by Clay, Josie
“Sure” she said. 'I'll put the kettle on”.
Channelling Eddy Merckx, I pedalled along the Caledonian Road like the pony express, my lanyard knocking wildly against the bell on the handlebars. I steered down to the Regents Canal towpath. The Kings Cross area had changed; shiny, corporate edifices had sprung up along the basin and the derelict wharf buildings had been converted to lofts and gallery spaces.
I found the Old Jam Factory and wheeled my bike to iron gates, on which 'Cooper's Yard' was wrought in deco style capitals. The intercom warbled as I depressed the 'Dale Knudsson, Stone Carver' button, emitting a feedback whine.
“Lo? ...Hello?” twitched a tinny voice.
“Hi, It's Minette” I barked into the perforations. More feedback squealed and then “Min”.
I paused “Yes, Minette”.
“Come in” she said, with more clarity and I realised I'd just got the last syllable of an already uttered sentence. The gate clicked and I pushed it open, letting it clang behind me. The yard stacked with slabs propped against the perimeter wall, like a production line graveyard. An industrial sack trolley with something heavy strapped in bubble wrap and an archaic tripod pulley with a giant pump arm and beneath it, a silvery lump of stone, sofa sized. A gust of wind peppered grit in my eyes, snapping at the strapping on the bubble wrap. Ahead, one of a pair of red wooden doors juddered, someone inside tugging it open with difficulty. “Fuck, fuck, foffan” they cursed. The door scraped ajar and a woman shimmied round it, striding towards me, hand extended.
“Hi Minette, sorry about that. I must get that fixed”.
An atomic reaction, like God had located me. Shock, as some mislaid or jettisoned part of me jumped back in, summoned home after years in the wilderness. Fuck me, her eyes, living daylights.
“You must be Dale, nice to meet you”. Her hand, warm and strong, don't let go. I conducted a lightning, greedy audit. Tall like me, dark, chaotic corkscrews, mixed race, Moorish. Her tanned complexion at odds with the freckle crumbs sprinkled across her nose, which was flattish with prideful, fluted nostrils. A mouth full and candid, lips unpainted but pink and plump anyway, as if she'd eaten berries. A slaying smile. Starstruck, fighting a compulsion to drop to my knees, a slave before Pharaoh. Did such entities still walk among us? I consulted the watery sun before preparing myself to revisit those eyes, like sea-ice in a charred ring.
Smiling idiotically, I looked to her boots, Blundstones. Her scent on the breeze, no perfume to her other than soap and hard work.
“Hey nice boots” she said, kicking my toe.
Perhaps I'd been audited too.
“This place is amazing” I said.
“Isn't it, would you like tea?”
I followed as she gave the problematic door a nudge with her shoulder.
“Chris, we need to get that fixed” she said to a bearded man perched on a stool, tapping at a tablet with a chisel and rounded wooden mallet. “Minette, this is Chris”.
“Hi” we nodded.
Enormous crittal windows allowing the bleak winter light to wash the room and affording a poetic view of the canal.
“Do you want tea, Chris?” she said, flicking on a dusty kettle and turning to the butler sink to rinse out mugs. An opportunity to assess her from behind. Her body, lithe and rangy like Lombardic letters, muscle evident through faded grey jeans. Clapping her large hands on her hind quarters to dry them, particles of mica billowed from her pockets, twinkling in a sunbeam. Reluctantly, I dragged my gaze to the moorings as she was turning. A ribbon of wood smoke unwound from the chimney of a dark blue barge named 'Celeste'. Leaving Chris's tea on the draining board, she gripped our two mugs in a fist, prompting the ropes on her forearms to bunch.
“Will you come outside with me?” she said, “I need a fag”.
I nodded. “Excellent”.
We sat cross legged on the sofa stone, rolling one. Those astonishing eyes met mine as we ran our tongues simultaneously over the Rizla and I managed to nip a blush in the bud.
“How long do you think it'll take?” I said, frowning professionally.
“Well, once I've got the stone ...that generally takes about a week, I could do it in two, something like that?”
I grunted approval. “And have you got a price for me?”
“Twelve hundred”.
Looking down to the left, knitting my eyebrows.
“Is that OK?” she added a little apprehensively.
Picturing the physical effort and skill required, the discipline, the perseverance, the sure hand.
“No” I said thoughtfully.
Her expression, crestfallen, almost moving me to tears. I was sorry I'd chosen to play this silly game.
“I've budgeted two thousand pounds” I said. “I think that's fair”.
A smile like the sun coming out. Obligingly, the sun sailed from behind a cloud and the breeze yanked her curls.
“Thank you” she said, regarding me curiously.
Grappling the slabs between us in a way that only those used to physical work can. Beyond most women in my experience, for one reason or another. Her dusty fingers caressed the edges of a creamy sandstone on which we agreed.
“I'll order it this afternoon”.
“OK, brilliant”, batting my elbows and shouldering my bag. “I better get going”.
We stood smiling at each other inexplicably, for some seconds. I bet her hair had that woolly, washing smell. I suppressed an urge to sniff it and to embrace her.
'Out of your league'. The dark voice interrupting my reverie.
I took up my bike as she leant in the door frame, arms folded, displaying formidable definition, heeling the ground like a restless racehorse.
“You take care on that” she shouted, lifting her chin in emphasis. I patted my pockets as if I'd forgotten my keys.
“I will” I said and hauled off, the feeling I'd lost something escalating as I steered off the towpath and joined the Cally. The idea nagged. What was gone? I looked inside myself to trace the missing item… Suddenly arcing through air.
'Hello Nette, are you flying?' arms confused windmills, my left one fending off the rising pavement before the smash point, bearing the brunt, the white brake of impact. I rolled, crashing to a halt in a jenga of crates, watching green apples tumble and bounce past my nose to the gutter. 'Nancy!'
The blur of a beard above me, morphing into the features of Emmanuel Goldstein. I flinched as an imaginary jackboot crunched down on my head.
“It's OK, you're OK”, his mouth worked . I couldn't hear him as his hands gripped the sides of my head covering my ears. I struggled to raise myself, “No, stay still”, but I sat up anyway, head spinning in a panorama of Nikes and Adidas. An African man, retrieving my bike, set it against the vegetables.
“Sorry” I said and found my feet, unsteadily.
“You should lay down” said Emmanuel Goldstein, “you might be broken inside”, tapping his skull.
“Yes, broken inside” I smiled, limping to my bike, snatching the handlebars with my right arm. The left didn't seem to work and some of the fingers looked wrong.
“I saw it all love” said a jolly old lady “He just came up behind you and woomph! Didn’t even stop ...the fucker”.
“I got his picture on my ‘phone, it was a bad ass Audi” offered a mouth breathing youth, stepping about, ‘phone in one hand and the other down his tracky bottoms, plucking at his genitals.
Eddy Merckx's warped wheels rotated weirdly as I guided him into the Bemerton and hauled him up the steps to Tove's walkway. She wasn't in so I slumped down in front of her door and tried to turn down the volume on the abysmal karaoke crooning in my arm.
The pain regressed me; I wanted my mum. I was nearly four years old and she was having a 'night night boo-hoo' even though it was only breakfast time. I saw her feet in Doctor Scholls, laying on the sofa that when you lifted the seat, revealed my few toys. It was a shame because I had planned to play with my toy telephone. The milkman clink
ed the doorstep and I had a brilliant idea. It would be helpful if I fetched the milk – one less thing for her to get upset about. They were bigger and colder than I'd anticipated and when I'd made it as far as the kitchen, the icy bottle, almost half as long as me, fell. As I stood amid the creamy fluid and broken glass, the dawning fear that rather than aiding, I'd made matters much worse, prompted me to wet myself.
As she barrelled towards me I must have blacked out because when I opened my eyes, my daddy was there and he'd tied his handkerchief around my neck to form a sling. By the time we went to the caravan in Seaford I'd got used to the pain in my arm and folded it against my body like a broken wing while I swam in the freezing sea or climbed up to my bunk. When we got back, Mrs Singleton said 'that child's arm's not right', so my daddy took me to hospital where they said my bones had knitted all wrong and they had to break them again on purpose. They put a black cup over my mouth and nose and told me to count backwards from ten. I could do that because Aunty Janet had taught me numbers. “Ten, nine” I began. “It tastes like toothpaste” I informed the anaesthetist and his eyes twinkled over his mask.
My mum ripped my favourite dress when she jammed it over my cast. “You wicked little bitch” she said, “you only do these things to spite me, don't you?”
A rustling. I lifted my head as a Costcutters carrier bag swam into focus and the unmistakable sight of Tove's Crocked feet. For the second time she ran me to the Homerton, where I was diagnosed with two broken fingers and fractures of the humerus and ulna (in the same place as when I was nearly four). They encased my arm in a huge cast that started at my armpit and ended almost at the tips of my fingers, which poked out like toes. My thumb stuck out as if I were a compulsive hitch hiker, or The Fonz.
Tove took me back to hers to keep an eye on me. Nesting in bed watching 'Bladerunner', it wasn't long before I slept and dreamed of flying and landing with a jolt, over and over again.
Sick leave was a wonderful concept which I embraced, but still fielded emails on my council Blackberry.
[email protected]
‘Dear Minette,
‘Thank you for a lovely afternoon in Highbury Fields. Flora enjoyed it so much (I'm still finding sand everywhere) and many thanks for forwarding the photo of her 'piece' – very Jackson Pollock.
‘The main reason for contacting you is to tell you about our exciting new organisation – Potarto. (please see attachment). We are desperate for experienced women with a broad skill set, such as yourself, to get involved. Our prime aim is to nurture young female talent, to foster socially responsive art that is deep and broad, which explores the experience of young women in an urban setting both locally and globally.
‘We will be running workshops, curating touring exhibitions and purchasing/commissioning for our own gallery space and archival collection. We receive core funding and are affiliated to numerous stakeholders and corporate sponsors.
‘Please do drop by if you are interested – I sincerely hope you are.
‘With best wishes,
‘Rosamund
‘Potarto, Units 1-20, The Old Jam Factory, Wareham Street, Kings Cross’
Dale's eyes floated before me and it felt sort of personal. But it was Nancy's face that I summoned as I lay in bed that night, the cast adding authenticity to my hospital fantasy, but she kept fading out on me. I could see her face, but was unable to imbue it with any emotion: it occurred to me I'd never seen her cry. My mind fell on more comforting images of jam, stone and potartos.
Chapter 2
The leather sofa let out a grubby farting noise as I lowered myself into it. The receptionist, who had already eyed my cast with disdain, was now thinking I was the sort who would blow off in public.
My week had been fraught with unforeseen problems, all cast-related. The first hurdle had been preparing food – as anyone who has tried to open a tin with one hand will tell you ...you can't. Tove, M8 and Frances had all visited to sustain me, ostentatiously cutting up my dinner into bite sized chunks.
“I can hold a fork you know” as Frances made enthusiastic chuff-chuff noises, steering a pronged gnocchi towards my mouth. Mostly I maliciously stabbed Covent Garden Soup cartons. Then there was the business of getting dressed. Since I'd been in my pyjamas all week, it hadn't been an issue until this morning. The lower ensemble had gone without hitch, but the Katherine Hamnett shirt I wore to important appointments wouldn't fit over the cast. So I opted for the Suffragette City t-shirt and half wore the suit jacket like a matador.
The clack of Rosamund's approaching heels on the polished concrete floor forced another fart from the furniture as I got to my feet.
“Oh dear” she said, “someone's been in the wars”.
The Potarto complex was impressive and had a new, expectant quality. There were six, fully kitted classrooms, three expansive, white gallery rooms, two of which overlooked the canal. I could see the blue barge, Celeste, her wood burner disseminating my second favourite smell. There was a small, open plan office and a social room with cafe facilities. All the internal ducting and pipework were visible and where the walls weren't rendered crisp and white, there were exposed engineering bricks, hinting at the building's former industrial purpose. The overhead north light rigging attached to steel girders that braced the building ...I could see myself living here if I were rich.
Rosamund put me down for eight Saturday sessions - ‘Exploring ourselves through Art: a journey into the body positive’ for 16-18 year olds.
“Oh and I'm CRB checked” I said as she ticked off the last of her boxes.
“I'm so glad you're on board, Minette” she said, pumping my good arm.
“Hi, it's Minette”. I'd pressed Dale's button but, disappointingly, Chris had answered. The red door was open and he was on his stool, tapping away.
“I expect you've come to see your piece” he said in a northern drawl.
“Not really, I just like it here”.
“What happened to your arm?” he said, without looking up.
“I broke it”.
Dale's fag kit on the bench; she couldn't have gone far.
He smiled and nodded. “She's on a delivery”, as if reading my mind. “I'll give you her mobile number if you like”. He raked through a tray of pens and selected a red marker. “Hold still” he said, finding a space on the grafittied cast and diplomatically ignoring my friends' crude scrawls.
He drew a smiley as an afterthought. “Wait if you like lass, she won't be long”.
“Thanks, but I'd better get going”. A shyness creeping up. He met my eyes for the first time I suddenly thought of Quincy and wondered how he was doing.
“I'll tell her you dropped by”.
“Thanks” I said, “Bye Chris”.
“Ta-ra lass”.
Reclining on my sofa, nursing a whisky and watching 'The Karen Carpenter Story'…heaven. The big red numbers on my cast drawing my eye. They seemed to pulse in time with the pain, in an almost sexy way ...more whisky was needed. I read my friends' messages for the umpteenth time.
Tove had written 'At least it's not your shagging arm, Küsse x'.
Frances had written 'You must get back in the saddle as soon as poss, knit quick! Frances Harriet Hooley x'.
M8 had written 'Hello Madhur Jaffrey! I guess that means you're out of the hokey-cokey finals, love Mr Magoo x', adding a tiny, spitting cock and balls for good measure, which never failed to make me laugh.
The Council Blackberry trilled its 'Smooth Latin' ringtone. My eyes flitted between the cast and the number displayed, cartoon style. It was Dale ...I wasn't ready. The chuckle chime of a left message. I pressed 1 to retrieve it.
'Hi Minette, it's Dale'. Her voice, husky with a breath of fluster. 'Listen, I hear you've broken your arm. I hope you're OK. Erm …I've got something for you if you want it. It's just a practice piece, I thought you might like it. Anyway, take care and I hope to hear from you soon, all the best, bye, look after yourself, bye, oh, it's Dale, did I say th
at already? Yes I did, OK bye.'
Necking my whisky, I focused on nothingness until my heart virtually flat-lined like poor Karen Carpenter's. I depressed the call back button. “Hello?” immediately.
“Hi Dale, it's Minette”.
“Oh hi, what the fuck happened to your arm?”
“Well, it's weird, after you warned me to take care on my bike, remember? I was only knocked off on Cally Road”.
“Shit, are you OK?”
“Yeah, just the double fracture, no big deal. I'm fine. You said you've got something for me, a practice piece?”,
“Yes, if you want it”.