucy that is.
He’s a good musician too. He does these really funny rip-offs of old Sabbath and Zeppelin numbers on his guitar, like using the sound but faster and furious-er. It’s ridiculous and really cool at the same time. I asked him if he could do Purple Haze but nobody messes with Hendrix apparently. I think he was impressed by the fact that I knew about Hendrix at all.
Anyhow, I was saying that next time, I would try to lose my virginity a bit sooner, and Lucy just looked coldly at me. Damian said he’d want to fuck a lot more women next time. Lucy said to me ‘What else?’
‘Go to more parties, and gigs’ I said, doubtfully.
‘But you’ll still be the same person’ she said, as if that was a real problem.
‘Yeah, you gotta handle it different next time man’ said Marcus, another guy who was hanging out with us. ‘I mean, you can’t just be your same wimpy self all over again, you know what I mean? Women want you to stand up, make a move for yourself man, not all this hiding in the back.’
‘You’d think some girls would go for such a quiet, sensitive chap as yourself, wouldn’t you Gabriel?’ says Lucy looking at me. I don’t know if she means it but I love the way she says my name, curving her lips around the ‘B’.
‘Nah, that’s crap’ says Damian ‘except for your “Mad Bitch” of course. They’re always on the lookout for the confused and vulnerable.’
‘Damian, you’re a disgrace’ says Lucy sexily.
‘Well if all else fails, your mad bitch’s a distinct possibility. She’s a bit desperate, grateful for whatever’s going, willing to do the leg work...’ Everyone laughs. ‘I mean, she’s the one’ll get off her arse and come to grab you – none of this you plucking up the courage shit – she’ll nag you onto the dance floor and bingo, you’ve scored.’
‘Plus you’ll be up all night with her. She really goes, your average mad bitch...’
‘On the other hand she’ll literally have your nuts nailed to the bed if you try to make a run for it.’
‘Literally?’ says Lucy.
‘Literally. These are not my original pair. These are in fact made of pure new wool. My mum knitted them for me.’
‘I’ll take your word for it’ she says, pouting at him. I sometimes think something’s going on between them. I don’t know. Sometimes, she looks at me, I feel so amazingly light and free. Other times, I just want to drop into the ocean and sink.
‘You should learn to play guitar – be in a band. That’s always a good one’ says Matt. Damian looks doubtful.
‘I might get a car next time’ I say, although I can’t imagine how. I’d have to fork out for lessons first.
‘Nah.’ says Matt. ‘More trouble than they’re worth. You just end up giving everyone else a lift everywhere, so you end up not drinking...’
‘You could smoke.’
‘You could, if you’re a wanker.’ Everyone looks a bit awkward, recalling too late that Matt was killed by an intoxicated driver.
‘Just saying...’
‘I don’t think it’s about what you have’ says Lucy finally. ‘If you want to know the one thing that a woman wants? – every time? – it’s a man who knows who he is and feels good about it.’
‘That’s cobblers’ says Damian ‘I fucking hated myself half the time – and I got plenty.’
‘Yeah, but your self-loathing was kind of like an art form – you really went for it – you did believe in yourself in a way’ observes Matt.
‘I believed in being bad news’ says Damian, nodding deeply.
‘You did. And a woman appreciates that in a man’ says Matt.
‘Some women’ says Lucy
‘Younger women’ says Damian, gleefully.
‘Masochistic women’ says Lucy.
‘Exactly’ agrees Damian ‘Same difference...’
‘Gabe’s not mean enough’ observes Marcus. ‘He’s one of the good guys.’
‘I’ll bet he’s not’ says Lucy, turning to face me. ‘I bet he could be a right bastard if he wanted to, if he had the motivation. If he had the nerve...’
I don’t know what it is – sometimes the way she looks at me. What is she thinking? Sometimes I feel like I’m nothing to her. Sometimes I feel like she wants me – both at the same time.
I look at her. The conversation among them heads elsewhere but I saw her wink at me, I swear.
Sitting beside me I can see her shoulder exposed, soft and milky where her top has slipped, then a smooth curve between her armpit and the start of her breast. The fabric hangs away from them and I can see where the curve goes down, concave to convex. I look up, as if surfacing from a deep dive and register the faces – did anyone see me looking? I can’t tell.
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Journey VI – Hive

The night-time glow penetrated the material of the tent, casting my belongings in a dim, slate grey relief. Something had awoken me. I knew it was not morning or anywhere near. I could just make out the length of my sleeping bag and the bulge of my feet at the bottom of it, and the discarded clothes and other objects filling the space between me and the sides of the tent itself – my socks, my waterproofs, my papers and pencils, my sunglasses and my boots, my hat and my shorts. To my left there were the openings into the rucksack, unzipped, spilling open, revealing containers of coffee, matches, chocolate, toiletries and cutlery, first aid kit and yet more underwear.
I sensed a presence outside rather than heard it. I wondered if I should wake Miranda. Presumably she was in there, buried somewhere among my damp and musty belongings but I had no sense of her. As time had gone by I’d learned to recognise her scent and hear her tiny movements – even her breathing, but the moment was horribly still. I knew sometimes she went out alone at night – to get some fresh air she said, or to clear her head but I knew there was something she was not telling me. I wondered if she was looking for something, or hiding from something, or meeting someone. For some reason this last possibility made me angry and depressed. I lay there on my back, looking at the stitching along the ridge, waiting for something to happen, not daring to move.
She always said she could take care of herself, and she’d told me not to ‘be such an old woman’ but I couldn’t help it. Every time I tried to relax and clear my mind, like she’d shown me, my head just got crowded up again with images of her mangled body and her crying alone and lost and cold out there somewhere. It was like she had no idea how small she was now. A couple of times I’d hurt her just by being a bit clumsy and she’d yelled at me and made a terrible fuss, but then she’d go on at me for suggesting that she was in any danger out alone at night with who-knew-what prowling about out there. I don’t know. It was like she just had to do it, to prove something.

After what seemed like hours there was the unmistakable sound of something enormous shifting, turning and getting up, moving off and pushing its way between the trees. Immediately there was more light and more air, as if the thing had been casting a huge shadow. Then other sounds became audible – the normal night time hubbub of insects and small mammals scurrying around in the leaves. Had they been waiting for it to leave so they could go about their business? Soon after that I heard a tiny person pull open a zip, push her way into the interior of the rucksack and close the zip behind her. I waited for her to settle but after a while I could tell she wasn’t able to sleep either. I asked quietly if she was alright but there was no reply. I resolved to ask her about it in the morning but when I did she claimed not to know what I was on about and changed the subject. Sometimes it seemed like she had only two moods – angry or happy, that was all. Luckily for me she seemed happy most of the time.

Summer was taking on the unmistakable tones of autumn as we moved along. The path she led me along had taken an awkward turn up into the mountains again, through a narrow ravine and along the side of another gorge, which felt wrong to me, but I didn’t like to argue. There wouldn’t have been any point anyway. Miranda travelled up on top of my pack or straddling the nape of my neck, still dressed in nothing but my red silk neckerchief, giving instructions, pointing the way.
At other times she went on ahead, leaving the piece of cloth behind and making me promise not to look as she skipped on ahead, leaping from boulder to boulder, or up into the branches of a tree to get a better look at the way ahead. Later on she’d reappear, demurely, peering at me from behind a log and holding her hand out for her ‘sarong’. Usually she was wearing her evil grin when this happened, but a few times, after a particularly long time away (sometimes she didn’t reappear until after dark) I could see she was cut and bruised and in need of some comfort although she would never admit it. Times like that she curled up into my lap or under my fleece and fell asleep there. I had to be careful not to roll over and squash her.

I didn’t really find out how bad things were until one night I was waiting up for her – a totally soot-black night full of movement and smells. I was really worried about her and lit an extra big campfire because I thought it would help guide her home. It was the first heavy snowfall of the season too and the first real winter night. The leaves were almost all gone from the branches and everything looked stark and spare. I sat there with a piece of meat on a stick, worrying and trying to get it to cook evenly, as she’d shown me (She was a proficient hunter of small animals too). Just below, in a heavily wooded dip full of brambles and fallen branches I could tell there was something waiting. I couldn’t tell what but I knew. I tried not to think about it but as time went on I became increasingly aware of a sweet, fungal stink, like something long dead and yet hot and alive, close by. I waited for the shadows to move.
When Miranda suddenly reappeared I shrieked with surprise and she laughed at me but it was not funny. One of her legs was badly mauled, cut down to the tiny violet bones in a couple of places and I made her lie still, shivering and stuttering, wrapped in my scarf as I tried to make her more comfortable. I kept saying ‘I thought they couldn’t hurt you here’ but she just shook her head. Maybe that was just on the boat. She kept saying she was sorry, over and over again, and how she’d make everything alright. I sat up with her all night as she passed in and out of sleep and the creatures, not one but many, waited outside.

‘What’s going on?’ I said when I saw she was awake the next morning. The wind was roaring in the tops of the trees and had thrown off every last leaf, but our camp was settled in the curve of a small corrie, a bowl scooped out of the hillside and the air around us was still. The first sprays of the new day’s rain splattered against us unpredictably, bringing down tiny twigs and flecks of bark that floated in my coffee cup. Miranda huddled down next to the embers and hugged her cup of coffee. She didn’t say anything. She acted at first like she didn’t know what I was talking about but then gave up the subterfuge. She was extremely tired and in a lot of pain.
I knelt down to make it easier for her to tell me without having to shout but she looked away so I got up and bad-temperedly stomped off, ostensibly to find more wood. I heard her tiny voice behind me as I went. She sounded like she was might have been saying sorry but I kept going. More likely she was yelling at me not to be so melodramatic.
When I got back I was briefly panicked because she was not where I’d left her but then I heard her calling to me from inside the tent. It was raining more steadily now so I decided to join her in there.
She looked absolutely wretched, and if anything, even smaller than before. I got the fire going and put some coffee on to brew, then went in and sat with her. She sat on my leg, leaning against my belly, pulling my fleece over herself.
She said ‘I might not be around much longer. You know that don’t you.’
I said I didn’t and what did she mean. I had an idea what she was getting at but I didn’t want to say it.
‘I’m not really a guide’ she said. ‘I did used to be... I’m sorry.’
‘But, you said...’
‘I know. I’m really sorry.’
‘What about what you said about Kev? You said...’
‘I know. Gabriel, I’m sorry. I was there when you set out. I overheard...’

I look at her, not sure what to say.
‘Lie down with me will you?’ she says.
‘I need to keep an eye on the coffee’ I say and moving her gently aside I step out into the now heavy rain. I knew there was something. Now I don’t know what she’s up to at all. Obviously I can’t trust her.
When I go in with our drinks I find she hasn’t moved. She’s just sitting there, focussing on nothing, huddled in my clothes. ‘Here’ I say and put the little beaker down beside her. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’ She nods.
‘I just wanted some company’ she says quietly, after she’s taken a few sips, ‘before I go. I just didn’t want to be alone. I’m sorry. I’ve put you in danger. The next settlement we come to, I promise...’
I take that to mean we could have stopped before now. I don’t know what I think of that. Actually I’m not so sure I wanted to stop anyway, not now I have her around. I tell her so and she smiles a little. ‘Thanks’ she says. ‘You’re sweet.’
‘I mean it.’
‘But you shouldn’t have been alone, not all this time.’
‘I’m used to it. It’s ok. Anyway, I’m not alone.’
‘Still...’ she says and drinks a bit more before lying back down. The rain has passed and a little sunlight illuminates our bed.
‘I’ve never had a woman before, of any kind’ I say. ‘I don’t need anyone else. This is all I ever wanted.’
‘I don’t think so’ she says, and can’t help herself laughing at me. I can see why.
‘But you know what I mean don’t you?’ I say and she nods but is not convinced. She’s older and wiser. Thinking about it now it’s just ridiculous, but at the time...
After we’ve sat there a bit longer she says ‘Shall we get moving? It looks like it’s brightening up a bit’ and so we do, packing up all the equipment, collapsing the tent and extinguishing the fire. She climbs into one of my long red hiking socks and I put her in my hood and we’re off.

Within a few days we come upon our first signs of human habitation for what seems like months – some fields of what were once cabbages and corn – now just severed grey stumps, then an orchard, and then, unexpectedly, the settlement itself, which at first sight seems to be a tall, oddly shaped hill, all peaks and lumps with smoke rising from several places in its summit. As we get closer it looks more and more like one of those massive gothic cathedrals but apparently made of soil and wood. Its steep, terraced sides are overgrown with an unruly embroidery of vegetation interspersed with ramshackle sheds and fences and other, less explicable constructions – masts and scaffolds. Our, by now, broad and well-worn path leads across what appears to be a moat and Miranda says ‘I’ll be in here if you need me. I’m not supposed to be here’ and I hear her burrowing around down in the bowels of my baggage emitting tiny cries of pain, trying to get comfortable. I approach what appears to be a cave at the foot of the hill, pausing a while to take in the people working on the near vertical allotments above. A rampant pumpkin vine swings dangerously over the opening, strung with enormous fruit.
At the gate, two what seem to be guards observe me indifferently as I pass inside, into a tunnel that is almost too low to walk upright in. The heat and the smell are overpowering but not unpleasant – roasted meat, meths and some sort of perfume, like stale after-shave, and it’s very dark. The only light comes from a few feeble and flickering kerosene lamps along the walls. A steady stream of fresh air flows in with me. Gradually, after a few twists and forks in the tunnel I come across more and more of the occupants, sitting in huddles or engaged in some activity – cooking or needlework or perhaps writing, settled among their belongings, looking indifferently at me as I pass or minding their own business. Most seem to be in robes or other loose fitting garments and all seem to be more or less grimy and dishevelled. I’m told later that this area tends to be occupied only by the most ‘useless’ members of the community. A stiff wind whistles past. Moving on, there are more lanterns and the atmosphere lightens too. There is a hot, greasy, smoky gloom about the place and a rich fug of spices and incense and bodily odour. A larger chamber, as big as a small church and apparently carved out of the solid rock is crowded with people in more colourful garb, making jewellery and crockery and food or playing music or games, chatting and smoking and eating. Above us the ceiling is invisible in the smoke and shadows but seems very high indeed. The wind carries the smoke up into the roof.
After a few more bewildering turns in the tunnels, a lot of stair cases and ignoring some low and ill-lit side passages (with yet more desultory residents) we finally come out in a huge chamber, a great dome-shaped space with yet more traders and artisans milling around, some very finely dressed indeed. I wander about among them. Several offer me smoke or drink as I pass but I have no money. I begin to feel that I need somewhere to stop and rest and think. I notice there are small shadowy openings arranged around the perimeter of the chamber and I make for one of them. I sit down and open my pack. I ask if she’s ok in there and she gives me an impatient whisper in return ‘I’m fine. Close the top.’ I look around to see if anyone saw. Some people were looking vaguely in my direction. Should I be worried? I can’t tell. I don’t feel relaxed, that’s for sure.
I find myself something to sit on and think about having a brew. I look about. Nobody seems very interested in me anyway. I look up and see that the ceiling is really extremely high and I realise I can see daylight above, far above, through a tiny opening. That must have been the smoke I saw rising from the summit. Behind me, from the darkness the cool air streams in. It’s like a huge stove, or one of those termite nests you see on the wildlife programmes, with its own air conditioning system. As I sit and marvel at the engineering two heavily armoured figures suddenly blot out my view. I can’t see their faces or understand what they say but the message is clear. I collect up my belongings and follow them.
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Voyage X – Fancy foreign muck

After dark I have need of food. I want something filling, meaty, tasty, home cooked. I never looked forward to casseroles before but tonight it’s just what I want. I know my body doesn’t actually need it, but my mind does. I choose a bowl of chicken cooked in garlic and wine and cream and as I take it to my table by the window I have the clearest memory of a hotel we stayed at on a school trip to Normandy when I was about twelve.
None of the other kids would eat the French food. Some of them cried. They lived on bread the whole week as far as I could tell (and complained about that too – too much chewing I suppose). There was just me and Jessica. I hardly knew Jessica otherwise, and she sat the other side of the dining room with Donna and Matilda. Donna and Matilda complained louder than anyone about the food, about the beds, about pretty much everything that trip, but me and Jessica lapped it up, in silent fellowship (for there was no way we could actually get up and speak to each other under the circumstances) over the bounty of all this, well, foreignness. Our eyes met the second morning over our chocolat chaud. I could see by the way her eyelids fluttered over the brim of her cup that we understood each other. It was magical. Never would we settle for Ovaltine again. And the croissants! We grinned openly at each other across the room with flaky crumbs in our teeth as havoc broke out and children shed real tears for their coco-pops.
But I did talk to her later on that trip, and when we were back at school too. I can’t remember what we said, but I do remember that it wasn’t at all difficult. I wonder what happened to Jessica? I have no idea. And why was I actually besotted with stupid Donna? It seems inexplicable now.

Anyway Harry came past as I was eating and asked me what was wrong with British food? He stood with his knuckles on my table and leaned over me, like a badly shaved, pink gorilla. I moved my plate slightly, aware that he tended to spit when he talked. He noticed the movement and leaned closer. I could see the broken veins in his cheeks. In the seconds this encounter took I couldn’t help thinking that if this was the best face his life had had to offer, what the hell had the rest been like?
‘Hey?’ he said, leaning even closer.
‘What?’ I said, leaning back.
‘All this namby-pamby foreign crap. Don’t fucking deserve to... I said “What’s wrong with some good old British, or English I should say, roast beef?”’ and he pointed to the food counter and grabbed me under the arm, tried to lift me up. I twisted and stayed sat down, defiant anger at last coming to the surface. He turned and glared at me. ‘Fucking ponce’ he said and shoved my plate from me, getting his his fingers in the gravy in the process.
For a moment he stood there, with his hand raised, looking at the gravy, his lip curled in disgust, like it was vomit rather than food on his fingers. ‘Give me that’ he said indicating a serviette. I took my time handing it to him, looking into his face the whole time. I think my expression was of cool surprise. I hope so. I wanted him to understand that it was him that was bizarre, not me. I managed to keep calm anyway.
After he’d gone I went up and got a fresh plate of the casserole, although I didn’t feel much like eating. I knew I hadn’t won. He’d just get worse.

After he’s gone I find myself thinking some more about that trip to France and Jessica and the rest of it. I really miss her. Isn’t that weird? It’s been years now and I have absolutely no idea what happened to her. She turned up by chance once when I was at the shops and was very chatty and it still didn’t occur to me until later that she maybe liked me. I can’t believe how dense I was. I suppose it just didn’t seem very likely – she being really lovely and everything, and me being, well, me. God, I was stupid. I remember when I got back from that trip I was really full of it, or so my mum said anyway – really ‘difficult’ apparently.
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Joe VI – Pogle’s Wood

I’ve been to quite a few sessions with Joe now and mostly I don’t know what to say. It’s getting embarrassing but I don’t want to stop coming. He keeps asking me questions about my parents and school and work and girlfriends but it all just feels like such a dismal mess and I don’t want to go into it. I just want to forget about it. I’ve told him what Ray and Harry and that lot said about my future and about trying to explain to them about my painting and why they insist on explaining it to me instead. He said it’s a very good question. They probably feel threatened.
‘That’s the trouble with old people these days’ he said. ‘They think they know everything.’
That made me smile.

Anyway, this time, as I take my seat he says ‘What was your favourite TV programme, back in life?’
I’m still buzzing from thinking about Lucy. I asked her, very casually, about making a drawing of her and she smiled sexily and said she’d think about it. I can’t believe it. I can’t think.
Why is he asking me this? It seems a very long time ago. Watching telly. I remember kid’s stuff, American cop shows, British comedies, Columbo, Dad’s Army, Scooby Doo. I smile and look up, embarrassed at my lack of sophistication.
‘Don’t think about it too much. First thing that comes into your head. Go!’
‘MASH!’ I say, triumphantly, because it’s both true, and quite cool.
‘That’s too cool. You thought about it for too long. What was your first thought – really? I promise I won’t laugh’ he says grinning all over his face. Why don’t I trust him?
‘You go first’ I say. He does that thing where a person gives a world weary look upwards as if to say “God help us.” or “Why me?” or “Get on with it.” Why isn’t there a word for that expression? Maybe I should invent one. You could say ‘They all wooked at me’, or maybe ‘She made a wookie’ or, for parents ‘Don’t wook at me my lad!’
So anyway, he gave me a wookie and said ‘Starsky and Hutch. There, your turn.’
‘I was going to say Pogle’s Wood, but then...’
‘No, good choice’ he says. ‘I preferred The Clangers myself.’
‘Bagpuss?’
‘Classic.’
‘It was that guy’s voice... whatsisname...’
‘Oliver something...’ We stop and think about it for a moment, draw a blank.
‘It’ll come to us’ he says. ‘Why?’
‘Why what?’ but I know perfectly well “why?”
‘Why did you like Pogle’s Wood? God, it’s like blood from a rock sometimes. I’m trying to help here.’
‘By asking what my favourite TV programme was?’
‘Yes. I was trying to subtly come at some issues you’ve been avoiding by a different route. Ok?’
‘I’m sorry’ I say, and we sit silently for a while. ‘Is it worth going on with this?’ I ask, tentatively.
‘Why are you so bloody reluctant to be straight with me about this stuff? I’m not here to play guessing games with you.’
‘I’m really sorry’ I say again.
‘Look, if I may say so, your life was a fuck-up. You were ignored, humiliated and rejected, repeatedly. You got precisely nowhere. Do you want to do all that again? Or do you want to take this opportunity to sort some things out and maybe do a better job next time, because, frankly, that’s all this’ indicating everything around us ‘is about, as far as I can work out – doing better next time. Do you get that?’
‘Yes’ I say ‘I do.’
‘So... Are we ready?’
‘Yes’ I nod heavily.
‘So tell me why the fucking hell you liked Pogle’s fucking Wood so fucking much... you wanker.’
I have to grin. He laughs a little to himself. Sometimes I really wish he had been my friend instead of this... counsellor, or whatever role he is supposed to be in. Nobody really talked to me like this in life – Justine maybe, but she had her own problems. Nobody asked me how I was getting on. Nobody told me what I needed to know.
‘Pogle’s fucking Wood... erm... was a small, safe, cosy place’ I begin. ‘Pippin always had his friend Togg to have these little adventures with and his parents, Mr and Mrs Pogle were always there for him when he came home, and...
‘...and the flower?’
‘I don’t know what that was.’
‘Some sort of Fritillaria is my guess. Maybe a Codonopsis.’
‘You what?’
‘Never mind. It gave advice didn’t it? I don’t remember. A benign spirit-of-the-woods sort of a deal?’
‘A mini God?’
‘A handy, garden-size deity. Useful.’ We both ponder this for a moment.
‘Oliver Postgate’ I say and we both nod.
‘Voice like home baking...’ adds Joe. We nod nostalgically again.
‘Wouldn’t it have been a bit claustrophobic though, living in a hollow tree all the time with just your parents and a squirrel? What happens when Pippin leaves home and encounters the flesh pots of Camberwick Green?’
‘He never does’ I say with certainty. ‘It just goes on. There’s always things to do.’
‘But don’t you think you have to have new challenges, new experiences...’
‘He does, all the time, in the wood, there’s always unexpected things.’
‘How big is this wood?’
‘Doesn’t matter. It’s nature. There’s always something new to look at. Or you make something new happen.’
‘And you never run out? Never get bored? What about growing up? You know  – Mr and Mrs Pogle die, you inherit the hollow log, and then what? Are you going to mate with the squirrel? Leave a lot of weird mutant tufty progeny?’
I think about this for a while – not mating with the squirrel obviously – but change, growing up, leaving home. I can’t imagine the Pogles’ lives changing. That’s how it should be, forever.
‘Would you not be just a teensie bit curious about the outside world? How does the rest of the world look to a Pogle?’
‘I don’t think they think about it much.’
‘Put yourself in their place. How does it look to you – the outside world?’
‘I can’t believe you’re asking me to identify with a soft toy.’
‘Just do it.’
I close my eyes, go to the edge of the wood. I can see it very clearly. ‘It’s just a huge empty field. I look through the hedge and I can’t see the other side. It’s frosty and there’s stubble – brown and dead.’
The outside world is bleak and empty as far as the eye can see.
I tell Joe this and he sits for a while, considering, and I leave.
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Voyage IX – Art appreciation

For some obscure reason The Rat Pack, as they have become generally known, are still keen to have me at their table. I feel more confident about politely declining but they insist. They don’t make me play cards, and they let me drink coffee if I want to now, but they won’t let me go. I don’t know why. Liz ignores me.
‘Can I get you anything from the bar?’ says Ray, unctuously. I don’t want yet another coffee. Actually I’d really like a beer. I say so, quietly (why am I embarrassed?) They look at each other knowingly. All I know is I feel tense the whole time. Eventually they get on with whatever game they’re playing and I can excuse myself.
I breathe deeply up on deck. The sky is definitely bluer now, and the birds are serener, blown about like kites on the buffeting wind, long forked tails streaming behind them, ducking and diving among the waves. I settle down with a book on my lap and watch for hours. The air is still very chill but I’m cosy in my sleeping bag and I look drowsily out into the distance. The lack of a horizon no longer bothers me much. Sometimes another ship like ours can be seen in the distance. I have a sense of some huge migration through the eons, across the universe, all moving in parallel towards... towards what?

‘So’ says Ray, once we’re all settled in for the evening again, ‘what sort of art do you do?’ Every time they mention it the word art seems to be italicised.
‘I don’t know. Landscapes, portraits, you know. Oils, pastels, charcoal.’
‘Have you got anything with you?’ says Solly, perhaps a little too eagerly.
‘Course he hasn’t’ says Brenda, laughing at him.
‘I have actually. I’ve been doing a lot lately. Hang on...’ and I dash off down to my cabin to fetch some pieces.
I get back and they’re all still sitting there waiting. I open the folder and let them to clear a space before I lay my pile of papers on the table. Solly immediately starts looking through them but Ray and Brenda pick up the top one, a big piece I did early on – a view of the deck with all the travellers there, rugged up on their deck chairs. There’s an empty, rather bleak expanse of sea and sky beyond, almost but not quite indistinguishable in the same chalky grey. I’d exaggerated the perspective a little, changed the angle of the deck and made the figures lean out of the frame at you. They look a little like mummies wrapped up there with just their faces showing, or patients on their way to the operating theatre, or the morgue. Some of them look out of the picture at you but there’s no expressions on their faces.
Harry says ‘Let’s have a butchers then’ and takes it from them, not very carefully. He and Liz look at it together.
‘What’s it supposed to be then?’ says Harry, handing it back to me.
‘Well, it’s the view up on deck...’
‘I can see that’ he says impatiently. ‘Why’s it all, I don’t know, skew-wiff? It’s all at the wrong angle. Here let me show you’ and he picks up a pen and a spare piece of paper and starts to explain about perspective (incorrectly as it happens). I’m furious. Why can’t they let me have this one thing? Why do they have to make out they know more than me about everything? They could have asked me what I was trying to achieve with the distortion, maybe learned something, but no.
After a minute or so trying to get all the lines to meet at the horizon he screws up the paper and I say as politely as I can ‘I do know about all that.’
‘Well why don’t you do it then? Look there’s no point doing it wrong if you know how to do it right, just to be different.’
‘Well...’ I look around at the others. They don’t seem so appalled at my modernism so I decide to try to explain. It’s disconcerting. They don’t usually listen to me much at all.
‘I chose to distort the perspective deliberately, to emphasise the weird atmosphere. I wanted to show that we were all alone out here and we didn’t know where we were going and we didn’t know what to think about it.’
‘So, why didn’t you just paint that, realistically?’ says Brenda.
‘Well...’ I try to think how to explain without riling them even more. ‘You can go and look at the “real” version any time you like. I wanted to say something else about it, to remember what it actually felt like.’
‘These birds look more like vultures...’ says Liz.
Harry looks at it a bit more, clearly a little disturbed. Pictures here have a sort of a life about them. It’s not just that the eyes follow you; the heads seem to swivel round to watch you too. I painted the thing and I still find it unnerving.
‘Oh for God’s sake put it away’ says Harry after a while, almost throwing it at me. ‘Why can’t you paint something nice?’
‘What, like kittens and flowers?’ I say.
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘Oh leave him alone Harry’ says Brenda.
‘Well nobody’s going to want that on their wall are they?’
‘This is that punky bloke isn’t it?’ says Solly, looking at another one.
‘Yes. Damian’ I say.
‘It’s a good likeness’ says Brenda. ‘Has he seen it?’
‘He sat for me.’ Solly raises his eyebrows approvingly. Brenda shows it to Harry who looks away with disgust on his face.
‘These are quite good’ says Solly. ‘Lot of potential...’ as if he knows about such things.
‘Thank you’ I say.
‘Very... impressionistic’ he says, smiling at me as if he expects me to be impressed with his knowledge.
‘It’s more post-impressionist really’ I say ‘or maybe a bit expressionist. Have you heard of Kirchner?’
I see his enthusiasm dampen immediately. I knew I shouldn’t have corrected him as soon as I said it. I pick up my pictures and take them back to my cabin and the game resumes.
Why do I even try?
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Journey V – Birds and bees

I remember the next part of my journey through the afterlife as a good time. Everything was simpler – the paths were easier to find and lead through a lush upland landscape of rolling hills and wooded valleys. Miranda the nymph as I jokingly called her was something of a naturalist it turned out – she had what seemed like ancient memories of a country childhood, running half naked through the meadows, jumping in rivers, climbing trees, riding ponies, playing with dogs and rabbits and ducks. I asked if she’d ever go back but she didn’t seem to think it was possible any more. She pointed out the birds and the bees, the orchids and the trees and told me how they fed, how they grew and reproduced. She told me to put away my papers and pencils. She said they were coming between me and the world – I was always trying to make a picture instead of looking at what was actually happening around me. She said I should just look, then, one day maybe I’d make something truly worth looking at. I knew she was right. I sat and looked. And not just looked – I rolled about in the long grass, jumped in the rivers and ran up the ridges, usually with her on my shoulders, to see what there was to see on the other side. I got cut, stung and bitten and bruised in the process but it was worth it.
We were bashful about our bodies although we had both been naked when we met and she must have seen me before that, washing and so on. Still, it seemed wrong to just not care. She wore a piece of red and orange silk as a sarong, and I kept my shorts on. Still, I watched her surreptitiously, and she knew it too – she told me later – sometimes carelessly letting her little pink boobs pop out as she moved about. She couldn’t help but notice my response, which was more than half as tall as she was, but we played a delicious game of not reacting.

We talked a lot more as time went on – her revealing more about her past as we went along, but swiftly changing the subject when we got to “the nasty bits”- she'd suddenly get excited about some new insect or flower or fish and set off with remarkable speed and agility after it, then she'd tell me something amazing about its ecology. Other times she would just come out with something ridiculous and make me laugh. We spent a lot of time laughing but there was always something else going on with her – you could see that, something in her expression.
‘Dad really changed when my stepmother moved in’ she told me one afternoon. We’d been swimming and were just sunning ourselves on a ledge. She looked at me. I could see from the expression on her face she was going to tell me something important today and I turned on my side to face her. She turned on her back and looked at the sky. I noticed her take trouble to cover herself up properly, which was not like her at all.
‘She didn’t like me being around anyway’ she continued.
‘How old were you?’
‘Sixteen, seventeen maybe.’
‘What about your mum? Didn’t she say anything?’
She never answered that, just stared at the sky. She’d told me before that her mother had been depressed and drank a lot.
‘It wasn’t him incidentally’ she said, turning to me, ‘in case you were wondering. He never actually abused me, physically.’  Up until then it hadn’t occurred to me at all but now all sorts of possibilities came to mind. I knew she’d been a bit of a wild child and her parents had let her do pretty much whatever she wanted, including losing her virginity at thirteen. I suppose I knew that people abused their children but I’d never really given it much thought.
‘He was a very manipulative man. There was always this thing that me and my mother were interchangeable somehow, and then she got older and I got more... “developed” as he put it... It was always a bit weird but I idolised him. All my girlfriends did. He was really good looking, and charming, my father. Everybody said so.’
I wanted to say ‘So what happened?’ but I knew hurrying her would make her change the subject so I had to wait.
‘I was spending a lot of time in a squat in Brighton at the time. It was all pretty mad...’ and she looked at me again, trying to decide whether to go on, whether I’d be too shocked. I made as subtle encouraging noises as I could and she lay down again. ‘I don’t want to go into it’ she said finally, covering her face with her hands, covering her eyes. I lay back and looked at the sky. I knew what was coming. She’d joked about it – messy, badly lit rooms, the dope and speed and vodka going around, and the sex. I’d found it kind of exciting at first – the thought of her doing that... Then, as I got to know her more I felt jealous. Now, I could see how hurt she was. Maybe I was growing up. Who knows? I reached over and touched her arm and she uncovered her eyes and gripped my finger. I could see she’d been crying.
‘What happened then?’
‘Oh they kicked me out. I had to have an abortion. I got sick, blah blah blah. Oh look I just can’t...’
‘It’s ok, it’s alright. Look...’ and I indicated a space in the crook of my arm where she could curl up and she came over and fell asleep on me.

Another time, when we knew each other better, I asked her why she wouldn’t go back and try again, avoiding all that pain. It seemed to me that the nasty parts should be easy to avoid if she knew when to expect them. She said it’s not that simple and you don’t necessarily remember enough, or anything, of your previous existence next time around.
‘I couldn’t take the risk’ she said sadly. ‘I couldn’t put her through all that again.’
It took me a moment to realise she was talking about her younger self.
‘But you could settle somewhere here couldn’t you? Somewhere, I don’t know...’ I look about at the view, avoiding her eyes on me. I don’t understand, I admit that. How can she just give up? She seems so, I don’t know, lively, and clever. How can she just let herself snuff out?

The landscape around us gradually assumed a more cultivated look as the days went by (How many days? I don’t know. It seemed like about four months, but I couldn’t be sure. Time just swelled and flowed about us). Fields and hedges emerged more often from the wilderness as we travelled, overgrown and unkempt to be sure, but undoubtedly fields and hedges. The paths remained rocky and uneven, but wider. At one point we came across a shed, big enough for cows or horses and still with stale straw on the floor. A fat grey dormouse watched us from the rafters with the shiniest little black eyes. I saw her mood drop a little in there. She didn’t want me to notice, but I did. When she turned around it was as if nothing had happened.
The possibility of being seen by people made me a little more inhibited but she carried on as before and urged me not to worry – we had a while yet she said. I didn’t ask.
She asked me about my past, and in particular about the women in my life. I told her there wasn’t much to tell, skimmed over my adolescent infatuations and humiliations and briefly mentioned Naomi and what had happened there. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea but she insisted and didn’t laugh too much. It all seemed a very long time ago and an extremely long way away. All around us insects were swarming about amid the early summer flowers, and sun sparkled in the dew on their hairy stems. Everywhere, the sheer detail of veins in leaves, in the red stain in the leaves behind the blue petals, and a black fly buzzing there, and a blue spider, sitting, like a crab, in the centre, waiting for it.
‘Actually, birds eat bees’ she said suddenly, looking out across the valley. ‘It’s an apposite metaphor for life don’t you think?’
‘Not always’ I said, although I’d like to have eaten her at that moment. She turned and smiled at me. ‘What are you thinking?’
I couldn’t tell her I was thinking about licking her entire body in one mouthful.
‘About who of us is the bird and who is the bee...’ I said, lamely.
‘Maybe we’re both birds’ she suggested.
‘Except we don’t have wings’ I pointed out.
‘I wouldn’t want to be a bee I don’t think – maybe one of those big fuzzy mama bees with all her daughters hidden in a hole in the ground...’ and she asked me how I’d been bitten. I said I wasn’t even sure if it wasn’t all in my imagination, and I explained about what happened with Lucy – how naive I’d been. ‘I know it’s not exactly the end of the world’ I said finally, tailing off.
‘But you’re so young’ she said compassionately. ‘How could you have known?’ and I suddenly felt like crying because she was on my side and I wasn’t used to that. I had assumed it was probably mostly my fault, as usual, but she didn’t think so.
‘I despise her already’ she said ‘and I haven’t even met the woman.’

We sit and look and think for a while. So much birdsong, a lizard on every available rock, as many butterflies as flowers. Maybe this was what England used to be like, before we humans got our hands on it. Miranda points out a stork, sailing over the treetops opposite. I watch a crow swoop down from behind us into the valley. In a few seconds it is over the stream, in another few it is among the trees where the stork was, maybe half a mile away. What a way to get about!
‘I’d never do something like that’ she says. ‘If I took my clothes off for you, no matter what the pretext, you’d know exactly what I was there for’ and she looks momentarily sideways at me with that bad smile of hers, tongue literally in cheek. I smile and look across the valley again.
‘I think I need to cool off’ I say, getting down off the wall and standing to face her.
‘Very sensible’ she says. ‘You do that’ and she lies down in the sun, and I look back just in time to see her tiny nipples ping free over the top of her sarong as she raises her arm to shade her eyes. Its lower edge comes up to expose almost the full length of her thighs as she bends her right leg up. ‘Don’t be long’ she says.
I bound down the valley side, through the long grass, grasshoppers springing merrily aside as I go.
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