There's a patch
of dull sky
visible through

a parting in
the curtain
of her room

it is morning
Ingrid stirs
in her bed

feels the bruises
on her thighs
moves more carefully

to the side
of the bed
and sits grasping

the day and hour
her father's voice
still echoes

in her ears and mind
both her elder
brother and sister

have now left
last night's row
saw the flight

of the other
leaving just Ingrid
and her mother

and her father's wrath
and spiteful blows
from across the road

in Rockingham Street
the sounding
of the horses' hooves
and coal man's feet
and vans and cars
going past

and she sitting
sensing her bruises
like medals

of a war
similar to beatings
she's had before

Benny will know
he always does
either by her dull eyes
or sensing her

whimpish sighs
as she moves or sits
what's your old man

been up to now
he'll say
and pretends

(from the balcony
with his toy gun)
to blow

her father's
bullish head
away.

And there was that small room with a bathroom attached just off Trafalgar Square said Netanya and it had been booked by Benedict to go to after the show in a theatre near Victoria Station and my husband at that time said where are you going? and I said to London to see a show and what time will you be back? Sunday afternoon I said youre staying over night? he said yes I said who are you going with? he asked thats my business I said and anyway when the Saturday came for me to go I met Benedict at the station he had been waiting anxiously in case I couldnt get away and I had a small overnight bag with my change of clothes in and wash stuff and he had a duffel bag and I said well here I am and he said wasnt sure youd get away and I said well he was suspicious but thats his problem and we got on the train to London and it was our first time together away from our local sites and he was looking at me and I think he was conscious for the first time of our age differences I was his senior by thirteen years and it didnt seemed to show in our own town but now out of the area it did seem to show a bit but I put it out of my head and hoped I was up to the challenge not having regular *** for some time and my husband at that time wasnt up to much at least not with me- he had had *** with anyone else between sixteen to sixty but me no it was sparse and anyway I was glad at the time thinking I didnt want to catch anything he may have caught from some ****- and we sat and talked and Benedict talked of Sartre and Camus but I didnt know who they were so just pretended I did and about existentialism and such words he went on about but it was him I watched not his words they swept over me like water in the sea and I was glad we were away and I thought briefly what the kids might be doing with me not around over the next day but theyd cope after all a woman has to live her life when she can and what chance would I have again and I recalled the first time I met Benedict and he was introduced to me at the workplace and I thought to myself hes a bit of all right and he smiled and I was kind of blown away but I knew he was having it off with another who had no luggage with her but then that blew away and I thought now is my chance and this was it and once the train entered Victoria Station and we got out and it seemed like a whole new world with so many people and we were just two people in sea of humanity and we saw the show at the time it said and sat and watched the show and I was aware of him beside me and thought about afterwards at the room he had booked and what it would be like and would I be able to perform after all it wasnt as though I had *** often and apart from my then husband and a boy back in the early 1950s I was not quite that expertise at *** or so I thought much as I liked what I had had but Benedict was younger and seemed quite a one with the girls and I thought it maybe a big let down and Id be shown to be just a woman in her middle age crisis stage but after the show which was quite good we got a taxi to the address Benedict had shown the driver and in no time we were there and we got in the door and the woman looked at us as we booked in and I thought She looked at me with a stern eye but we didnt care she showed us the room and left us to it shutting the door behind us and telling us if we wanted the gas fire on we would need to put 50p in the meter each time it went out so I found a 50p coin and put it in the slot and turned on the gas fire and it roared into life and we looked around the room and I looked into the bathroom and it had a  big deep bath and I thought that will come in handy later and I showed Benedict and he said we can bath together and I thought I have never bathed with anyone else before and he said theres always a first time for everything  then we looked at the bed and sat on it and bounced on it and it seemed all right if a little bit hard but it would do us Benedict said so what now? he said and I said well why waste time and began to undress first by taking off my coat and then my cardigan and he watched at first uncertain and I thought hes been put off about this after all and I got as far as my blouse when he took off his jacket and I watched him and he took off his tie and then we both seemed to race the other to undress first and it was like being a teenager again rather than a forty year old woman with a thirteen year younger man and I was right down to my underwear and bra and he was completely bare and stood there and then climbed into bed and waited for me and I took off what else I had on and we were both in bed naked and it was so strange so surreal and I couldnt believe I was actually there with him and he lay there beside me looking at me and he switched off the bedside lamp and we were in the semi-dark except for the flashing on and off of neon lights and street light outside in the street and then he kissed me and his hands were on my thighs and I was unsure if I was doing the right thing but then I though O to hell with it and kissed him more and we going at it quite strong and I didn't realise how much I never knew and how much I enjoyed what I was learning and once we had done we lay back and I looked at the room and felt him beside me and breathed in the air and him and my scent and the sounds of London out there and after that we were at it again and again until it seemed we were never going to stop and the we bathed together and I felt so young again and then we slept and had *** and bathed again and then it was morning and we left the room and the woman looked at us and I winked at her and she looked away and it was a day that day never to go from my mind never go go away.

We're on the grass
around Arrol House
and I have my blue
painted metal crossbow

in my hand
with the two arrows
that came in the pack
and Ingrid says

what are you going
to fire at?
if I had an apple
I could do

the William Tell trick
what's that?
she asks
well he put an apple

on his son's head
and fires the apple
off with one
single arrow

and whose head
would you fire
the apple off of?
she asks

I look at her
and smile
no not me
she says

looking fearful
of course not
I say
just joking

I'd not do that
to anyone
I'm a lousy shot
she smiles uneasy

I mean it I say
so what are you
going to shoot at?
she asks

I pull out
a small
cardboard target
out of the back pocket

of my jeans
at this
I say
and try and hit

the bulls-eye
she takes the target
and says
where do I put it?

put it against
the bomb shelter wall
and up on
the first ledge

I say
she walks over
to the bomb shelter wall
and puts it

on the ledge
by standing on tiptoe
that's it
I say

just right
she moves away
and stands beside me
fingers held together

and watches
as I put an arrow
onto the crossbow
and set

the crossbow
ready to fire
and aim
at the target

with one eye closed
and set the arrow off
and it misses
the bulls-eye

by a mere fraction
you missed the bulls-eye
Ingrid says
I smile

told you
I was a lousy shot
I say
just as well

I didn't have
an apple
on my head
she says

or I'd be dead  
I wouldn't do that
to you
no matter what

I say
and she gets
the arrow
just a part

of another
childhood day.

O Miss Pinkie said – she dropped the Mrs once her divorce came through although being a Catholic it didnt amount to much- if I could have my life over again and had the wisdom I have now and a lot of understanding of the human machine Id have lived differently and not married the **** I  did but there you go we must live forward and not backward although at times we wish we could but we cant so there you are and as a child coming from a strict Catholic family church going and the Mass were our Sundays highlight or so it seemed at the time and the priest as often at our house as a neighbour or a member of the close family and would come and sit and drink and eat and say things about others and how so and sos daughter had gone by the  wayside and needed taking in hand and my father said any daughter his going by any wayside would get a good tanning of their backside and the priest saying that is a way going from homes now but my father said not here Father not here and it was true as my sister knew as she was many a time feeling his hand on her backside if she step out of line and me too now and then and my mother stood in his shadow and said do as your father says and would shake a finger at us if she thought we were out of step with our fathers wishes and a cousin wanted to join the Little Sisters and encouraged me to go too and talked me into it when I was old enough and with my fathers blessing- blessing being his agreement or his say so- and he said I know what men are like youre better off there with the Sisters than with with some of the specimens around here in Glasgow to wed and bed so I joined the Little Sisters as did the cousin and were set to become brides of Christ but I couldnt settle to it never had the vocation for the life what with all those maidens and their narrow views and the cousin went first and within a month or two was out with a man named Scott and before you could say hows your ***** off for spots she was up the aisle dressed in the white with the thin rod of a man beside her and within a seventh month she dropped a babe- his we assumed- and then just before I was due to take my simple vows I left too much to my fathers annoyance and being put out by it he said nothing to me for months on end turned his back on me if I entered the house- lived after leaving with my cousin her her thin man and the babe in a room in the attic- but he came around and knowing he could no more put me over his knee he used his words to have a go at me if I stepped beyond his likes then I met the man who was to be and was my husband and on the first date- the cinema where else- it was kiss kiss and fiddle fiddle in the back rows with others also so inclined and after a few weeks he had me in his bed-he lived in digs as he called them- and I knew nothing then about *** or anything relating to that side of matters and I was surprised by what he was doing and where and how and I said is this how it is? and he said it was and had always been so and so it was and I got to enjoy it after the first few times and then we had our child a boy and then my husband got a job away a lot and then he started having it with other women or girls while away and I had it fewer and fewer times until one day I found out about them all and I said no more with me and he said good and left and that was it and I brought up our son on my own until he left home to get a job abroad and I was alone and began needing to work myself having no husband to support me and it was there that my met young Baruch-Benedict he called himself but I liked Baruch better- and at first I never thought about him and *** and that because he was nineteen years younger than I was and I was old enough to be his mother but he had that way with him and he said can I come to your place I want to read you some my my writings and so I said yes and he came and I gave him whiskey or wine and I put on music on the record player and he read his work and I watched him read and sensed him near me and the drink softened him up and the music got to him and he said I need you and I said in what way? he said in what way and I went and undressed and came back in a kimono and he said I looked like a Japanese woman he once saw in a book and he drank more and then he undressed and so it began almost every other night after work in the evenings hed come around and we had drinks and he brought some Mahler and  we played that and it became our love music and he had me in ways id not been had before and played at spanking me prior to ******* me- as he called it- and it reminded me of my father- the spankings not the *** of course- and it made me tingle and sometimes it was on my double bed often or not if we couldnt make it on the sofa with the Mahler symphony blaring away and the glasses empty and him over me and I eyeing him or closing my eyes imagining him and sometimes he was underneath me and it was him and me and Mahler and his hand on my behind and him in me and hed say come on come on and I was becoming out of breath feeling my age or so it seemed then he met some young girl and that was it I was alone again and sat listening to Mahler and I drank my ***** thinking of him knowing he would leave after all he was just a boy I was getting to be older but wanting to recall our nights together and Mahler and whiskey and that time we had it on the carpet the carpet soft and thick and he saying wheres the fence where can we ride? and we laughed and that time at work in the wash room where I got him stiff as a rifle and ready to shoot but it was too public and he had to walk it off but then he left work and it became a mere echo of former days my hair less dyed letting my hairs become different coloured greys.

How long does it take
by train to Edinburgh?
Lydia said
her father held in

a smile-he was sober
so playful-
about 6 hours or so
he replied

why are you
going to Scotland?
and with whom?
Lydia said

not yet
I'm just 9 years old
but maybe when I'm older
she hesitated

looking at her father
at his sober blue eyes
and said
Benny probably

go with Benny
her father still held
back the smile
o Benny

the kid from upstairs
in the flats?
she nodded
the kid who you go

to the train stations with?
she nodded
she had her thin hands
behind her back

her fingers crossed
we went
to Kings Cross
station today

she said quietly
Kings Cross?
that's quite a journey
her father said

you two going to elope?
she frowned
elope?
what does that mean?

she asked
means you're going
to run off
and secretly marry

her mother said tiredly
from the sink
where she was
washing clothes

her father smiled
I can't marry anyone
I'm just 9 years old
she said

but when you're ready Lydia
you can get maybe
a free ride
as I am a railway worker

her father said
grinning
leaning back
in his chair

she liked it
when her dad
was sober
he was more fun

and kind
her father
laughed loudly
but she didn't mind.

Dalya couldnt even bring herself to be nice to the Yank girl anymore it was as much as she could do to even look at her with her dark hair and eyes and that ******* tight black leather two piece which made her skinnier than a runt and that accent seeming straight out of some American movie and the constant yak about the guys shed had and how that was the worse part the how of it all as if Dalya cared as if she gave a sod about the Yanks love life and that time they showered at the Oslo camp base and the Yank said *** how plump you are like a hippo bathing and she laughed and Dalya gave her a look that would have frozen another more sensitive ***** but no she laughed at Dalya and her so called humour and Dalya would have flicked her towel around the Yanks scrawny **** but another girl passing got in the way and it flicked her **** instead and O did she moan and the Yank ***** walked off swaying if one can sway a backside like hers and was gone or that time when Dalya had been out with a guy called Benny who rode the same mini bus as the Yank and Dalya had got back in the tent real late and the Yank said what time do you call this some of us need our beauty sleep and Dalya said you could sleep for thousand years and still be one heck of an ugly Yank ***** and the Yank stormed out into the night or early morning which ever it was and Dalya lay in her tent trying to sleep after shed gone when Benny creeps in and said the American girls gone in the Aussie guy and is in my sleeping bag and theyre doing things which I wont describe least not before breakfast and so he came in to the tent with Dalya and Dalya seethed and swore and Benny said did you want me to leave but Ill have to sleep in the bar area as shes in my tent with him so Dalya said ok but no funny business and he said I don t do funny business and lay there in the tent where the Yank girl used to lay and she seemed determined not to let him get too near but at the time the birds were beginning to sing and she still being awake she said to him if you want to come nearer we can keep warm against this ground frost or so it seems and he said sure why not and moved next to her and they hugged and one thing led to another and well shed not be telling her mother when she got home that aspect of her holiday and hoped to God her brother didnt see Benny come out of her tent in the morning and next morning when she showered in the base camp the ***** was there washing off her sins with the Aussie guy laughing  and acting like some latter day Joan Crawford and Dalya glared at her the way her skinny arms were wrapped about her rake thin body and love bites around her neck and tiny **** and Dalya thought God what a sight and that time on the ship from Oslo to Amsterdam and Dalya stood on the deck as the waves rose and fell and the ***** of good old USA was puking over the side and O that was good Dalya thought that was a scream and she looked green and looked as if she'd puke up her ring and Dalya smiled to  herself and later when they landed in Amsterdam Benny and Dalya sought out a cafe and sat and drank coffee and ate a couple of burgers and she said how would you rate the *** the other night in my tent? and Benny said how rate? and she said from one to ten one being utter crap to ten being ****** heaven and Benny thought as he drank his coffee and said well its as near to Heaven as Ill get is it better than having the Yank *****? she asked I dont what she humps like but Id say yes with you it was heaven and Ok she said dont let my brother know or hell tell my mother and then shell go off the deep end you know what mothers are like with their daughters and it was in Amsterdam that the good old American girl split saying she was meeting some French guy in Paris the **** ***** Dalya said she must have a ****** like a drinking hole in the Sahara and Benny said nothing but wondered why women worried about each other like that why they couldnt be more like guys who just think lucky guy wish I could be pimple on his **** while hes going it some then as the camping trip was coming to an end and they were on the last leg of the trip at the last and final base camp and she had her tent to herself she invited Benny in for a final fling but before that they went to the base camp bar and bought a good deal of the ***** and staggered back to the tent and she said you know what? and he said no and she said well lie down and Ill tell you and so Benny lay down on the tent floor next to her and she said I was ****** by my cousin once it was at a birthday party at my parents house and me and him- his name must be kept hush hush- had a little must of  my fathers punch drink and we went up to my bedroom-I slept alone- and I thought it would just be kissing but no one thing led to another and next thing I remember we were ******* away like two hounds on heat and the music was still being pumped from downstairs and singing and laughter and Benny said I wish Id been there I could have made it a ******* but Dalya said it was a bad enough him being there ******* away and she looked past him at the dull sky of their last day.

Sonya lay on the bed in the Parisian hotel room. It was a small room with an adjoining bathroom, a bidet and toilet, with French windows that opened out so one could see and hear the busy streets of Paris below. The windows were open and sounds came into the room with a summery warm air. She lay there in a blue skirt and  white blouse; her feet bare, her legs curled up in a fetal position; she wore nothing underneath, she seldom did; it gave her a sense of daring, of a hidden freedom. Benedict had gone out for cigarettes and a breath of fresh air as he called it. She had a book in her hands. Kierkegaard's Either /Or. Her favourite philosopher. He kept her mind fresh; gave her life a direction. She looked down at another book by her side: Benedict's Dostoevsky novel: Crime and Punishment. It had a page marker about half way through. She could have gone out with him, but she wanted time alone, time to reflect on her life at that moment. She lay her book beside her. She thought of her husband on business in New York and her two sons in boarding school and not due home until the present term ended. Her husband Erik knew she was going to Paris, but he thought she was going alone to research on her proposed book on Zola. Benedict was in Paris on vacation and having met Sonya in a wine bar near her home when Erik was away for the weekend and the sons at school, and after a deep conversation and feeling low, she and Benedict made love in her bed at home, and arranged the trip to Paris between them. Erik was a lousy lover who had become increasingly lousier, and they seldom had *** as he was always busy, and she not in the mood. But Benedict was different; he made *** exciting again, made the whole process something alive and daring, and not just a set out process of mild urges. She lay on her back with her legs out straight reaching for the end of the bed...Benedict bought cigarettes at a small shop in a side street and spoke in English as his French was almost non-existent. The woman who served him understood him well enough and they talked of London where she had stayed for six months few years before. He loved Paris. The whole city seemed alive and full of history and art and literature. No one knew him here; there was almost no chance of him meeting anyone he knew here or who knew Sonya. A sense of freedom invaded him. He and Sonya had had *** that morning and he needed to get out to buy cigarettes and breath in the Parisian air. She was an exciting lover; willing to explore different angles and approaches to ***. The night before had been one long episode of ****** games and experiences and moment of just laying there catching their breath and reading to each other from their own books, then *** again and again. And there was the factor that she wore no underclothes, so that when they went out to a restaurant, they both were aware of this factor, and he got a kind of kick knowing, and she got a thrill knowing that she was free, and walking out on a limb of acceptable behaviour and dress code...Sonya wished that Benedict would come back again soon. She wanted him, wanted to make the most of their time together, their days of freedom to be together, and eat and drink and have *** as often as they wished, and for as long as they wished, without fear her husband would be home at a certain time or that neighbours would see them together and tell Erik. She pulled up her skirt and lay there as if waiting the return of her lover, letting herself feel the freedom of laying so, of not having to worry about her husband walking in on her as he nearly did one late afternoon when she lay on their bed bringing herself to a poor organism...Benedict sat on a seat in a small cafe smoking and sipping from a coffee. He would return to the room after his coffee and smoke. Later they would go out for a meal, and see the city, and feel the history of the place about them. He knew it would come to an end in a few days, and she would be back with her husband and her boring life, and he back to his job, and in his own place sharing with others. Make the most of. Take to the limits. Explore and live and enjoy...Sonya wondered where Benedict was. She missed him being there if only for a short duration. Once their days together were over, and she back with Erik, it would seem like a dream, and her own regular life be one big bore. She ran her hands down her thighs. Sensed her fingers. Soft, smooth. Erik never explored her. He was a five minute and over and done with type. More like a mechanic than a lover. Benedict had taken her to places she had not been before, explored her and brought her to the point of bubbling over and out, leaving her feeling that she was empty and vacant, and yet so alive, and buzzing like a beehive...Benedict made his way back to the hotel room. The coffee had refreshed him; the Parisian air made him feel like a new man, a man of freedom, a man on the edge of a huge abyss, with his very life tingling with new excitement of the big dare. Sonya would be waiting for him, brimming like a *** on a  hot stove. He had released her of her hang ups and held in senses; had unbutton a new area of excitement, and sexuality and sensuality. And she in turn had opened up for him that arena of experience which he had only dreamed about in his tossing and turning nights at home... Sonya heard the door open. Benedict saw her laying there like Venus on a beach of blue and white and bare, a radio playing a Delius piece, filling the air, and he, Benedict, so alive, ready and waiting, and going there.