Cathexis

by Clay, Josie

  Chapter 9

  The time had come to try and be a grown-up. So I set about applying for jobs and attending interviews, something I'd never done before. Armed with references , both real and fake, I attempted to shoehorn my 'skill set' into posts which bore only a passing resemblance to anything I could or wanted to do: teaching homeless people horticulture at St Mungo's, instructing community gardeners at the Pepys Food Growing Plan and capacity building community payback workers. Apparently, they'd keep me on file.

  Finally, the standard of candidates must have been particularly dismal the day I interviewed for the post of Contract Monitoring Officer at Hackney Council, because I got the job.

  “Hi Minette, nice to meet you” said Natividad. Soft billows and a deep prow gave her the appearance of a black galleon in full sail. She extended her hand, about to teach me the ins and outs of monitoring park maintenance.

  Grass, hard-standing, litter, borders, benches and sight-lines, each judged from A to E, A being excellent, E extremely poor. This would suit my compulsion down to the ground.

  To my mind, most things merited only D or E but I had to learn, she explained, to be realistic. The limitations of the gardeners in terms of time and skills rendered the contract virtually unworkable, she hinted confidentially.

  At the depot, issued with a bottle-green polo shirt, council insignia embroidered on the pocket like pips, and a matching fleece. Up to me to purchase the mandatory black, army surplus style trousers, for which I'd be reimbursed ...all very fair. With the uniform came a sense of belonging and permanence.

  Having traversed the borough, my findings were entered onto a computer, but I'd stretched the truth as far as IT skills went, claiming proficiency in Word and Excel, whatever the dickens they were. After a crash course with Tove, I found it tedious but do-able.

  It was soon evident the London Borough of Hackney was too big to be negotiated on foot, so I cycled on a cranky mountain bike that M8 and Eve had found behind their shed. Propelling myself from Springfield Park in the north, across to Clissold, Hackney Downs, Clapton Pond, Mabley Green, London Fields and down to Haggerston and Hoxton, taking in dozens of pocket parks on the way.

  Having always been self-employed, I tilted myself at the task with an urgency and thoroughness unusual by Council standards. The only monitoring officer , there was no-one to compare me with and also no-one I could loaf about with in cafes, drinking tea. I didn't gel with my colleagues at the depot , who were bit-players, adding a small semblance of background colour like the bar scene blue folk in 1970s sci-fi films, a viable but essentially peripheral species.

  Pedalling through winter into spring, my stupid legs finally attaining a firmness and definition I’d thought impossible. What with paid annual leave and sickness allowance and the fact I just had to do the work and not generate it, the sense of liberation was immense. Almost as if I were on holiday, compared to my previous incarnation.

  My debt to Nancy honoured in a few months, except for one hundred pounds which I kept in a white envelope in the Nancy tin, unsure why.

  On a long leash, far away from senior management, I devised my own strategy for park improvement, adopting a practical approach, rather than a punitive one. Obvious that the gardeners were understaffed and demotivated, rather than issue a default (for which the contractor would be fined and the gardener bollocked) if say, the grass was too long or there was broken glass in the playground, I'd tip the men off so the problem could be fixed before I marked it. The gardeners became happier and consequently the parks improved.

  Funny how I'd ended up in parks, a childhood haunt. A solitary little girl watching others play until they trailed off at twilight for tea. I'd linger beneath the pink sky as even the rusty hinged geese headed off to roost. Homesick, but not for the perfidious place to which I'd eventually dawdle. Parks were synonymous still with that cool, empty feeling. That's why I didn't like them.

  Having spent my days in the company of a handful of people over the years, now thousands in my head. The sheer volume of humanity and traffic I encountered each day assaulted my senses in great tides. My head on the pillow at night seethed with a babble of voices and commotion, which only the thought of Nancy could quiet. Despite not having seen hide nor hair of her for years, she was my silence. I must have appeared tenacious and buoyant. However, the left field attitude I'd applied, which was undoubtedly mine, did little to moderate my sense of personal erosion. Why were people content to play this game? I envied them. I began to feel usurped, subverted ...body-snatched.

  Clissold Park, the best of the bunch, with its ponds and penned deer. Modest flocks of parakeets, the progeny of escapees, shrieked overhead and a convenient cafe, which overlooked the silted up New River where moorhens and coots picked amongst bobbing plastic.

  The gardeners' truck hugging the contours of the tarmac path, observing the mandatory 5mph. Keeping an eye on them, in case they strayed onto the grass, waving as they came to a halt in front of me. Basil would never miss the opportunity to shoot the breeze. He liked me ...I was on his side, the type of man I'd trail after as a kid, desperate for attention. Usually kind, they'd eventually order me home. I stopped this game after a road sweeper gave me a dead dolly with no eyes and made me squeeze an old handlebar grip while he did something in his trousers with his hand.

  We nattered about how much better it all looked. “You tell me what needs doing and I'll do it for you” he said with devotion and an uncharacteristic lack of innuendo. Basil was a gasbag and I watched his well meant but light minded stream of consciousness float up to the sky like a let go balloon. As he wove his waffle of family woes and general dissatisfaction, I would shake and nod at appropriate intervals, endeavouring to steer the conversation down to the very grass we were standing on, looking at it intently and knocking it with my heel.

  The ground shifted beneath my feet, a familiar figure in the distance, hair twisting and flapping, much like a spaniel with its head out the window of a speeding car. A little black dog capering about her feet as she strode purposefully towards us.

  “You look tired, girl, you work too hard” Basil yawped on . “I says to Dave, look Dave, it's Minette again. Where was it Dave we saw Minette?”

  “Clapton Pond” Dave replied, tugging the strimmer cord to no avail.

  She advanced, eyes cast to the path. A vibrating began in the soles of my feet and quickly shimmied up my legs. Repositioning myself in the lea of the big man, I thought I might cry. I

  imagined him picking me up as if I were a baby and holding me safely in his Sunday joint arms.

  “Yeah, we tooted you but you didn't see us. Off in a world of your own you was”.

  I edged towards the truck before lifting my leg and planting my boot on the tyre beneath the wheel arch, assuming the stance of a man in a knitting catalogue. Elaborating on the image I brought my hand to my brow and wisely monitored the sight lines as well as the progress of the woman, whose increasing proximity was fomenting a quiet meltdown.

  “...Cassland Road, we saw you” he continued. “She's on her way to Saint John's, I says to Dave...”

  The little dog skipped up to Basil and sniffed his trouser leg, the residue of dog shit inevitable after strimming.

  “Sebastian” she shouted and the dog trotted on. Almost level with Basil now and I pressed my trembling lips with my fingers, hot sparks of sweat blooming on my back. It was nearly over, but I couldn't help myself – I darted a look and our eyes met.

  “Hi” she said neutrally and whisked past without breaking stride. Predictably, Basil's glance fell to her arse as she marched away.

  Shock and relief settled on me as if I'd just been narrowly missed by a truck. I flew home to process and analyse.

  Cross legged on the bed/living room floor, pulling my legs into a full lotus, croupier-like, I shuffled the cards. Detached and dextrous, I sent off a train of thought, chuffing through a network of tunnels.

  'I will say hi, I will never be rude Minette, I will never
forget you'. Recalling the assertion as if she were next to me. She must have seen me and still chose to follow the path, perhaps through stubbornness. Or maybe she hadn’t seen me. And yet she had possessed the air of a woman who had braced herself. Avoidance was easier; she always preferred to avoid me and yet had elected to put her image before me. She needn't have looked up, let alone met my eyes.

  And so the runaway train sped on; its carriages uncoupling and veering off on divergent routes, looping round and meeting itself again, shunting backwards to regroup before setting off once more, steaming towards its elusive and pointless destination. Saturating myself in all the possibilities, oscillating between euphoria, shame and despondency, I could extrapolate nothing from this maddening mental Scalextric.

  “Shut the fuck up” scraped the dark voice. “She hates you and doesn't think about you at all”.

  Admitting this the most likely scenario, tears boiled and I wound the corkscrew attachment systematically into taut muscle.

  The situation would never normalise and it was unsustainable. Since she had a dog, she'd be in the park often. I'd have to creep around like a culprit, always on the lookout, to spare myself the blitzkrieg of emotion that would befall me if I spotted her. I didn't have the energy any more ...I wanted the retrospective version, my Nancy. Her current configuration only served to remind me of the cowardly idiot I was, ugly, worthless and most probably mad.

  Chapter 10

  The word 'Ranger' appealed to me so I applied for the job at Islington Council and got it. I was thirty eight.

  Two years later, having acquired a comprehensive knowledge of council systems, politics and hierarchies, a new post was created, it seemed specifically for me – Community Projects Officer. In celebration, I bought myself a new bicycle; a beautiful, banana yellow, original Eddy Merckx racer, with a well-worn Brookes saddle, its chestnut leather edged with copper rivets. And I joined an expensive private gym, just for the deserted pool. I loved to swim, submerging my loneliness. I ploughed through the delicately chlorinated water and wondered if I was grown-up yet.

  Most of my days were spent in a vast, open plan office, bound to the computer, navigating my way through funding streams, channels of health and safety and an ocean of corporate policy. At such times, I'd wear a smart Calvin Klein suit - and my Blundstones, which I wore rain or shine, just as I always had.

  Occasionally, I would be outside, corralling community groups into food growing or co-ordinating creative events for kids. It was preferable to the office, but as the years passed I felt myself dwindling. Not a bad job, I was treated fairly and some of my working relationships had progressed to friendships. It just wasn't really me – I'd traded my soul for security years ago.

  My boots had taken on a dusty pink hue on that Saturday afternoon, when the handle of my life began to crank again. Hands pink too as I scooped up piles of dyed grass, depositing it in awaiting mini buckets held aloft by rows of children. There was also blue, yellow and green seed, piles of black bark chips, orange and white sand and an array of squeezy paint bottles.

  The idea was that the kids would make ephemeral, abstract pieces on the grass. For most of them though, the compulsion to make a fantastic mess was too strong. Despite the February cold, the event was well attended and I surveyed the colourful chaos with approval as my cute concept degenerated into a florid 'Lord of the Flies'.

  In my peripheral vision Rosamund Hartley, an enthusiastic 'Friend of the Park' and a serial council botherer, was trying to attract my attention with a fluttering hand.

  “Minette, this is wonderful” she gushed “Is it your doing?”

  “Guilty as charged” I said smiling, eyeing her dalmatian-spotted wellies and mac of waterproof newspaper. A child scooted past, drizzling red paint across my boots.

  “Minette” she continued, “I've got a proposition for you, but now's not the time, we're off to France for a week. I'll email you when I get back”. She scanned the industrious gremlins for her own.

  “Come along Flora, it's time to go, darling”.

  Rosamund had come late to motherhood. She was, perhaps, five years my senior, but to me, she seemed a generation older.

  “Just a second” I said and snapped a picture of Flora's work before it could be cannibalised.

  “Say goodbye to lovely Minette” Rosamund said.

  “Bye bye”. Flora coyly waved a multicoloured hand. “Thank you” she added.

  Part Three

  Chapter 1

  “Perhaps you could do one of your flourishes, Minette”. A one-to-one with my line manager, Lionel Beresford. A good man who allowed me an unprecedented degree of creative freedom in my site improvement projects. He furiously scribbled notes on the back of loose leaves of reject photocopies, diligently retrieved from the bin. Like me in that respect, we didn't waste public funds. Consequently, I had a surplus of £2,000 on the St Jude's Gardens project having wrangled with contractors for the best deal and scoped out the works fastidiously so that there were no unexpected spends.

  From the time it had taken me to leave him in meeting room C2 and return to my desk, a speck of grit had formed a pearl.

  “Here she comes, Iggy Pop's mum” Todd said as I parked my arse in the ergonomically unsound office chair. He enjoyed drawing unflattering analogies to emphasise the age gap between myself and the rest of the team; they were all in their mid-thirties, I was now forty two. Of course, I had my favourites.

  Todd played an artful game, close to irritating, often overstepping the mark, dicing his initials on your belly with his wit, then running for redeeming tea and bandages, falling over himself with bumbling gallantry.

  Kika, Italian, small, sexy, very funny. She'd thawed my frosty British crust and although neither as adept or inclined to flattery as her, at least I was now able to give people the time of day.

  And Maisie, tall, a ferocious intelligence and sharp sensibility, but ethereal, an old soul - eccentric by council standards, real by mine. We shared a self-deprecating communality and a secret pride; I loved to make her laugh.

  Something oblique and uplifting was required, but not too Goddy – a stone plaque, like a headstone, set flat to the path, beautifully carved. Googling for inspiration, I found the motto, 'paradisi in sole paradisus terrestris', 'a park in the sun is heaven on Earth' – a sixteenth century herbalist's words, so no copyright issue there.

  I typed 'stonemason Islington' (we were encouraged to use local contractors wherever possible) . The first hit was Gareth Dornay, but his website was pretentious and corporate. The next, Ken Rowntree, didn't have a website so we spoke on the phone, but I gave him short shrift on the basis he said 'dear' at the end of each sentence. The third didn't have a website either and so I phoned Dale Knudsson.

  “Hello?” A woman's voice.

  “Hello, may I speak to Dale Knudsson please?”

  “Speaking” she said genially.

  Rejecting the possibility it may be a light voiced man, I mused on what she might look like. Having outlined the project, I asked if it was something that would interest her. She said it would. Time was short I stressed; the money had to be spent by mid-March.

  “Not a problem” she said, “I'll email you some sketches tomorrow. Do you have an idea of fonts?”

  “Something seraph, but so medieval it could almost be modern. D'ya get me?”

  “ I get ya” she said without so much as a 'think so'.

  True to her word the sketches came through the following morning: the first, in that kind of script that made the s like an f, skillfully drawn and the word spacing intelligent, but too difficult to read for most people. The second, a classic seraph font with bullet stars punctuating each word ...too conventional. By the third, she'd nailed it - lithe, Lombardic letters, character spaced with bullet star separators, making it legible, each word a gracefully resolved statement in itself. It was as if she'd reached into my mind.

  Unable to contain my enthusiasm and oddly wanting to hear her voice; soft, it c
urled as if there were something foreign in it and yet she sounded completely English. Silky, if she sang she would be Dusty. Sentences structured sparingly, succinctly, but embellished with a wry, conspiratorial humour, inviting intimacy, testing my wavelength. I sent my laugh to her down the mouthpiece, indicating a kindred frequency. Her language of stone, like her voice, unintentionally seductive.

  “Creamy” she said, 'smooth, golden, chalky, buttery, soapy, velvet, oyster, honey'.

  “I think it best I come and see you”, my phraseology innocently explicit. “Plus” I said, pulling it back, “I need you to give me a price”.

  “OK, come to my workshop, Unit 21, Coopers Yard, in the Old Jam Factory”.

  “How about now?”