The cat lies on the table. She is keeping her own council, a philosophical feline. It is mid afternoon, an hour before the possibility of tea and cake. Already the room is retreating from the lamp's light into a dusky gloom. Outside the winter garden lies still, damp and cold and still.
Rain comes. A winter rain, almost snow, spreads itself across the window. Ice-full it is a drum with tiny particles rolling across a taut skin of glass. The cat stirs, turns on his side exposing a tummy of white fur. An old cat this, a silent presence now, hardly a purr on a waiting lap.
Books. Piles of books. A book open to reveal pencilled annotations. Several arrangements of papers paper-clipped together, colourfully highlighted. There's a scholarly journal 'borrowed' with a concert programme marking a ‘required’ read. Telemann and Bach infiltrate an investigation of Jewishness in George Eliot's Daniel Deronda.
A framed photograph stands companionably amongst today's letters and the coloured cards of Christmas to come. There's a red-haired girl, a portrait against old roses., a child in a school-blue dress, freckled with green eyes she is smiling carefully, as though not convinced taking this photo is a good thing.
As darkness encroaches, the stories in this space circle the lamp like moths. They rise from the table, detach themselves from the walls (like bats) and float in their own form. Catching leaves, wish-making in a September wood; the fierce tide pouring across the Lindisfarne causeway; small children picnicking by a cricket field. The recent thrill of Jerusalem. Taverner's Mass –
Oh Western Wind,
when will thou blow,
the small rain down can rain?
Christ! If my love were in my arms,
and I in my bed again!
Here in this small suburban room there comes together a past; a life reverberates in a temporary peace, a truce in the long campaign of family, ageing, ****** discomfort, obligation, regret (always regret), passion unspent, books unread, poems still to write. And this waiting for a clear answer yet to come, a promise yet to be fulfilled? All is contained here as the alarm clock's digits move towards 16.30 and it is time for tea and cake. Time to rise from the table and feed the cat.
