sunnyside villa

Fortnight Publications Ltd.

Sunnyside VillaAuthor(s): John MetcalfSource: Fortnight, No. 191 (Feb., 1983), pp. 21-24, 29Published by: Fortnight Publications Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25547138 .

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M-H-H____H-H-^_H__H_H_H__H_H_I__H_H__H SHORT STORY

SUNNYSIDE VILLA'

by John Metcalf I never had quite such good times again. 'Sunnyside Villa' their house was called and, looking back, I suppose nostalgia should insist that the sun always shone whenever I ventured up the winding hill to it. Slow dusks in

spring or autumn, though, are the times that have settled deep in my memory, and I do know it was a spring evening when first I was in the peculiar place and met Sophia and Rebecca and Louis and their father.

A friend had asked me to cover his paper delivery round. Having laboured up the hill, I was able to remount my bicycle on the crest where 'Sunnyside Villa' stood ahead and pedal up the potholed drive. The front door stood ajar and I lobbed in the evening paper. A large dog appeared, deftly scooped the paper in its jaws and scampered back into the house. Doubtless more conscientious than any regular on the job, I followed, to ensure, I suppose, the

safety of the paper and Stephen Hart's position of 'smart boy', and entered a wide hallway which led to an imposing central staircase, round the left-hand turn of which I glimpsed the dog disappear.

'Forget Booker,' a female voice said. A dark girl a

couple of years older than myself stood in a doorway. 'He takes it straight to father. Are you good at

guessing? Come in, we need you!' I found myself in a huge room, dazzlingly lit by the

setting sun. It had no obvious centre, no conscious

arrangement of furniture, and, looking round, I saw

myself in at least three mirrors. There was a cleared space at the far end. A boy of about 14 with a thick

fringe stood on a chair. 'Louis is miming the name of a record in the Top

Twenty,' the girl said, and then whispered, 'If he can't make us guess it he has to sing it and he's just had to do "Congratulations". He might cry,' she added

confidentially. 'Go on, Louis,' she declared. The boy's arms crossed vigorously in front of him, right over left, then he looked yearningly upwards, eyelids fluttering.

He repeated this pantomime to the point of

desperation. 'You're opening a tin... tin... sounds like

"Mighty Quinn", is it?' she hurled at him. A headshake. A slower repeat of the mime, then frantic

scissoring of arms.

'Perhaps it's...' I said, then my voice caught, embarrassed.

'Oh yes? Please guess it!' '"If I Were a Carpenter".'

The boy Louis uttered a yelp of delight and sprang down, his fate averted. 'I was sawing,' he explained in an oddly deep voice.

'"If I Were a Carpenter" by the Four Tops,' another, disembodied, female voice stated. Surprised, I looked for the additional participant. A tall red-headed girl languidly uncurled from the depths of an armchair, one of perhaps a dozen or so the room must have held. 'Thank you. I don't know who's punished more when

Louis sings, him or us.' I must have looked as bemused as I felt, for the first

girl I'd met smiled at me and said, 'We should say who we are. I am Rebecca and this is Sophia'

? the tall girl bowed dramatically

? 'and of course this is our dear little brother, Louis.' Louis gave her a measured stare, ignoring me. Still uncomfortable, I awkwardly introduced myself.

'So you're delivering the papers now?' asked Sophia. 'No, just this one night, Stephen will be back.'

'Stephen did a good mime, "Bend Me, Shape Me",' and the three laughed; an obviously funny memory.

'And he acted Squire Trelawney in our Treasure Island version,' added Rebecca.

The father brushed past me as I was leaving. 'Making ratatouille!' he stated, hurrying off, the dog

Booker trotting after him across the unkempt grass. Rebecca called after me, 'Come back again!'

* * 'Mad!' Stephen stated confidently. 'Those two Foster

birds are nuts, dressing up and that, at their age. They must be over twenty.' I learned that Louis wasn't there

often, being away at boarding school. Their father was

'something to do with serious music'. Stephen clearly wasn't interested in 'Sunnyside Villa'. I started to go back up the hill, though, now the lengthening evenings had come, passing two or three times to see the house silent and enigmatic, as if its secrets were to be

glimpsed once only. People in the large neighbouring houses were out mowing their lawns anew in spring,

polishing their Ford Consuls. Everyone seemed to be

whistling 'Congratulations'. I didn't mind much that I met none of the family; I was mainly concerned with school studies and these long walks were a welcome diversion.

About the fourth time I wandered past, Sophia's voice called to me 'Hello, passer-by!'

'Hello.' Conscious of a little surge of exhileration, I

found myself invited back into that sprawling front room. The mirrors had gone. Now there seemed an excess number of paintings on the walls. Booker the

dog was entrenched in a cavernous armchair. Sophia again curled up her long legs in the chair from which I had seen her emerge on my initial visit. A split opened in the knee of her blue jeans.

'No more deliveries?' 'That was just a favour.' 'Don't you work at all?' 'Still at school here ? I'm to start 'A' levels next

month.'

'We're sorry Louis doesn't go to your school. Daddy sent him off to board. He says it's the best thing for him. Daddy's a schools music inspector so I suppose he knows all the background to these places. Rebecca and I would rather have him here, though

? for one thing, he can make marvellous shepherd's pie.'

Sophia unrolled herself and called out the door, 'Rebecca!' And again, from the staircase, 'Rebecca!' In

her absence, I gazed around at piles of magazines, books, records, clothes. Three handless clocks mutely stood on a table evidently kept upright by string. I

picked up the top magazine in a heap: Punch, dated in

May, 1948. Below it, The Radio Times, May 1948. 'The BBC Welcomes Bradman's Australians', stated the cover.

Rebecca appeared, her black hair, evidently just washed, hanging wetly over her wide, dark eyes. 'Do

Fortnight February 1983 21



SHO$T STORY ^^ ^^^ HHHl^^HHBIIMaHB you like rummaging through old papers?' she asked.

T do indeed!' 4 You can see that all those are from this time twenty

years ago.' A sudden thought struck me. 'When were you two

born?'

She widened her eyes even more and laughed. 'Oh, no, no. Nearly right, though! A bit after! And you know we're not twins.'

So closely had they been linked in my awareness that I had unconsciously assumed them to be twins, and in fact I never could dissociate them. Neither did I discover who was the elder; they were ? and still are ?

Sophia and Rebecca. 4We'll tell you the idea,' Sophia continued. 'We like

to go back ten years, or twenty or whatever, and just search out as much as possible from that time.

Alternatives to the here and now, I suppose. It's easy to pick a month and year if you have a few newspapers or records or ideas of the fashions to keep you going. Look, Rebecca bought these old records at a market stall.'

She beckoned me to a stack. I sifted through dozens of records, clad in dull jackets of thick paper: The Decastro Sisters' 'Teach me Tonight', dated 1955 on

the label. 'Around the World', by Ronnie Hilton, 1957... the feel of the paper hinted at damp. When she'd mentioned fashions I'd recalled what I'd heard about the sisters 'dressing up and that'.

'Do you put on the right clothes for the year?' 'We always did like fancy dress parties.' 'Maybe if you like parties that's why you like games,

too?' I was beginning to find more confidence wih the

pair... Rebecca gave me a steady look and, speaking low,

stated, 'Hide and seek is a particular favourite.' I was

not altogether sure that she was serious. 'Followed

by...'

Sophia's appealing laugh confirmed my suspicions. 'Of course,' she said, 'we do make our own

entertainments. Games? Call them anything. Home

WHAT'S THEIR SECRET?

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SUBSCRIPTION ?3.00 FROM:

_P.O. BOX 71, BELFAST BT7 1NB

theatricals, then, we do those too. I told you, Treasure Island. Two characters each by the three of us and your friend Stephen, result an enjoyable night of colour and thrills.'

She adopted a melodramatic swagger, and threw

back her head. 'Do you know a seafaring man named Silver?' she demanded of Rebecca, who leapt up,

repressing a laugh, and pursed her lips thoughtfully; 'Hmmm, yes, Silver, I believe... Tell me, how many

legs has he?' *****

Through the summer of that year I paid only a few visits to the house. For a long spell it stood empty, but even then I would purposely pass from time to time,

observing the grass and weeds in the garden sprouting longer week by week. The family were abroad. I

received an unsigned postcard La Rochelle: 'Our wayfarings are fraught with interest. Writing

this under the journeying stars.'

Many questions about these new acquaintances had formed and were left frustratingly unanswered, as a

month or more passed; some, in fact, were never to be resolved. Before their departure I had rather

tentatively asked Rebecca about their circumstances. We sat drinking red wine from pint mugs. The evening

sun again flooded the room.

'We've an older sister but she got married. And that was the end of her history.'

Somewhat nonplussed at this bluntness, I withdrew

my intention of asking about their mother. What did the sisters do for a living? Rebecca wrinkled up her face in disgust: 'Oh, what an awful phrase, "do for a

living".' She might have continued, but, embarrassed, I interrupted her and steered the conversation in what I

hoped would be a less sensitive direction. I later

gleaned from Louis that his sisters had worked abroad, 'like nannies and that'. I didn't press him. He was

characteristically off-hand and the facts were not

especially vital to me. I suspected later that the girls were language students, though admittedly giving no

appearance of attending any university or college in the

time that I knew them. In itself the scarcity of mundane facts added to the

slightly mysterious aura that, still, I cannot separate from those days. The times seemed, and yet seem,

perhaps increasingly so, a little above the level of

reality, like the way the three appeared to lead their lives.

News of their return was typically unexpected. Attending a wedding reception, I was startled to be

paged, for the first time ever. A telephone call ?

Rebecca's voice, excited, slightly breathless; another voice sounded close to her.

'Hi! We're having the best laugh. Can you come up here?' Rebecca inquired. I explained that it was

impossible, at least for some time. 'Well we're back home as you can tell so we'll be seeing you soon!' She

was gone. Tantalised, I passed the afternoon in a haze of boredom and impatience, before escaping home to

change and sortie to where adventure seemed to lie. The idea of arriving at 'Sunnyside Villa' in a shirt and tie

was so incongruous it never occurred to me. I did not recognise Rebecca when she opened the

front door, or rather appeared there in response to my ring, the door lying ajar. Her face was painted white, the eyes edged with black. Her hair was now cropped , close to her head and lay raggedly against the nape of

22 Fortnight February 1983



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her neck. This must, I thought, be the current fashion in France.

She easily read my thoughts. 'Disguise is liberation. I said that!' she declared, good-humouredly pushing

me into the front room. 'Wine, Slave of Bacchus!' she called to a very sun-tanned Louis and I joined the

three, all in high merriment, in sharing several bottles of red wine. We sat cross-legged on scattered cushions,

most of the packed chairs having disappeared. From the warm blur that the September evening

became, I remembered more of the emotional feel of the tale that was unfolded than the facts. Whatever had

happened, Rebecca, Sophia and Louis could not have been more triumphant and delighted. At this distance, all I recall is that they had been engaged in some kind of prolonged and elaborate game or charade with an

adversary who had cunningly manipulated the rules to his own advantage. Through exquisite skill and

audacity, the three had somehow turned the tables on him. I had been called to the phone to hear news of

victory. The details I'd probably forgotten already, as, heady

with wine and flushed in imagination by the tale told and hearing of the travels in France ? '...we bathed at Les Sables d'Olonne. Mmm, that name, Les Sables...' ? I left late, commiserating with Louis on his imminent return to the rigours of boarding school. He

had grown, and was adopting maturity. He pointed at the stars.

'We saw Pink Floyd play at an open-air gig at Lyons. "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" ? have you heard it? Supernatural powers. We were cold when

they started and warm at the end. I'm taking my hi-fi back to school with me this term.'

The house stood defined against the full moon sky as I left the trio at the gate. 'Little by little the night turns

around,' Louis said, 'it's in that Pink Floyd song.' Two or three weeks later I was there again,

concluding an evening in the company of the sisters. I think we were contentedly browsing through another

pile of old magazines when there was a sudden barking from the hall and the sound of raised voices, which seemed to make Booker's excitement even more frenzied. The door flew open to reveal Louis stalking in, clad in a thick purple dressing-gown. His father followed him, spectacles in one hand, mouth working in

agitation. The girls stood up. Louis turned to face us all and shook his fringe back out of his eyes.

'O.K., I've run away!' No one spoke. Booker gave a final, waning yelp.

Louis drew himself up and said archly, 'I was insulted in the showers!' Rebecca giggled. Louis glared at his

sister, but Sophia forestalled his angry rebuke. 'No doubt, Louis, it was an insult of a personal

nature?'

'Highly.' 'And so you took spite against the whole school and

left?' 'Just left.' 'The masters are after him wtih the school leopard,'

put in Rebecca. Louis rounded on her again and

grabbed a brass ornament to throw, but his father strode between them. I began to feel an uneasy intruder into a flaring domestic row.

'I'm phoning the school,' Mr Foster declared, 'you're not staying here longer than I can help. They'll send someone to pick you up. Now stop this bickering, you lot,' he continued, his tone more plaintive: 'You've

made a mistake, Louis, you know. It's no good being too sensitive.'

He tailed off as the boy dropped into a huge armchair, draping his legs over the arm, skin showing under the flowing dressing gown. His father withdrew, spectacles still in hand, and left the four of us.

'Rebecca broke the silence. 'How did you get home,

anyway?' 'Thumbed it. Two lifts.' 'Didn't the people wonder about the clothes?' 'I suppose they did.' 'Whatever masters have to come for you aren't going

to be too pleased, are they?' asked Sophia. Louis made no response to that. We sat on, silent

again. Though glad no row had developed, I still felt

awkwardly superfluous and eventually made a move to

depart. This roused the girls from their unusual torpor. 'No, don't. We'll have some wine ?

Sophia, the Bordeaux from Bordeaux? Some for little brother?'

Sipping wine in now-accustomed fashion, we passed a desultory evening, Louis' impending departure, or

re-capture, casting its coming shadow. An hour passed.

Two.

I think I expected tall men in uniform to burst in and haul Louis away. When the lights of the car swung into the driveway, I watched at the window as the Triumph

Herald drew up and two schoolmasters got out. Sophia went to let them in and returned, politely

? even

graciously ?

introducing Rebecca and I. 'This is Mr Holdsworth of St Jude's and his colleague

Mr Waring. Mr Holdsworth tells me he is Louis' house-master. We're so sorry you've been put to this

trouble gentlemen,' Sophia declared animatedly. Louis' only concession to the appearance of the

masters was surreptitiously to edge out of sight a bottle of wine.

'Do sit down!' Sophia invited the masters, who, somewhat bemused, chose from the variety of vacant chairs. Mr Holdsworth sniffed. An upright, austere

man whom one could not imagine being anything other




SHORT STORY M-H__H_H__H__MBHM_H__H_HH__il than a schoolmaster, he wore a neat but unfashionable shirt and tie and displayed, medal-like, a row of pens of various colours in his breast pocket, from which a seedy plastic comb also projected. The younger Mr Waring had conceded in dress to his off-duty moments, a bulky blue polo-neck sweater covering his powerful frame, this physique and a battered face announcing an active interest in rugby.

I had expected Mr Foster to appear, some kind of

brief handing-over ceremony and the two men to depart again with Louis. But plainly Mr Foster did not yet know of the arrivals.

'Would you like some wine?' Rebecca asked, flashing her most radiant smile.

'Not for me,' said Mr Holdsworth. 'No thanks!' grimaced Mr Waring. I saw him give

Rebecca a steady, appraising look.

'Well, I'm sure you don't mind if...' Rebecca lifted a

bottle and took a long drink straight from it. Mr

Holdsworth's tight mouth parted a little in surprise. Rebecca rested the bottle on the broad arm of her chair

and frowned. 'Mr Holdsworth. I do hope you don't beat

boys at St Jude's?'

'Oh, good heavens, no!'

'So Louis won't undergo the cane for running away?'

'Absolutely not. Boys do indeed... abscond for

various reasons. No doubt Foster, ah, Louis, was

upset. I have been informed of circumstances.'

'Mr Holdsworth, you probably know Louis quite

well, but I just wonder how well. My sister and I are

deeply fond of him. Would you like to hear a story that

illustrates his character admirably?' The house-master gave an unconvincing nod. I saw

his eyes flick around the great room and its unusual

contents. He looked back at the girl. 'Yes ? yes.'

'Shortly after our mother left home and before Louis

was sent to your school, Sophia and I decided to cook a

I GRAND OPERA HOUSE I I Monday 7 to Saturday 12 February at 7.30pm I

I AN EVENING WITH TOMMY MAKEM & LIAM CLANCY I

I Monday 14 to Saturday 26 February for two weeks I

I Monday to Thursday at 7.30pm, Saturday at 6pm and 9pm I

I JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR I I DREAMCOAT I

I Monday *28 February to Saturday 5 March I

I Monday at 7pm, Tuesday to Saturday at 2.30pm and 7pm I

I PADDINGTON BEAR'S MAGICAL MUSICAL I

I Wednesday 9 to Saturday 12 March at 7.30pm I

J VAN MORRISON J NOW BOOKING

J Monday 21, Wednesday 23, Friday 25 March at 7.30pm I I Northern Ireland Opera Trust I

J THE DAUGHTER OF THE REGIMENT (Donizetti) I

j Sung in English I

I Tuesday 22, Thursday 24, Saturday 26 March at 7.30pm I

I Northern Ireland Opera Trust I

I LA BOHEME (Puccini) I I Sung in Italian I

I Postal booking 14 February, I I counter and telephone booking 21 February I

I Booking Office open Monday to Saturday, 9.45am to 5.30pm I

| Reservations tel. 241919 Information tel. 249129_J

lobster. Are you aware, by the way, that our brother is now an excellent cook?'

'No,' replied Mr Holdsworth. 'Who cooks for the boarders at St Jude's?' 'Such duties are performed by Miss Stephenson and

her domestic staff.' 'I don't feel cooking should be regarded as a duty, Mr

Holdsworth,' Rebecca said coolly. The schoolmaster sniffed and his mouth pursed a

little tighter. I could see his colleague's attention was

fully engaged now, sensing perhaps that here was a tale for the rugby club bar in the making.

'However. We bought the lobster in the fish shop by the quays

? beside the Masthead Inn, which you

probably know, Mr Waring ? and began to boil the

water for its immersion.' Rebecca took another deep draught from her wine,

this time with an impressive, elegant abandon. I could

imagine Waring telling his cronies, 'And this bird was

spelling it out to Edgar and swigging down the vino...' 'The lobster, I might add, was fully alive. At least, it

was as animated as lobsters on terra firma can succeed in being. During our culinary preparations, Sophia and I neglected to oversee it continuously, but still, imagine our surprise, Mr Holdsworth, when we discovered that

the lobster had mysteriously disappeared.' 'Yes ?

yes.' Mr Holdsworth was beginning to sound

testy. I guessed his companion liked him no more than

Rebecca obviously did. I had not heard her employ a

slightly burlesque way of speaking before and was

starting to enjoy this evident act. Perhaps, I thought, I've failed to see the obvious ? the girls are actresses

by profession...

'Well, we looked just... everywhere!' Rebecca's

beautiful eyes widened. 'Even in the back garden, although our suspicions were that the lobster had not

the required speed to crawl there, even motivated by imminent death. Do you know what had happened, Mr

Holdsworth?' The colourless schoolmaster looked insufferably

exasperated. 'No I don't,' he barked. 'Unnoticed by us, our brother Louis had entered the

kitchen and, impelled by a humane nature, had quietly rescued the lobster. I'm sure you're going to ask what he did with it then.' Rebecca's voice lowered. Waring looked as if he was memorizing this. 'Louis mounted his

bicycle, and, with the lobster ? a largish beast it was ? in one hand, pedalled a substantial distance down

the hill and through the town. Now, do you think he was returning it to the fish shop, Mr Holdsworth?'

Holdsworth, still bound by convention to recipro cate, said distantly, 'Yes.' Rebecca smiled a sweet

smile of contradiction and inclined her head forward.

'Wrong, Mr Holdsworth! Louis pedalled past the fish

shop to the rocks below the caravans and deposited the

lobster back in the sea. That really is where it came

from, you know.'

Rebecca leaned back again and swung another

commanding draught of wine to her mouth. No one

spoke or moved. I don't recall clearly how the evening concluded. I

think Mr Foster finally appeared and Louis was

despatched back to school, still in his dressing gown I

suppose. I haven't met him since. It was just about the

last time I spent at 'Sunnyside Villa', in fact. That

autumn, a few weeks later, I too departed, for

Continued on page 29.

24 Fortnight February 1983



^HHHHHHHIIHiiiH^HIl

ANNEDAVEYORR Ideas, like butterflies, have a short, some

times brilliant life, to survive only as

specimens of a species. Collections of ideas,

unlike collections of butterflies, are often

very alive. Whether some of the ideas are

worth collecting is another question. That

they are presented in tangible form at least

enables us to see what is going on in other

people's heads. And that was the point of

An Artistic Conversation, 1931-1982: Po

land/USA. It was justifiably billed as an

exhibition of some significance ? its

significance lay in the fact that it was got

together at all.

A flexible and open approach by the

SOCIAL REALISM/PRIVATE IDEAS Ulster Museum allowed it to take the

exhibition while other galleries couldn't. It

is an exchange between 52 Polish and

American artists and is very much an

artists' show, with work from a wide variety of contemporary art movements: difficult to

get into, difficult to assimilate ? like

following 52 story-lines at once.

Coming directly from Paris, where it was

organised by Anka Ptaszkowska, the

exhibition will bypass mainland Britain and

go in edited form to Dublin before it returns

to Paris. Eventually the Polish exhibits will

end up in the USA and the American

exhibits in Poland: free gifts from one to the

other; devised, according to Anka Ptasz

kowska, to keep money out of the game ?

to bypass the system. The links between Poland and the USA

are strong, not least because many

ex-patriots from the first have sought

refuge in the second. While it is good to see

the work of lesser known Poles alongside the work of their more famous Polish

American brother, Javacheff Christo, who

shows working drawings for another

wrapped project in Madrid, it is a very

surprising collection of work ? a collection

which is esoteric in its concerns, experi mental and indulgent.

Poland has been, until recently, the most

liberal of the Soviet satellites. Nonetheless,

personal freedom was/is confined. This

exhibition reflects none of the conditions of

that confinement. According to Anka

Ptaszkowska, the greater the isolation the

more intense became artistic life in Poland.

It is an intensity of the intellect; the heart

and the soul surface occasionally.

In the Tom Caldwell Gallery, social

realism of an expressionistic nature suc

ceeds. Brendan Ellis says a lot about

society by simply looking and recording. Here is the flesh, the blood of Belfast: its

people in block shoes, stilettoes, mini

skirts, slit skirts. Dr Martin's, leather

jackets, half-mast trousers. There is no

nicety of technique ? no trick with colour:

this is life in the raw as it is experienced in

Belfast in the eighties. 'The People Who

Face the Mountain' is a most cogent statement on the troubled Moyard Housing Fstate in West Relfast. This painting of a

family and a dog on a balcony explains without depicting the sixties estate why the

residents want the Housing Executive to

demolish it ? it demoralises.

His 'Woman on the Tenth Floor' sums up Pivis. His 'Widow' depicts her dilemma in

the st rail jacket of society: still desirous,

lying naked and lonely in bed. A sensitive

eye paints 'The (liver' (a girl feeding birds)

and 'The Taker Away' (a boy with dead bird

aid catapult), both acting out the roles

society has delineated for them; pawns in

t he game. While Anka Ptaszkowska in her intro to

the Polish-American exhibition casts money in the role of corrupting tyrant, Brendan

Ellis shows just how tyrannical lack of it

can be. Poverty cannot be touted like Daz

as a liberating force and purifying agent.

SHORT STORY Continued from page 24.

university in the south in my case. Because of

commitments there and vacation jobs in other parts of

the country, it was a couple of years before I even saw

Rebecca again. 'Hi!' she said, with her open, winning grin. 'How

goes it?' I don't remember her going on to reveal much

current information on the family, but I'd always meant to quiz her on the night of Louis' running away, and did so.

'Oh, the lobster story, did I tell that? Pissed no

doubt. Yes, I can remember now, of course... it's true,

you know, Louis did carry that bloody thing by the

shell and drop it miles away in the sea...'

Rebecca was away again, and I followed her red and

gold sypsy skirt into the street crowd. It was only then, as I stood, that I recalled how the Louis evening had

ended. After the boy's departure, we had adjourned to

a back room where, seated at a piano, Rebecca had

very, very slowly played the Beatles' 'Hey Jude'. *****

It must have been fully eight years before I returned

home permanently. Inevitably, much had changed in

my life and the lives of others, too. The Fosters had

evidently moved on, and information was meagre. I

wasn't surprised. Though I thought frequently, albeit

usually fleetingly, of 1968, I had no particular call or

desire even to see their former home.

Then I did venture back up the hill. It was New

Year's Eve. The bar I usually frequented had been

crowded, foggy with smoke. The jostling mass

unwillingly parted, glasses aloft, to let me edge towards fresh air, the clean slice of black frosty night.

Above, the pinpoint gleams of the Belt of Orion, Sirius,

Aldebaran; little by little, the night turned around.

Beside me as I strode cars swept past, hurrying party-goers to their New Year jollities. Off the main

road an on the hill, the frost glittered as the moonlight touched it or reflected dully on the coated windows of

the Volvos and BMWs. Lights shone out in most of the

big houses, Christmas trees twinkled and, at one house,

fairy lights stretched, swaying gently, above the

driveway. I wound round the crest of the hill to

'Sunnyside Villa', its gate, I saw, still bearing the name. Here, too, beyond the trim lawn the curtains were drawn back, the huge front room brightly lit. I

could see Christmas cards neatly strung up on the

white walls, a man crossing the room, drink in hand. I

had often thought about Rebecca and Sophia and Louis

and their father. Now I wondered, with a startled

longing that physically jabbed through me, where they all were tonight, this night of all nights, where each had

been borne. Rebecca was said to be living in France.

Beyond that, nothing. I looked up at the impassive moon and the clustered

stars. Beyond them, too, nothing... dragging my coat

tighter in the cold I shook myself free of this trapping mood, as midnight chimed distantly. In the room, several figures now merged in the light, obviously

closing to toast the hour. Briefly, the group lingered and then parted. A woman silently approached the

window and gazed out, high into the starry night. She

turned inwards again, and, not wishing to be seen, I

turned too and left. Cascading peals of bells carried over the rooftops below and, farther away in the night,

ships' sirens rasped. I looked in the direction of the sea; black met black under Sirius, but faintly two triangles of lights slowly approached and merged, like the

anonymous figures in that great room, before drawing

apart again.




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