Pulse

deafness in Heaven.The mare, soon to be the subject of his final portrait, found her own way to the trail. After a while, with Mr Tuttle’s house now far behind them, Wadsworth shouted into the silence of the forest.

Complicity
    WHEN I WAS a hiccuping boy, my mother would fetch the back-door key, pull my collar away from my neck, and slip the cold metal down my back. At the time, I took this to be a normal medical – or maternal – procedure. Only later did I wonder if the cure worked merely by creating a diversion, or whether, perhaps, there was some more clinical explanation, whether one sense could directly affect another.
    When I was a twenty-year-old, impossibly in love with a married woman who had no notion of my attachment and desire, I developed a skin condition whose name I no longer remember. My body turned scarlet from wrist to ankle, first itching beyond the power of calamine lotion, then lightly flaking, then fully peeling, until I had shed myself like some transmuting reptile. Bits of me fell into my shirt and trousers, into the bedclothes, on to the carpet. The only parts that didn’t burn and peel were my face, my hands and feet, and my groin. I didn’t ask the doctor why this was the case, and never told the woman of my love.
    When I divorced, my doctor friend Ben made me show him my hands. I asked if modern medicine, as well as using leeches again, was also going back to palmistry; and if so, whether astrology and magnetism and the theory of humours could be far behind. He replied that he could tell from the colour of my hands and fingertips that I was drinking too much.
    Later, wondering if I had been duped into cutting down, I asked him if he had been joking, or guessing. He turnedmy hands palm upwards, nodded in approval, and said he would now look out for unattached female medics who might not find me too repugnant.
    The second time we met was at a party of Ben’s; she had brought her mother. Have you watched mothers and daughters at parties together – and tried to work out who is taking care of whom? The daughter giving Mum a bit of an outing, the mum watching for the sort of men her daughter attracts? Or both at the same time. Even if they’re playing best friends, there’s often an extra flicker of formality added to the relationship. Disapproval either goes unexpressed, or is exaggerated, with a roll of the eye and a theatrical moue and a ‘She never takes any notice of me, anyway’.
    We were standing there, in a tight circle with a fourth person my memory has blanked. She was opposite me, and her mother on my left. I was trying to be myself, whatever that might be, and at the same time trying to make that self acceptable, if not actually pleasing. Pleasing to her mother, that is; I wasn’t bold enough to try to please her directly – at least, not in company. I can’t remember what we talked about, but it seemed to be going OK; perhaps the forgotten fourth helped. What I do remember was this: she had her right arm down by her side, and when she caught me looking in her general direction, she inconspicuously made the smoking gesture – you know, the first two fingers extended and slightly parted, the other fingers and thumb bent away out of sight. I thought: a doctor who smokes, that’s a good sign. While the conversation continued, I got out my packet of Marlboro Lights, and without looking – my activity, too, was at waist level – extracted a single cigarette, returned the pack to my pocket, took the cigarette by the filter tip, passed it round her mother’s back, felt it being taken from my fingers. Noting a slight pause on her part, I went back to my pocket, took outa book of matches, held it by the striking end, felt it being taken from my fingers, watched her light up, exhale, close the cover of the book-matches, pass it back behind her mother. I received it, delicately, by the same end I had given it out.
    I should add that it was perfectly obvious to her mother what we were doing. But she didn’t say anything, sigh, give a prim glance, or rebuke me for being a drug-peddler. I instantly liked her for this, assuming she approved of this complicity between me and her daughter. She could, I suppose, have been deliberately holding back her disapproval for strategic reasons. But I didn’t care, or rather, didn’t think to care, preferring to assume approval. Yet this isn’t what I was trying to tell you. The point wasn’t about her Mum. The point was those three