Wishbone Soup Cures Everything

Warm wind strolls down the wide city street, carelessly spilling scent: damp water fountain, frying onions, spice, some eye stinging thing that might be called perfume, a simmer of old bin, traffic fumes, baking bread, coffee steam, syrup. Beyond the dust and smell of streets a series of double doors admit the public to the steel and glass sky high wonder with the smooth floors, where shops line up indoors, where the street odours must sneak at the edge of the coolly conditioned air. A grey clad force with bright armbands and earpieces keep a presence. Nobody runs up the down escalator: but this is a calm time of day. Maybe in the afternoon when caution and tempers are thinner there will be drama. Past the bag selection in Primark two friends are walking, leaning confidentially close. 'I can't stop thinking about him.' ' Aww .' 'His girlfriend -' That's all that was overheard: one snippet of a story that seems plain enough. Yep, drama

There is weather today, I do note it: take a few moments to reckon the size of a cloud (big) and the frequency of rain (sporadic.) Centre of my interest though is a stack of magazines. Not the fashion kind. This is martial arts research. I'm not even sure what it is I'm looking for, but intuition calls loud. A range of old adverts skew some amusement. Contact pants, for example. Pants are not trousers where I come from. They are underwear. Professional contact pants: improved smirk value. But why would a person be likely to purchase a grappling hook and a lock pick set? For specialists and hobbyists only, the blurb assures. Guidance on the pheromone spray that attracts women against their better judgement? I doubt it works any more proficiently than the mysterious potion that defines your muscles while you sleep. But, then: I wonder is some sprayed on this paper? What was my intuition thinking, making this ghastly shout… Tea break time. There's a lot of words

The rain comes from that fabulous sky, from those broad beamed cloud-stacks; raindrops like pouts, cover the sighing earth in wet prints. Bordering on stormy, we note, and retrieve the garden chairs from a short wind powered journey. The waves may be lively… why, it's been a whole day since last we were on a beach. A plan is not quite made, it only unfolds. Espresso pot babbles: we can't find the lid for the pink flask. The silver thermos will do. Who needs a table when there's a flat rock waiting?

Sleep itself seemed a hot blanket, to be shrugged aside: a sluggish gesture, not quite successful. Half awake and able to hear a glass of water calling, a cool clear note of antithesis. Irresistible is forgotten, though: the stairwell window, undressed, shows the world as though swallowed, lost in the belly of a ghost. -Oh yes, a glass of water. For a few hours, the heat spell is broken. Settle under a better sleep .

Grandad sleeps on the sofa. It's a nest in a mess of happy neglect. Little Granddaughter has succumbed on the sun lounger, under a rag-rug blanket, in wet clothes, holding a favoured toy. Dog drinks the paddling pool water, returns to loll in shade, leaves Granma to keep watch. Other than the heat, all foes are feasibly sleeping also, but Granma has a large coffee, just in case: it makes her invincible. Granma is coconut scented and may look paint spattered: a side effect of Little Granddaughter's thorough approach to sun screen.

The lane hedges are smartly cut: they have a sour-fresh smell. On our walk, the reprieve of cool wind is brief. Heat sticks. Cloud builds. Stand a while by the cut-open house because such a place reeks of fascination. See the rose print curtains; drawn open for a morning that lingers in their poignant witness; and the bared stairs where feet changed direction when they did remember what they were going to do after all. Why is memory so easily lost and found in a stairwell? Footings for more space are dug: those old memories will tumble down, be mixed in. Even when the specifics are gone, the vestiges of history hold; lightly haunt. The field is a wider space, where we can open our arms to catch spouts of wind. The crumbled barn has no doors but its spaces are like eyes: you can look through them, view the world as the barn views it. This evening rain comes. Tepid drops on warm tarmac; they make a low mist, they sparkle in headlights. Imagine tho

Sleep was so deep that dreams could not be fished. A sense of dreaming lingers though. A bowl of breakfast poured. A door opened. No sign of a storm in the night. The ground is dry, things are where we left them. The sky is puff and pearl on blue: that background cornflower colour so popular on postcards. Flock wallpaper of the gods. Lazy smile. I'm outside. It's my wallpaper too. Clouds last all day, into the decorous drama of night.