Philistine Hermes

Photos: Clement Pascal Set Design: David de Quevedo Words: Ella Ackroyd

“Pegase” cotton blanket

by HERMES Home Collection

94

You open the curtains to let the light in, its too early, but a Summer in New York means noise, a noise impossible to sleep through. A line of golden light cracks through our tiny New York apartment window, bouncing off the white wall of the opposite apartment block.

Its been bouncing in diagonals off walls, maybe three or four times before it reaches our ground floor apartment. A weakened ray, eventually here, spreading as far as it can, shaky and sluggish it hits my body.

Slow waking, rolling to one side, hot sweat revealed, dampening our unclean sheets.

poor sufferers entering in our place. 30 steps which you skip, making it 15 until we are out. W 4 and Washington Square park here we come. Passing the people playing chess, who have done it forever and never stop. Don’t stop. We rush past, our hands sweaty in your tight grasp. The brown leather bag heavy in my other hand.

This is the third time I have visited New Weighing me down as you bop through York in the summer and I would like it to the crowd. Noticing, you stop, kiss me be the last. Can I just go home now, move gently and swap the bag into your own on, forget it all: changed and marked. hand.

But New York is one of those cities that I remember where we are going, what creep up into you, even after you have left, happened yesterday, the fact that we are the pain is suddenly forgotten and you are getting out and a small smile breaks across back, undeterred by missed flights, fights my face. on the Bowery and a city that never sleeps.

Our exodus began yesterday, without Its a place that requires you to achieve a knowing it, sitting at a small cafe near our house in the Hampton’s for the summer, rented apartment. The white tiles are cool we all dream, instead satisfied with the beneath me, I slip my foot slightly to the burst of a fire hydrant to cool our sticky right, releasing it briefly from my sandal, bodies. A summer day in New York a few moments of relief on the cold tiled requires you to ‘Do The Right Thing’ as floor. I push my toe into the black ground, insisted by Spike Lee. Or more likely shout a forgotten gap in the tiling, squashing it “No Unnecessary Noise!” as my father down as my heel raises. Focused on what once did on the platform at Union Square, I am reading, I don’t notice you return. one too-long summer, as the metal wheels You sit down with your spoils, porcelain of the subway train, crashed passed on clicking lightly down onto marble table their metal tracks, madly rattling over a tops. Two white saucers, two white cups, screeching tannoy. two silver spoons, two glasses and one Rolls of film bleach and glare in the heat. porcelain bowl with lid. All to aid with the Everything is exposed. Your hot skin progress of our afternoon. rubs against me, becoming prickly and agitated, as we ride the subway, swaying in unison with the rest of the city trundling underground the pacing feet above.

We emerge through the station, gasping for air as the platform fills with the heat of an imagined hair dryer. You grab my hand, desperate to escape and take me with you.

Clicking out through the revolving doors,

The next day we wait on a tree-lined street in Greenwich village, the setting of the New York we know in stories and films but is now the home to million dollar brownstones. The cast of Friend’s could never of paid their rent on time. Its no longer in the words of Allen Ginsberg: “poverty and tatters and hollow-eyed and high sat up smoking in the supernatural darkness of cold-water flats floating across the tops of cities contemplating jazz” There is no contemplating jazz if your apartment costs $3000 a month. Our blue Chevrolet, a significantly brighter blue shade than the sky, which turns a hazy cream in Summer, groans past. An old car, or should we call it classic, carrying the weight of 103 years. It pulls up just ahead of us with a heavy stop, straight from when Detroit belonged to Henry Ford and the ‘Chevvy’ became the best-selling car in 1929. Before the crash and the walls of Detroit began to crumble, a society now (un)structured on decay, restructuring through politicisation and cheap rents.

We jump in, engine revs and we begin to pull away, leaving you just enough time to lean out and pull in my brown leather bag, which you almost leave resting on some unknown silver structure on the streets of The final click catches my attention, the New York. porcelain bowl with lid. The colour of By the time we arrive at our destination precious stones dripping down its edges. I we were sticky and grotty, that travelling look up at you, you stare back, it reminds dirt that dampens between your thighs us both of the same memory. “Boundless and marks lines across your neck. We are fantasy and exploration” you laugh at me. finally out of the city, ready for another You have some-one with you that I do not adventure, but I am sure we will be back, know, but you tell me he has something sooner than we expect. to say to us.

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“Oxer Bag” in brown barenia leather

by HERMES

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“Voyage en Ikat” sugar bowl

by HERMES Home Collection

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“Jumping boots” in black box calfskin

by HERMES

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“Eperon d’Or” Set of three wide printed enamel bracelets

by HERMES

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“Plume 12H”, Men’s soft briefcase in green leather

by HERMES

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