A goat, a box and a jelly-fish.

I want to tell you about the poem, but that means I have to tell you about the bar, the field, the goats, the red box, the jelly-fish and the church. And to get there I have to tell you first about the dream.

 

It didn’t make a lot of sense though it certainly took place in Hampstead. There was a king and getting to see him was a pain in the arse, you had to follow tiring and dusty protocol, submit to the whims of some jumped up fool in a suit and kowtow to privilege. I gave up, caught the intermediary staring up someone’s skirt, gave out and left. 

 

I walked up the hill to a view over distant hills and valleys, that don’t exist in Hampstead today. Maybe they did once. There was probably sea.

 

Then I woke.

 

I read for a little in the early morning sun rise, then dipped into the pond, dried, went inside and fed the cats.

 

Now I can tell you about the church.

 

The stage is in the field behind the church.

 

The field is full of people, games – wooden ones, home-made ones. One is built on the frame of an old bicycle and the breaks on the handlebars operate two racing cars, running on two aligned slots where the break cables run. Scaletrix, old school. The filed is also full of stalls selling food, there’s a roundabout too, and music.

 

On one side, in front of a clumsily built goat pen, a stage has been set, a lighting rig rigged and in the centre of the stage a red box. A cabinet in fact. Tall enough, wide enough to hold a man. Maybe two. Just.

 

How long has he been there?

 

I didn’t see him enter though I was there before that.

 

Anyway, when the show was done I walked down to the church. Jelly fish lanterns lighting a part of the way, past the old wash house and down to the post office, which tonight for a few nights only is a café. They serve breakfast early for those leaving the festival late. 

 

I left at midnight. 

 

Early.

 

There are steps at the side of the church and here is the bar.

 

Family is at the bar waiting. 

 

We agree the show was excellent, we order wine and beer. Raise our glass and there is the poem.

 

A small paper box in the very corner of the counter, half hidden by the poles that hold the awning overhead.

 

A hint of paper, peeking from a slit, reminiscent of a paper-handkerchief box in a suburban sitting room, or a table serviette dispenser in a Spanish restaurant.

 

A written invite to pull one out and tear it off, leaving the next for the next.

 

I pull. I tear.

 

Passer la serpillière, c’est pas 

pareil que

passer l’éponge

- Surtout autour d’u verre.

 

Olé

“I probably could have written this better,” she sighed. “But then again … I could probably have been a dancer, a president or even a neura-scientist.”

“What would you want to be a neuro-scientist? You can’t even spell the word.” Jack spotted the errant ‘a’ - even though it was only spoken.

“Someone has to do it, and it should have n ‘a’ in the feminine anyway.” Jenny looked around the bar. “Not many neuri-scientists in tonight it seems.”

Her observation on the clientele was accurate, even if her plural ‘I’ was suspect. Tom was leaning on the bar where he always leant, though to be honest it was unclear who was doing the leaning – the bar or Tom himself. And as always he was glaring at Agathe on the other side. And she was glaring back. Apart from this you-wouldn’t-have-guessed-it-married couple, there was only Glyn, the landlady. And two emaciated youths playing on the football table.

“Fancy taking on those two kids for a game or two?” Jenny asked.

“Will there be money involved?” Jack responded showing no commitment either way, an expert at sitting on the fence. Hedging his bets as it were - as he had neither cash for a stake nor the inclination to let an opportunity for turning a profit slip past. 

“Have you got any.”

Jenny did have money. A hundred pounds exactly, all crisp new notes. She had counted them in the bank, and again when she had gotten home. They were in her inside pocket held tight by a rubber band against the warmth of her breast. They felt like a gun about to go off. 

The bank notes that is, not her breasts. Though they too were not exactly neutral, she liked Jack and she had already had one rum and blackcurrant more than was wise.

“No, she said, “let’s dance instead.”

She got up and walked over to the juke-box in the corner, as steadily as the drink and her heels would allow. She could feel Jack’s eyes following her so she took a little longer than necessary, and showed a little more ass leaning over than was called for.

Jack tore his eyes away and picked up the book that was still lying on the table where Jenny had pushed it. 

pǝʌı˥ ssǝ˥ ǝɟı˥ ∀ The picture was interesting to, it looked like a …

“Hang on,” he said, before taking a final sip of his beer. “Jenny …” he raised his glass towards her.

“Drink to me only with your eyes … it’s been a hard day’s night … cigarettes and whisky and wild wild women … that might be fun.” She put some coins in the slot, acknowledged Jack’s empty bottle and walked over to the bar.

“Glyn, do I look wild to you?” 

Glyn looked her up and down, she had known Jenny since she had first come into the bar as an stroppy, under-aged teenager.

“Yo’ look like yo’ packin’ someting besides a bra, w’man. Dem never natural.”

Jenny blushed and mumbled something about a beer and a packet of cheese and onion. If anyone in this bar had the intelligence to be a neura-scientist, then it was Glyn.

 

“So, why did you call it A Life Less lived, seems a bit negative to me.” Jack drained his second beer. “God I’m thirsty.”

“Negative, why?”

“It sounds like a regret.” 

“Not at all,” Jenny was happy to have an audience, even if it was Jack … her best mate since … how long had it been? Years? Surely not? “You know the poem? The road less travelled?”

“Remind me.” Jack was not stupid, he was forgetful.

“Robert Whatsit.”

“Whatsit? That can’t be his name, surely.”

“And mine’s not Shirley!” Jenny laughed, it was one of her favourite jokes along with – stop rushing/I’m not Russian/ I’m English.

“Frost,” she added. “Or, Fromp or something. I’m pretty sure it begins with an F.”

“Oooh, a right fountain of knowledge Ms Neura scientist, aren’t you?” Jack could resist teasing his best … what? … friend? He wasn’t sure that they hadn’t already crossed a boundary between friendship and ….

  “Frost, definitely Frost,” Jenny was using her phone to check. “The road not Taken.” She started to recite. “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.” 

Jack watched her mouth as she was reciting. Her tongue darted about like a butterfly and her lips trembled a little with the vibration of the consonants. He wondered what it would feel like, to both of them, if he kissed them.

“There is some debate about the meaning, but I like the interpretation that the road less travelled is the unusual one.”

“Ok,” Jack struggled back from his fantasy. “So, a life a little unusual?”

“Yes,” Jenny nodded. When she nodded her hair danced. “But there’s also a pun. Life less. Lifeless. My main character is Death.”

Jack didn’t say anything. In truth he had nothing to say, he was distracted by the arabesques of her hair, the trembling of her lips and her eyes that now held him waiting for his response.

He lent forward and whispered so that only she could hear, and then only if she was listening for it.

“Can I kiss you?”