GISELLE’S HARVEST (for Pol & Tracey B)

The town was mid siesta; all the shutters on the houses were closed to keep the inhabitants cool whilst the sun was strongest, bearing down on rock and roof alike, blistering paint and bleaching bone. Giselle, her radio mumbling in the background, sat on her bed in front of the mirror scrutinizing her hair. As required by her veneration it had grown untouched for two years and was now so long and thick it covered her head and shoulders like a black mane, reaching beyond the base of her spine and hiding her pretty almond features. On a hot day such as this her scalp itched and needled constantly whilst perspiration gathered on her back making her clothes damp and uncomfortable. Worst of all she felt her youth slipping away beneath it and this made her ache inside.

If only the Citrus Blight had never come.

Three years ago it attacked the lemon and orange trees surrounding the town. The fruits shrivelled and blackened, and the groves would drone infernally day after day as swarms of frenzied wasps and flies gorged on the nectar dripping from the ragged pulp. The crop was ruined, and with it the local economy and the small town’s sublime spirit. However, the following spring, as everyone gloomily awaited the return of the Blight, Giselle won the Venus Beauty Pageant in Sabina, the judges awed by her flawless hair. As her townspeople celebrated they told her not to touch a single tress:

‘Let it grow, Giselle,’ they said, almost singing to her, ‘let it grow.’

Soon after, the first fruits appeared in the groves with no return of the Blight and the town enjoyed the best harvest on record. Some said it was a miracle and talked of Giselle’s increasingly abundant locks as their own divine symbol of fertility, even making the sign of the cross before her in the street. As time passed this faith deepened until the town believed the Blight would return if anything were ever to spoil Giselle’s particular beauty – they had to protect it, no matter what. So, to make certain, the townspeople called upon Father Villiers to anoint Giselle ‘Patron Saint of the Groves’ which he did with earnest ceremony, and Giselle had dutifully accepted, not realising the sacrifices she would have to make.

Now, however, nothing would change her mind: it was coming off, all of it.

She closed the shutters in her room and positioned her mirror to catch the sunrays slipping through the slats. Her hands shook with anticipation as she loosened her hair and it unravelled like a rolling shroud. She picked up the steel scissors, heavier than she remembered, and made the first tentative snip; nothing more than the merest strand, but it sat there like a gash in the palm of her hand.

Was that a noise in the hall? She caught her breath and froze, listening intently, terrified that she might be discovered. But nothing moved, only the airless sound of the mid-afternoon heat warping the door jamb. She grasped a tress above her left temple, took a deep breath, and cut it sharply. Her hand came away clutching the severance, like a horse’s tail protruding from her fist. The dramatic change in length shocked her but determination urged her on and she set about the rest, leaving just a little length all over. When she was finished there were cuttings everywhere: on the bed, in her lap, spilling across the floor. Her head felt so light she thought it might slip the bond with her neck and float away. It was a wonderful feeling. She tipped it and turned it this way and that, barely recognising herself in the mirror.

Next she gathered the cuttings into bunches and tied each at one end with cotton; she took her colander, turned it upside down and pushed the bound ends through the holes until she’d made a perfect hairy crown that remained, as she’d hoped, oddly alive.

Evening had turned to dusk and she could hear the cicadas singing.

She put on the straw-coloured frock she rarely wore, took her emergency money from beneath the bed and put it with the crown into her canvas satchel. Then, having switched off her radio and said goodbye to her room, stepped nervously out into the street and headed straight for the groves. She made her way through the scented avenues until she came to the very centre. There, in the shadow of a voluptuous lemon tree, stood an unusual scarecrow. It was the image of her in every way yet bald as an egg. Giselle was scared, but as she approached it the scarecrow appeared to wink at her knowingly, urging her to finish what she’d begun. She took the crown from the bag; the mass of locks trailing to the earth appeared to sit up in response as she put it delicately on the smooth pate of her avatar, and as she did Giselle felt her heart change shape and mass; no longer a leaden thing full of responsibility and duty, but a lithe organ beating now at its own youthful pace.

On her way out of town she passed the café where Fausto the fruit-picker always sat after a day’s work, ready to bless his Patron Saint openly whenever he caught sight of her. He was smoking his Royale cigarettes and sipping rum. Fausto looked up as Giselle approached and her restored heart beat so loudly she thought it would give her away; but he simply doffed his cap as he would to any stranger and politely said:

‘Evenin’, miss.’

‘Evening, sir,’ she replied.

‘Are you a little lost, miss?’ Fausto asked, gesturing at the quiet street.

‘Oh, no,’ Giselle smiled cheekily, ‘bless you, but I know exactly where I’m going.’

12/9/07

PARKLIFE - The view from St Jude’s –

You have, of course, your dog walkers making their way through the lower reaches of the Park – they vary in approach. Some are very brisk and perfunctory with their animales; this is not a leisure activity for them but a chore. If the dog strays from the footpath seeking out smells and interesting places, the owner will conspire against it to immediately rein them back in. No fun, my babe, no fun. Others are embarrassed of their pet (or themselves, unclear which really); slouching in the shadows of the tree line, they’d rather not let anyone know which dog is theirs, and when it is time to retrieve it they slink up close to it at the park gates and quickly, covertly attach the lead and drag the thing away along the street, head down.

By evening there are more joggers than trees.
Parakeets whine and chatter as they sail across the gaps.

The nether corners, close to the vicarage, however, are gateways to another world. Something much darker, lonely, and desperate. These are the junkie hideaways, where the bushes and trees just about give cover from the nearby footpath and the playing areas, tucked in behind the ivy and the tree trunks. Early morning you’ll find them there sucking on pipes, or standing around with a white syringe hanging out of a forearm, a livid and focussed attack. Two groups, different times, but not so long apart. The first group is three jubilant men in baseball caps, open shirts, carrying plastic bags stuffed full of clothes perhaps, other items. Street/squat men, all in their late twenties/thirties, lightly bearded Hispanics. They are borderline. They plump for a space behind the wide bole of a plane tree. Begin their routine, individual and unsightly. Yet they do not seem abashed. Needy, aye. Not abashed or embarrassed; but then I assume they have no choice. One of them half drops his trousers and kecks, semi squats, his arse exposed to the shadows, the green shadows, and he finds a vein near his dick (or maybe in it?) and shoots up there. He cannot move, even though his friends have become insecure and walked away aware that they have only so many minutes grace before someone spots them. The have no idea I can see them from the house. Later, I spot the half-nudist on the main road having just bought himself a can of beer and poking through a litter to pull out a discarded newspaper. For a junkie he is surprisingly portly, though his flesh beneath the wiry beard is yellow/grey, thinning on his cheekbones.

Later, on the opposite side of the house but still down in the cloaked nooks, a couple arrive with a white Staffordshire bull terrier. The woman is in a forlorn white tracksuit top, wears pigtails in her hair, close on 40. The man is tall, wears a pale denim shirt and a kind of knitted waistcoat, intellectual glasses, shaved head and very tanned. He is nervous, she doesn’t give a toss. Even though they can see me in my study, she squats straight down and begins to bake the brown, her arse crack (what is it with these folks, are they actually secret exhibitionists?) given back to me when she turns her back and bends down, is she telling me to ‘kiss my arse’ without needing to voice it? Clouds of blue smoke. The dog sniffing around the works. The man on point, watching, furtive. The Staff has bright pink testicles that hang low and heavy, and swing as it moves and sniffs around head down. Eventually, the woman rises, leaving scarred tin-foil on the ground and she calls to dog ‘Jasper, Jasper’ then wanders off with it while two-bit Charlie is left behind to see to himself with a spike. He taps up a vein and shoots the stuff home.


Brockwell Park, London