Faustine (2011)
“Last year’s leaves, still unswept, huddle in corners, and a leaking pipe, with its own spoor of green fungus, disgorges an uneven drip on to the floor.
It was while I was searching for the door which must have admitted Jasmine that I saw the waterlogged bundle, on the cracked cement under the ping-pong table. And as I crawled under to retrieve the photographs – for in this mausoleum of the image, it was clear that this was what they were – I had that feeling again, the feeling I’d had in th...e bedroom at the top of the flight of oak stairs, in the house, the sense of being intently scrutinized, of being, even, about to be accosted by someone who was just waiting for me to let down my guard.
Then the feeling passed. I flipped through the photographs. At the same time, Mrs Neidpath, now in a green overall to match the institutional atmosphere of her part of the manor, walked along the terrace, stopped, and stared at me.
The pictures, folded like a crumpled bankroll in my hand, were all romantic in the extreme.MoreLess
It was while I was searching for the door which must have admitted Jasmine that I saw the waterlogged bundle, on the cracked cement under the ping-pong table. And as I crawled under to retrieve the photographs – for in this mausoleum of the image, it was clear that this was what they were – I had that feeling again, the feeling I’d had in th...e bedroom at the top of the flight of oak stairs, in the house, the sense of being intently scrutinized, of being, even, about to be accosted by someone who was just waiting for me to let down my guard.
Then the feeling passed. I flipped through the photographs. At the same time, Mrs Neidpath, now in a green overall to match the institutional atmosphere of her part of the manor, walked along the terrace, stopped, and stared at me.
The pictures, folded like a crumpled bankroll in my hand, were all romantic in the extreme.MoreLess
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