Rosie the Plum-er
I
III
IMPE RMAN ENCE ‘all of conditioned existence, without exception, is transient, or in a constant state of flux.’
IV
My toes are bunched up like the blanket I sit beneath, trapping the end edge of soft cotton between them. And release. And breathe.
Early afternoon light frolics across my page and I leave the eave window slightly ajar, like my mind, from which thoughts are bound to escape… I’m drawing what I see. I’m drawing what I don’t see.
I look so close at the ivory sketching paper. The texture fixates my imagination and the motion of the charcoal against it makes it impossible to stop. Rhythms are rubbed into the surface as they leave dusty traces of pigeon grey. Changing directions, changing paces.
Twiggy fingers tap at the window from outside and urge me on as my breath falls against the glassy sheet, turning into droplets at a moment’s contact.
My neck aches as I crane over my sketchpad like a praying mantis. This is my treasure that no one else sees.
I take a final sweep across the page and my arms extend to evaluate my hour’s work. Triumph flushes through me like a warm winter bath. I break the perforation of the page, take the piece from my sketchbook and see the book has dramatically thinned over the last fortnight. A mental image capture takes the image from the paper and places it into a desk drawer within my mind.
VI
VIII
The owner dislikes my presence even before I have set a toe inside and she appears to have the weight of the world on her shoulders. A comfortable layer of dust taints the delicately patterned rug inside and the mirror hanging on the wall opposite has a cloudy visage, framed by extravagant carving. Victorian adornment sits on every inch of wall and stands on every space of floor with unmatched wooden tables, fixed only to accommodate the vast jumbled array of trinkets. This room overflows with berry-toned Rococo treasures and the light from the chandelier seeks out every chalky crevice and untouched cranny. Two busts of milky white marble float above the stairs and greet me with a harsh stare, inviting my eyes to intriguing yet chilling heights… “We bought the house in 1956. For five thousand pounds, would you believe?” she says as she points towards the stairs with a heavy, quivering finger. “Its from the 18th century and held eleven bedrooms when we bought it.” Mrs Pinkerton and my grandmother had been a great friend of hers during their studies at Oxford, but the cruelty of time had dissolved their friendship and taken my grandmother herself from both our lives. My mind is yet to adjust to this scene of filthy eccentricity. She reads my stunned reaction as predictable, as the house has barely been touched since frequent guests were wowed over 40 years ago. “I do like a lot of rubbish” Mrs Pinkerton rasps, “but I’m just good at putting it together.” She tells me I would like a tour and I politely nod.
XI
The house is a labyrinth, with caricature staircases so uneven and rickety. Heavy musk of a former life drapes thick in the air of the different rooms. A base tone of loneliness and nostalgia. Landings and corridors feel claustrophobic with a towering array of mismatched frames. A landscape of green bottles takes a stairway window sill, sparkling beads hang from jewellery arms in a corner of a bathroom and an assortment of decorative plates and novelties hang to cover an entire wall in the kitchen. As we creep around the house, Mrs Pinkerton reveals her penny-wise tendencies as the ornate gold gilding of the drawing room is spectacularly pointed out to be Christmas wrapping paper, creating a lavish feature of fooled opulence. She appears most comfortable in her bizarrely embellished kitchen and has become accustomed to my modest company. Mrs Pinkerton’s eyes are now a warmed blue instead of piercing grey and she shares distant memories of growing children and times with my mother’s mother. We sit and talk in the heart of the house until I realise the broad grandfather clock may have stopped working a long time ago, if it ever worked at all.
The feeling of her cramped hand grasping my forearm as we shuffled towards the front door lingers as I walk back to Cutty Sark station away from the noble townhouse. This afternoon I have played Pip to a modern Miss Havisham and this woman loses herself in a magpie nest of spangled junk and battered auction finds. XIII
Most of us share an impulse to collect. However big or small, there’s a certain preference for insanity that can flourish in places like this.
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XLV
Power Plant Those clouds don’t seem so far away. The bundles of soft ivory hang stark and pure against a puff of grey. The train’s pace brings us closer to them but they remain unreachable. Ahead, the blanket of vapour appears unconnected from anything in the atmosphere and it stretches long across the late afternoon air, lingering with minimal effort.
XLVIII
Behind a curtain of bare winter trees, five fat cylinders emerge and the sunlight peers around each side of curved concrete, accentuating their busty figures and slim waists. They stand tall and solid amongst fields of lush Crayola Green. My eyes follow their lines of manmade uniformity as streams of white smoke billow from the top of the towers like volcanic releases of magma from a fissure.
The clouds that tickled me before are now uglier. The burning station slices the countryscape like a warm knife through butter. Strong and relentless, always working and always churning unwanted vapours into the atmosphere. A pang of guilt takes my stomach. A great shame. I seek the deepest part of the sky and find a pool of sapphire at its highest point. From here to the end of the world, azure meets amber and leaves a gradient of every pastel blue in between. I wonder how many more generations will pass countrysides like this one? I wonder how many hundreds of years it will take for scenes of manufacture and combustion to overthrow the loveliness of the verdant plains?
The sky is now streaked with purple serenity. Two aeroplanes cross paths without even a murmur and leave behind lines of shimmering yellow – threads that dance against the sunlight like blonde hair on a calm summer morning. Sun-bronzed skeletons of trees are mirrored in the glassy waters beneath their feet and the reclining day leaves the atmosphere smudged with smoky hues.
Statuesque stems dot the landscape. They stand on their distant hills with confidence and poise, each arm extended to wave a goodbye to the sun for today. Constant and effortless, the towering blades brush through the air, sweeping the dusk and rolling it into an invisible whirlwind. I admire their elegance. With each turn, the wind turbines glide with assurance and purpose.
I hope they will stand for a millennium. Our guardians: effortlessly sailing in circles, they trace halos in the air and generate addictive energy like a candyfloss machine. The burning station I had seen an hour ago becomes a flicker of the past. These are the champions of the future.