Day 10 - no words (work and a party!)
Day 11 - 412 words (written under a tree at the Supernormal Festival)
Hours later, Ernest wandered home through the dark and
odorous streets, for once oblivious to any possible dangers. He was lost in
recollections of the night’s events, and he was also enjoying the unfamiliar
sensations derived from a stomach full of fish and chips. Not the promised
stout and oysters; the company had forgone their pleasures for the immediate
satisfaction of cheap, hot food, served and eaten with no fuss. The vendor had
been delighted to see a big hungry crowd at any time of night.
Most of Ernest’s attention was taken up with thinking about Gabriel. Ernest had watched his mirror image throughout the night. The women in the company did not treat him as they did Ernest, although the boys were the same age. Gabriel was treated as a grown man, perhaps even as a prospect, a mark. Something was going on between them that Ernest could not name, but which others with more experience would have called flirting. Gabriel was smooth, relaxed and bold with his compliments and kisses, skilled in that double talk that Ernest could scarcely follow. So throughout the meal Ernest had said little, growing shyer as Gabriel took the attention. Although he had been attentive to the women, Gabriel had made it clear that he was not interested in Ernest’s life, and so Ernest had not been able to learn much in return. It was obvious that Gabriel came from a family with wealth, but why he was permitted to rattle around the East End with a group of marginal and itinerant actors for company, Ernest could not imagine.
London was segmented by class and money, as surely and as solidly as if there had been brick walls across the thoroughfares. Nobody with money had came down into Ernest’s personal city before – nobody who seemed to have decent intentions, who revelled in the contact rather than distaining it.
Reaching the Rookery, in between wishing a polite ‘good morning’ to the women still loitering on the corners, Ernest willed himself to consider what he was going to tell his Mother. He decided that giving her as little information as possible would be his best bet. He justified both evasion and deception on the grounds that her health was too fragile to be worried by the truth, and that the truth was mild enough. But Rosalina was asleep, and Ernest wrapped himself in the trailing ends of her covers, and slept on the floor beside her divan.
Most of Ernest’s attention was taken up with thinking about Gabriel. Ernest had watched his mirror image throughout the night. The women in the company did not treat him as they did Ernest, although the boys were the same age. Gabriel was treated as a grown man, perhaps even as a prospect, a mark. Something was going on between them that Ernest could not name, but which others with more experience would have called flirting. Gabriel was smooth, relaxed and bold with his compliments and kisses, skilled in that double talk that Ernest could scarcely follow. So throughout the meal Ernest had said little, growing shyer as Gabriel took the attention. Although he had been attentive to the women, Gabriel had made it clear that he was not interested in Ernest’s life, and so Ernest had not been able to learn much in return. It was obvious that Gabriel came from a family with wealth, but why he was permitted to rattle around the East End with a group of marginal and itinerant actors for company, Ernest could not imagine.
London was segmented by class and money, as surely and as solidly as if there had been brick walls across the thoroughfares. Nobody with money had came down into Ernest’s personal city before – nobody who seemed to have decent intentions, who revelled in the contact rather than distaining it.
Reaching the Rookery, in between wishing a polite ‘good morning’ to the women still loitering on the corners, Ernest willed himself to consider what he was going to tell his Mother. He decided that giving her as little information as possible would be his best bet. He justified both evasion and deception on the grounds that her health was too fragile to be worried by the truth, and that the truth was mild enough. But Rosalina was asleep, and Ernest wrapped himself in the trailing ends of her covers, and slept on the floor beside her divan.
Day 12 - 1188 words (written all over the place at the Supernormal Festival)
The pencil presses
into the paper in one hard, decisive line. The soft blankness yields under the
point. This is the physical control that I crave; an outcome that I can
determine. A passive, still, human being, my life model, has become merely an abstraction
of lines. The female form as a problem of perspective to decipher, solve and dissolve.
Still the nature of the woman seeps through, bleeding into the fresh sheet of
paper, insisting on the difference of one model from another. They are not different,
under the skin. A rose is a rose is a rose, my beautiful. The blood which soon
will softly mist onto your pillow each morning is the same colour as that of
all the others.
Rosalina did not have the strength of will or of body to ask
her son any questions. She and Ernest were moving apart from each other, as an
untethered rowing boat will drift naturally away from the shore across even the
stillest of lakes. She watched her son go to work, heard him talk of
advancement, showing her the bonus he had finally won for his extra effort in
the market. She forgot, seeing him occupy the only chair in their room,
stretching his battered boots out towards the fire, how very young he was. A
new century would open up in a few months, and Ernest had already grown into
it, racing ahead of his childhood, a product of the age’s mania for progress at
the expense of any other, kinder qualities.
If circumstances had been kinder, her boy would be at school, with
nothing to worry over but Latin verbs and juvenile friendships. But fate had
been unkind to many in London, and even now, across this great engine of a
city, children were working as hard as adults, despite any attempt at passing
laws to stop it. The sweat of children , working outsidem and inside, homes and
hovels kept whole families away from the workhouse or the debtors’ prisons.
Rosalina wished that Ernest did not have to be one of them. Even ten years ago
she knew that she and her son would not be together for long. As her physical
strength faded, so did her influence over her child, loosening her restrictions
on his imagination and knowledge. Every day she felt her sanity cracking,
peeling away like the paint on the windowsill. As Ernest returned each evening,
she attempted to gather her energies together to tell him the truth about his
conception. And every evening she found herself unequal to the task, which
frayed her reality still further.
Ernest was aware that Rosalina was facing a battle of her own. He watched her even more anxiously, noting with alarm her increasing loss of weight, the ferocity of her coughing fits, and the way she held onto the rail when she had to climb the stairs, slowly and deliberately. For three successive nights he had dragged a packing crate all the way home from the market, and on the Sunday he made himself a bed frame from the wooden slats. He hung an old sheet from a line stretched across the room, giving himself and his Mother separate sleeping areas. He felt he was in a state of heightened watchfulness and constant preparation, like a soldier readying his kit. A boy with no Father learning how to become a man with no Mother.
Ernest was aware that Rosalina was facing a battle of her own. He watched her even more anxiously, noting with alarm her increasing loss of weight, the ferocity of her coughing fits, and the way she held onto the rail when she had to climb the stairs, slowly and deliberately. For three successive nights he had dragged a packing crate all the way home from the market, and on the Sunday he made himself a bed frame from the wooden slats. He hung an old sheet from a line stretched across the room, giving himself and his Mother separate sleeping areas. He felt he was in a state of heightened watchfulness and constant preparation, like a soldier readying his kit. A boy with no Father learning how to become a man with no Mother.
So, is this the age at
which my dreams began? I cannot remember the first. But this boy is dreaming;
not a mixed concoction of the everyday, but a real dream. Flesh of my flesh, I
will follow you into the darkness of your sleeping soul. I see a soldier, young
and fresh faced, lying crumpled and white at your feet. But no – pay attention,
dreamer. The soldier is a young woman. An actress then? A whore? Cover her with
more of those soft red petals, boy, but do not weep over her. What purpose is
there to such a display of emotion, even in a dream? I have seen battlefields,
I have seen death in a knife’s reflective blade. There must be control. There
should be control. We must try for control. Control.
Ernest woke from a nightmare, the blood pounding through his
head and heart. The images of Sals lying dead,
- as if dead – and red petals dropping from a clear sky were disturbing
even in recollection. Far worse, Ernest could not shake the sense that someone
was standing in the room, and had been standing beside him in his nightmare,
watching him act and passing judgement in the darkness.
Winter came closer, and Ernest stopped visiting the actors
in order to look after his Mother, who felt the cold even in the day. He was
constantly haggling for extra coal and scouting along the mudbanks of the river
for anything he could salvage to burn in their tiny grate. One day at work he
looked up from his books of figures at the sound of a sharp tap on the leg of
his tall, wooden stool. He looked around for some kind of authority figure, but
saw no top or bowler hat, no whiskered man in a clean coat. Instead, after he
had looked straight down, he saw Gabriel, now deliberately not looking at him,
but picking his fingernails clean with a pocket knife.
‘Thought you might care to join me for tea. When you’ve stopped being the fuel of the Empire’s mighty engine, ‘ drawled Gabriel.
‘When I’ve done what?’ said Ernest, taken aback.
Gabriel smiled. ‘When you’ve stopped assisting the economy, old chap. In other words, finished work for the day. Clocked off. Knocked off, I do believe is the phrase in common parlance around here.’
‘Gabriel that’s very kind of you, but I don’t think your parents would approve…’ Ernest said, terrified at the idea of being brought in front of a rich family as some kind of entertaining charity case.
‘You don’t know ‘em. You, dear fellow, are the most wholesome character I know.’
Ernest then thought to protest about his work clothes, not wanting to have to make it clear that he had no other suit to wear in any case, but Gabriel languidly waved these objections away with one gloved hand. ‘My darling Nanny has ventured into these parts for a tearful farewell with her sweetheart. He’s off to fight the Boers, so he claims. I have my doubts.’ Gabriel tapped the side of his nose. ‘Shan’t be weeping for him, myself – he drinks too much, on Nanny’s wages of course, and he asks too many questions about what we’ve got in the house.’ Gabriel stowed away his pocket knife and drew his other glove back on. ‘In return for my silence on this – delicate – matter, Nanny allows me to run as free as the lion on the Transvaal. ‘Sides, Papa is away in the War, and Mama has escaped from the horror of it by doing good works somewhere up North in a mining town.’ Gabriel spread his hands, and Ernest, finally, agreed to call on him.
‘Thought you might care to join me for tea. When you’ve stopped being the fuel of the Empire’s mighty engine, ‘ drawled Gabriel.
‘When I’ve done what?’ said Ernest, taken aback.
Gabriel smiled. ‘When you’ve stopped assisting the economy, old chap. In other words, finished work for the day. Clocked off. Knocked off, I do believe is the phrase in common parlance around here.’
‘Gabriel that’s very kind of you, but I don’t think your parents would approve…’ Ernest said, terrified at the idea of being brought in front of a rich family as some kind of entertaining charity case.
‘You don’t know ‘em. You, dear fellow, are the most wholesome character I know.’
Ernest then thought to protest about his work clothes, not wanting to have to make it clear that he had no other suit to wear in any case, but Gabriel languidly waved these objections away with one gloved hand. ‘My darling Nanny has ventured into these parts for a tearful farewell with her sweetheart. He’s off to fight the Boers, so he claims. I have my doubts.’ Gabriel tapped the side of his nose. ‘Shan’t be weeping for him, myself – he drinks too much, on Nanny’s wages of course, and he asks too many questions about what we’ve got in the house.’ Gabriel stowed away his pocket knife and drew his other glove back on. ‘In return for my silence on this – delicate – matter, Nanny allows me to run as free as the lion on the Transvaal. ‘Sides, Papa is away in the War, and Mama has escaped from the horror of it by doing good works somewhere up North in a mining town.’ Gabriel spread his hands, and Ernest, finally, agreed to call on him.
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