When I think of London I think of The Fish.
At first I was thrilled to be there. Marc Bolan was born just around the corner from where I lived. A century before that, before the area was even a part of London, Edgar Allan Poe attended school nearby. And there on Defoe street, where a small funeral house stood on the corner behind green, shabby corner shops, lived and wrote the man of the same name. Today, not only the street but the library bears his name, and I always thought I could feel his presence there. I wondered what the street name was before he gave it his.
On one of these walks, long after I’d reached the UK, I bumped into Chris. He had been my boss a few years back. In that chance encounter on the high street, I sensed that some moment of revelation was at hand, its clarity just out of reach, and that this occasion would somehow change everything, would rescue me from the banality of endless North London days.
Chris took me to a deli that had just opened, where we enjoyed an overabundance of tea samples from the owner. Eventually I asked about our friend Niall, who had worked with us until spitting his resignation on Chris’ desk. From the look on Chris’ face I knew the story would not have a happy ending.
‘He’s in hospital. Schizophrenia. He lived just there you know,’ gesturing towards the building opposite. ‘Y’know a few days after he quit, he dumped all his belongings on the road out there. Pissed off every commuter passing. That’s when they took him in.’
I was sad to hear about Niall. He had told me, back when we were working the tills, how every number, every sequence, held patterns of information, and that he could look at a person and perceive their pattern, their net worth, their measurements, their entire body of data. It sounded occult at the time, but sat in that Deli with Chris I wondered if there wasn’t at least some truth to it.
Chris invited me to his flat on the Evening Road for a drink. We both wore black despite the summer heat, and we placed our dark shoes side by side when we entered the flat. But I realized I had put on odd socks this morning, and that one glimpse of blue demolished the effect of my outfit. Three black feet and one blue padded about the flat as Chris gave me the tour. I finally took a seat by the window in the living room.
From this threshold between my world, of roads and streets and alleys, and his, of shabby domesticity, we talked all the world over. Chris would glance at me from time to time. He avoided my eyes. I began to feel more and more uncomfortable. We spoke of culture and art, differences between Europe and America nowadays. My interest waned when I was distracted by the faint swell of music coming from the connecting room.
‘What is that?’ I asked turning my head towards the sound, abandoning any illusion of interest in his tales.
‘Don’t you know the album?’
‘I don’t even know the song,’ I replied.
‘It’s ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ by Yes. I first heard it play over the end of a film. It’s wonderful. We can watch it if you’d like?’
Despite the prospect of another two hours in that room, I could think of no valid excuse, and so whilst he hunted around for the DVD, I waited. I felt better in my window seat, as if my proximity to the outside world would allow me an escape route even two flights up. From my vantage point, I surveyed the scene, the turntable sat squat on the floor, the five guitars slouched against the wall, waiting in vain for their chance to enter the conversation.
He called me to the next room, away from my nest, and with the greatest reluctance I shuffled towards his voice. He beckoned towards what passed for his bed, a deconstructed sofa really, and the only seat offering a view of the screen. I sat, gazing up at the map of the world hanging above, mere ornamentation for him, a roadmap of endless possibility for me. As Chris settled beside me, and the disc spooled up, this potential seemed to reach down from the ceiling, beaming itself through the screen and revealing itself to me in all its glory.
I was in love from the first scene. The pale, pursed lips, the face that stared out at me, with its bearing of boundless intellect.
‘He directed this as well you know,’ a voice spoke somewhere in the room. So, these images had emerged, like Aphrodite, from that mind, conceived and birthed to he alone, a head split asunder from which poured the great beauty.
I sat, entranced, as the credits rolled: actor, director, writer, producer. One person in ten departments. It took me several moments to realize Chris was talking to me, and a punch on the arm to snap out of my fugue. ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘what did you think?’
Words failed to form. I couldn’t find a way to translate the images rushing across my mind into anything resembling language. Every syllable, every adjective that flitted across my mind shrank back in the face of the ideal that I had imbued that face with. In the face of this turmoil, I spoke the only thing I could muster.
‘Your ashtray’s covered in nude girls.’
He laughed. ‘A gift from my mother. Want to smoke?’
‘No. Thanks. But go ahead. Your mother?’
‘Yeah. Last time she was in Venice. She didn’t see the women when she bought it. She’s pretty old. When I brought it up she was mortified. An interesting gift from mother to son though.’
I heard what he was saying without registering. I was on autopilot. His voice was little more than a distorted drone, quintessence of banality. I yearned for another. As soon as I sensed a pause, a brief, merciful halt to the whine, I told him I wanted to leave.
It transpired that as well as his work in film, he offered a service on the side. For a small fortune, a woman could arrange for his company, and his body, for a night. The cost was more than I’d ever owned or was likely to, short of winning the lottery. I wondered what would happen to society if all desirable men decided to make an economy of their attractiveness. A lot more women turning to each other perhaps, the population dwindling away along with man’s relevance, diminishing utterly long before the sun burns its last.
Despite the gulf between the contents of my purse and the sum before me on his website, I decided to send in some images of myself.
The next time I checked, there was a single message waiting for me.
He had a name of course. But in my mind, he was The Fish.
When I think of London I think of The Fish.
At first I was thrilled to be there. Marc Bolan was born just around the corner from where I lived. A century before that, before the area was even a part of London, Edgar Allan Poe attended school nearby. And there on Defoe street, where a small funeral house stood on the corner behind green, shabby corner shops, lived and wrote the man of the same name. Today, not only the street but the library bears his name, and I always thought I could feel his presence there. I wondered what the street name was before he gave it his.
On one of these walks, long after I’d reached the UK, I bumped into Chris. He had been my boss a few years back. In that chance encounter on the high street, I sensed that some moment of revelation was at hand, its clarity just out of reach, and that this occasion would somehow change everything, would rescue me from the banality of endless North London days.
Chris took me to a deli that had just opened, where we enjoyed an overabundance of tea samples from the owner. Eventually I asked about our friend Niall, who had worked with us until spitting his resignation on Chris’ desk. From the look on Chris’ face I knew the story would not have a happy ending.
‘He’s in hospital. Schizophrenia. He lived just there you know,’ gesturing towards the building opposite. ‘Y’know a few days after he quit, he dumped all his belongings on the road out there. Pissed off every commuter passing. That’s when they took him in.’
I was sad to hear about Niall. He had told me, back when we were working the tills, how every number, every sequence, held patterns of information, and that he could look at a person and perceive their pattern, their net worth, their measurements, their entire body of data. It sounded occult at the time, but sat in that Deli with Chris I wondered if there wasn’t at least some truth to it.
Chris invited me to his flat on the Evening Road for a drink. We both wore black despite the summer heat, and we placed our dark shoes side by side when we entered the flat. But I realized I had put on odd socks this morning, and that one glimpse of blue demolished the effect of my outfit. Three black feet and one blue padded about the flat as Chris gave me the tour. I finally took a seat by the window in the living room.
From this threshold between my world, of roads and streets and alleys, and his, of shabby domesticity, we talked all the world over. Chris would glance at me from time to time. He avoided my eyes. I began to feel more and more uncomfortable. We spoke of culture and art, differences between Europe and America nowadays. My interest waned when I was distracted by the faint swell of music coming from the connecting room.
‘What is that?’ I asked turning my head towards the sound, abandoning any illusion of interest in his tales.
‘Don’t you know the album?’
‘I don’t even know the song,’ I replied.
‘It’s ‘Heart of the Sunrise’ by Yes. I first heard it play over the end of a film. It’s wonderful. We can watch it if you’d like?’
Despite the prospect of another two hours in that room, I could think of no valid excuse, and so whilst he hunted around for the DVD, I waited. I felt better in my window seat, as if my proximity to the outside world would allow me an escape route even two flights up. From my vantage point, I surveyed the scene, the turntable sat squat on the floor, the five guitars slouched against the wall, waiting in vain for their chance to enter the conversation.
He called me to the next room, away from my nest, and with the greatest reluctance I shuffled towards his voice. He beckoned towards what passed for his bed, a deconstructed sofa really, and the only seat offering a view of the screen. I sat, gazing up at the map of the world hanging above, mere ornamentation for him, a roadmap of endless possibility for me. As Chris settled beside me, and the disc spooled up, this potential seemed to reach down from the ceiling, beaming itself through the screen and revealing itself to me in all its glory.
I was in love from the first scene. The pale, pursed lips, the face that stared out at me, with its bearing of boundless intellect.
‘He directed this as well you know,’ a voice spoke somewhere in the room. So, these images had emerged, like Aphrodite, from that mind, conceived and birthed to he alone, a head split asunder from which poured the great beauty.
I sat, entranced, as the credits rolled: actor, director, writer, producer. One person in ten departments. It took me several moments to realize Chris was talking to me, and a punch on the arm to snap out of my fugue. ‘Well,’ he asked, ‘what did you think?’
Words failed to form. I couldn’t find a way to translate the images rushing across my mind into anything resembling language. Every syllable, every adjective that flitted across my mind shrank back in the face of the ideal that I had imbued that face with. In the face of this turmoil, I spoke the only thing I could muster.
‘Your ashtray’s covered in nude girls.’
He laughed. ‘A gift from my mother. Want to smoke?’
‘No. Thanks. But go ahead. Your mother?’
‘Yeah. Last time she was in Venice. She didn’t see the women when she bought it. She’s pretty old. When I brought it up she was mortified. An interesting gift from mother to son though.’
I heard what he was saying without registering. I was on autopilot. His voice was little more than a distorted drone, quintessence of banality. I yearned for another. As soon as I sensed a pause, a brief, merciful halt to the whine, I told him I wanted to leave.
It transpired that as well as his work in film, he offered a service on the side. For a small fortune, a woman could arrange for his company, and his body, for a night. The cost was more than I’d ever owned or was likely to, short of winning the lottery. I wondered what would happen to society if all desirable men decided to make an economy of their attractiveness. A lot more women turning to each other perhaps, the population dwindling away along with man’s relevance, diminishing utterly long before the sun burns its last.
Despite the gulf between the contents of my purse and the sum before me on his website, I decided to send in some images of myself.
The next time I checked, there was a single message waiting for me.
He had a name of course. But in my mind, he was The Fish.