Letters from Isolation Road

Dear Mum

The honeymoon was wonderful. The log cabin we stayed in on Lake Tekapo was stunning. It looked directly across the lake up into the mountains. In the mornings mist covered the lake and as it lifted the bush was like a green patchwork blanket that Granny had made; lots of contrasting textures and shades with speckles of brown stitching holding it all together.  The water is so clear I am sure you can see the bottom at centre if you looked hard enough. We spent several nights curled up in front of the large stone fireplace. David cooked us fresh fish he caught and the owner delivered fresh produce daily. The seafood is getting more appealing although I still can’t keep an oyster down. The smell of wood, the crackle of fire and the peace and quiet so reminds me of the times in the Lake District as children.

We moved into the Farm house when we got back. The house is ok. It is a three bedroom railway cottage. The interior is stuck in the 70’s for sure but I somehow I quite like the orange kitchen and avocado bathroom. I will start making our own pretty soon. It is much larger than an average UK house, probably a similar size to the houses on the east side of Blackheath Common.

We have 6000 sheep so David will be kept busy for sure. We will most probably get a couple of farm workers who will stay in the sleep out attached to the garage. He has said we will spend plenty of time in (name of town) so I won’t be lonely and there is bound to be a women’s league in area which I can join. 

It’s a little daunting but I am sure I will get used to it and hopefully it won’t be too long before I will have some little company.

Well I had better get going and will call soon. Much love always.

Jenny and David

Dear Mum

Sorry it’s been so long since my last letter we have been well busy with getting ready for lambing. David has not yet found a second farm hand so I have been helping out. Its very hard work and David always seems to be working but he needs to as there is so much to do. We have been into (name of town) a couple of times for dinner which was nice. The first time was just at the little café. The food was really good and cheap too. We only had fish and chips (fush and chups) but it was dead good. David still can’t get over the vinegar idea but I guess I am the same with tomato sauce and David’s insistence to pour it on everything. The second was meant to be a flash restaurant but is certainly was no Nobu. It was ok but the service was shite (rubbish?). The waitress spent more time talking to the regulars than worrying about us. Maybe when we have been here longer we will get the same service, not that we will go back there in a hurry.

James the farm hand is good. He is from up north near Wellington. He will be with us until the end of lambing. The winter has been really harsh so far. We had a big snow fall the other day, 60cm, about 20 inches of snow. David is hoping that will be the last of it because it can be well bad for the lambs if we get too much during the season.   We are still advertising for another farm hand but David thinks he might just flag it as it would take too much to get them up to speed with all that needs to be done on the farm and where everything is.

No luck on the pitter-patter front, I guess practice makes perfect, but any practice probably would help too. It’s ok though I know David is working hard for us so it will happen when the time is right, or when David isn’t so tired.

Better go for now.

Much love

Jenny and David

Dear Mum

It’s beginning to feel real. We have passed the danger stage and we should be all set for a (month) birth. At 13 weeks the midwife is quietly confident that all is looking good. We had a BBQ on the weekend and Paul and Sarah came so we told them. Sarah went straight home and congratulated us on her Facebook page so the cat is certainly out of the bag now. We have decided not to find out what it will be. I know a lot of people would prefer to know but we want it to be a surprise. I have had a couple of dreams of pushing a little girl on a swing so I am guessing that is giving me a hint but who knows. David is sure that it’s is a boy because all the first born in his family in the last few years have been. I don’t think he knows what he is talking about.

We have brought some furniture for nursery but the little one will spend the first few months in with us. We were going to just paint but the midwife advised that I shouldn’t in my condition so we have acquired some wall paper instead which is quite lovely, you would approve. Its lemon with letters embossed. We are going to put a freeze of the alphabet three quarters up the wall. The furniture that we got is all natural wood so will match perfectly and it won’t matter if it is a boy or a girl. We can add things to make it more theirs as they get older.

David is well excited. I haven’t seen him this excited since he brought the new tractor and that is saying something. He is still working hard but he is making more of an effort to try and spend more time with me. It is a big farm so I do understand that he runs out of hours in the day.

I so wish you could be here for the birth.

Oh well better go and start some dinner for David and the boys.

Much love

Jen

Dear Mum

The results came back from the autopsy. They could not find anything wrong as such. The midwife believes that it may have been the umbilical cord around her neck but they can’t be sure. From her size they think she was probably at 18 weeks which seems about right although I didn’t give birth until I was 20. I had to wait until they had a space at the hospital.

It is the strangest sensation not feeling anything after she had been so active. I knew something was wrong. Julie had said that sometimes they do settle down and not to panic. When the doctor couldn’t find the heart beat though it was hard. The two weeks afterward were hell knowing that she was dead inside me but also having maybe glimmer of hope that they got it wrong. You constantly wait for another little kick or flutter but it never comes.

I hate hospitals at the best of times but you think that they would make a birthing ward a little more inviting and pleasant. I think it’s the smell that gets me the most, not the dreary walls and varying shade of beige and grey, but the smell of sterility, germs and death lingering everywhere. Yuk.

David got the neighbour to look after the farm for the day when we went to have her. They had to induce me. I’m not sure the nurse knew what she was doing. She said it would be ages before it would happen so I was wandering around my room. I knew that it wasn’t going to take long. I sent David off to try and find the nurse. I was trying to hold but just couldn’t. I caught her as she came out. It was horrible. It seemed like ages before David and the nurse came back. I didn’t know what to do I just held the bloody mess for what seemed like forever. Oh mum I wish you were there. The nurse quickly whipped her away and cleaned her up and brought her back wrapped in a little white cloth. David and I held her for while but then we gave her back so that they could examine her to see if there was anything wrong. We picked her up the other day. It’s weird but she is in our freezer until we have decided what to do. We think we will probably bury her under a rose bush or something like that. Just not too sure, we haven’t really discussed it. We haven’t named her but I like the name Holly.

David has been pretty quiet. I don’t think we know what to say to each other. I need a big hug but I don’t think he can at the moment. I know it’s hard on him too but I sort of wish he would just yell at me tell me or tell me it’s all ok, or just something. He just seems so empty. I know he doesn’t blame me, well at least I think he doesn’t.

I really miss you mum.

Love Jen

Dear Mum

We had our three year anniversary the other day, not that you would think so, David forgot. Life is pretty hard at the moment. Money is tight and David and I have decided not to try for another baby for until we are in a better position, financially and emotionally, if he knows what that is.

I also told David I didn’t want to do anymore farm work and that he needs to get another farm hand. He says we can’t afford it so he is picking up the slack which is his reason for not spending any time at the house. Not convinced.

James comes to visits a lot and he is good to talk to. The other farm hand I hardly ever see.  We get on well James and me. He’s funny and has a good sense of humour. It’s nice to have a bit of light relief around the place. He is easy on the eye too and if he wasn’t the farm hand and I wasn’t married I would say he was well lush. It’s funny though no matter how good looking a guy can be the smell of cow manure can still make him look well ugly.

I joined a woman’s group to meet some new friends in town to get away from the farm but they are all a bit clicky. They all love farming and all they seem to talk about is farming. None of them have travelled and only lived i the district. If I try and talk about David or relationship problems they all seem to side with David. It’s a waste of time really. James is more understanding. I don’t think I will go back.

We buried Holly under a flax bush. It took us six months and we actually haven’t spoken of it once since.

Anyway better go.

Love Jenny.

Dear Mum

David has moved into the sleepout. He says he can’t handle me nagging him all the time and says if I don’t like it I should leave. Leave and go where I ask. I have tried and tried. It has been five years on this god forsaken place. I have no friends David won’t even look at me let alone sleep in the same bed. What am I supposed to do? I don’t want to pack up and come back to the UK, I couldn’t bare the I told you so’s.

James has left the farm. I am going to miss him, miss our talks. He was a good listener and it was good to have a laugh. He is going to work up north. I’ve got his number and he says I can call him any time but it won’t be the same. I think David is glad to see him go.

I wish you would tell me it’s alright, what to do or how I can fix this. It’s so hard. I know I loved David once and maybe I still do. I know he loved me. It just hurts all the time. What happened? Maybe we weren’t ready for a baby? Things haven’t been the same since we lost Holly. I just don’t know. I really wish you were here to tell me what the right thing to do is or tell me it’s going to be ok. Anyone to tell me it’s going to be ok.

My stomach always has butterflies but they are not monarchs they are those half eaten moths sitting scavenging on my insides. My chest physically hurts and I can’t stop thinking of Holly. What could I have done to prevent her death, what did I do wrong. The more I think of David the more I resent him bringing me to this place. Was it his idea to lock me up on this desolate waste land where I am meant to play house and have no life or friends.

Mum I just want to scream but I know if I do no one will hear me. It shouldn’t be this hard, it hurts.

RE: Ashes

David Williams [David.Williams@xtra.co.nz]

Sent:    Tuesday, 23^rd March, 2010

To:       Graham Little

 

Hi Graham

Just confirming our conversation the other night. I arrive on Friday at 2:30pm at terminal 5, Heathrow. I will come and stay with you for the two nights then we can go up to the Lake District. I never went there when I was in the UK but Jen spoke fondly of it and I think she would like your idea to be scattered where her mother was.

I didn’t really want to but I have included the letter Jen left as you asked. I would appreciate it if you kept this to yourself or burn it when you are done. I loved your daughter very much but I am so angry right now so please don’t be offended at my lack of understanding on the phone. Why she chose to do it on her anniversary of her mother’s death I just don’t get it. I’m sorry.

See you in a few weeks.

Regards

David

Footprint in the sand

He is slight in comparison to the other boys in his class. His hair is dark and shaggy, his curls have not seen a brush in years and the sea salt remaining from swims in the East Coast Ocean give it a matt finish. His olive skin tone darkens as the year cycles from winter to spring, spring to summer. He wears a variation of the same thing every day; chocolate brown Billabong board shorts and a t-shirt. The shorts had been left on the beach by a crowd of skinny dippers one night. Four sizes too big but he loved them. The rope he has around them is frayed and worn but does the trick in stopping them becoming trousers. His t-shirts, also too big, were borrowed from a visiting cousin one year and but have never been returned. One has the words “truck off” printed underneath a big monster truck. Originally white but now a beige yellow colour with brown stains. The next is black with a picture of Bob Marley smoking a joint on the front. It has a large hole in the seam where the stitching gave way after it had been used to hall him back inside. The last was a present he had received from his Nanny. This was the only one that fit him. It was his favourite. It was light blue and had an iron on picture of Poppa and Nerdy Smurf on it. He wore this one on special occasions.

A knock at the door was not too unusual. His mother’s boyfriends sometimes knocked but a second knock was different, they didn’t knock twice. He gets up from playing in front of the TV, an old PYE that only receives one channel. He opens the door and an older lady stands looking down at him. She is plump but not fat. Her hair is thick and curly like his but with large chunks of grey bursting from beneath. Her face warms with a smile, like the pictures of his mother when she was younger. Her olive skin is aged but remains smooth and soft and is parted with sparse wrinkles with no make-up. Long eyelashes shade her piercing blue eyes that can see straight through the boy. He already knows her.  “You must be...’” she said as she bends down, reaching out and drawing him into her for a tight grasp. She embraces him for some time, close, eyes shut.  She softly asks. “Where is your mother boy?”

His mother has gone down the road for some milk or another bottle of wine. When she returns the two new acquaintances are laughing and talking on the couch like long lost friends.  His mother opens the door and looks across the room. The old lady rises. The two women stare at each other across the small space. “Mum this is Nanny, she brought me a new t-shirt” the boy blurts out. “Hello-.” the old lady begins “Get to your room” his mother cuts her off. No amount of “but” was going to change that command so he gets up and obeys. He sits on his bed and looks at all the detail of his new t-shirt. In the background he could hear the two women talking; sometimes raising their voices. Long stretches of silence stagnate the air, there is crying too. He looks out his window as he listened to what they a saying. Sitting he hears “Your father really does love you” and “It’s not his fault, you should have known better” and “shouldn’t he love me no matter what?” and “I never wanted him”. Looking back at his t-shirt he studies the new character. His Nanny had told him he was a Smurf. He knew they weren’t talking about his t-shirt.

His Nanny does not stay long and only as he peers out his room in a longer silence does he catch a glimpse of her leaving, tears running through her wrinkles as his mother closes the door behind her. He runs to the window in the lounge. As he tiptoes to look over the window sill he sees her walk down the dirt driveway. She gets in her little green car and the dust cloud hides her as she drives off. She doesn’t see him waving and thanking her for his t-shirt through the cob webbed window.

He sits in the front of his classroom, hiding from the attention that the back row attracts. There are 23 in his class and the ages range from 6 to 13 with a mixture of boys and girls. They are all local children that their parents have not sent off to the city. He enjoys school, he can escape in to the pages of the books and day dream. Some days he dreams about the family of orcas that visit the bay in the summer around Christmas time. He puts himself on the back of the mother orca and rides off to the island across from Taputahi and Takau Bays. He has adventures that take him on tramps through the jungle and discovers ferocious animals. He finds treasure hidden in the secret caves and swims in the coves where he collects shellfish and crayfish for his Mum.

His teacher is an older lady. She is nice but yells a lot and often can’t keep control of all the children. She wears bright coloured cloths and big glasses, like the ones he has seen on television on Coronation Street. One day he caught sight of her outside the classroom window crouching and having a cigarette. She seemed to be crying. She came back in and was very quiet for the rest of the day.  Some days she just seems to give up and just let the class go wild. He never does, you can’t go wild when you’re daydreaming.

His mother only smiles after a few wines. She had him at only 19. Her plans to move away to the city and become a beauty therapist changed when she fell pregnant. She had been beautiful. Long dark hair, clear blues eyes that reflect the ocean and a warm smile. He sometimes thinks that she is a mermaid from the ocean sent to look after him until he was big enough to ride off with the pod of orcas. She used to take care of her appearance. Nails were neatly painted, her hair back in a pony tail and clothes that showed off her figure. When her father found out about the pregnancy he kicked her out and she stopped caring what she looked like.

She has been crying for over an hour in her room when her father gets home from work. Her mother has left her alone to think about what she is going to say to him. Her mother hasn’t said much but she knows that she was disappointed. Her parents have worked hard all their lives and while they didn’t have large amounts of money they were comfortable and the three kids never go without. This news was not in their grand plan.

Her father is a tall distinguished man. He has dark hair, firm eyes and a look of seriousness that seldom smiles brightening his pale face. He takes pride in his appearance and everything that he does, combing his hair to one side with exactness the same for the past 20 years, trimming the edging before the lawn mowing every week and saying grace every night. He has strong opinions and is a little racist, ironic as his wife is part Māori.  He doesn’t go to church but he tells everyone that he is a Christian and lives what he believes is a moral life. He has been strict on his children growing up, especially on his eldest daughter who, while he would not admit it, was also his favourite.

Sitting on her bed she hears her mother tell him that she is waiting for him and that she needs to speak to him in her bedroom. She can feel his measured foot steps down the hall to her bedroom shatter through her like a pick crashing into ice . Her heart is sure to burst through her chest at any time. He arrives at the door with his blank look. “So what’s the problem?” he asks. She looks up at him, her eyes are bright red with tears. Her throat feels like it has a ball of gardening twine, dry and large preventing her from getting the words out. She feels like vomiting her stomach is so full of a swarm of butterflies.  “Well?” he asks again. “I went to the doctor, and he said I am pregnant” she stuttered between sobs. “I’m five months and the doctor said I have to have it” Her sobbing returns and as she hold her head in her hands looking to the floor her father walks off just saying “17”. He returns a short time later with a suitcase in hand. He places it at the door and says “You had better start packing then”. She can hear her mother trying to reason with him but she knows it will be pointless. “No daughter of mine does this, she is no longer my daughter” was the last words she heard her father say as her mother lead her to the car.

They moved to the beach when his mother missed her payments on their state house in Whangarei. An auntie had a discarded batch, and without her father’s knowledge, allowed her to stay. It is a small two bedroom batch. It sits on a hill behind all the flash batches that line the dirt road in front of the beach. It has dark green weatherboard with some flaking giving way to the brown undercoat that blends in to the surrounding bush.  It has five rooms; two bedrooms, lounge/dining room, kitchen and bathroom. One bedroom is very small only fitting a single mattress, this is his room. The other has a double bed and some drawers. Each has two windows. The lounge has an old couch with wooden arms, dirty lime green with holes in the fabric showing through to the springs. A television that is encased by a wooden box sits in the corner. In the opposing corner a Formica table with three chairs. Some of the stainless steel beading around the edge has been pulled off to reveal the layers of pressed wood supporting the speckled top. The bathroom has a toilet, hand basin and a bath with a shower over it. It is small. The shower curtain, once adorned with fish and sea creatures, now is coated in various shades of green mould. The house smells of dried damp.

His mother has had several boyfriends over the years, the range in their kindness. Some are Māori some are Pakeha. Some just ignore him and let him do his own thing and others lecture him on how he needed to be disciplined. This usually is followed by a hiding or being locked in his room, a little hard without a door handle. If he is lucky it is just a few straps around the legs. The back hand across the face is the worst. He is used to expecting them, he sinks into his mind and blocks most of the pain out. He learnt quickly how to cower and always look to be crying. He doesn’t cry anymore.

One boyfriend is nice. He sits him on his knee and talks about things and listens to his stories. They play fight but he never hurts him. He sometimes comes into his bedroom at night when his mother has fallen asleep after a night with her friend Montana, Sauvignon Blanc. The boyfriend comes and lies on the bed next to the boy. It is usually on top of the covers but sometimes he gets under the covers too. The boyfriend holds him. Then he caress him up and down his leg. The boy doesn’t like this. The boys breath stops as he clenches in fear. He pretends he is asleep, frozen. He tries to stop the flinching but the harder he tries the worse it gets. Little shocks of energy make him jerk uncontrollably. He can’t turn; if he does he will end up facing the boyfriend. He doesn’t want to. The boyfriend touches him a few times and that is all this time. He is sure he asked him to stop but maybe he didn’t; maybe it was his fault; he only thought he said it. The boyfriend visits often. He now pulls down his pants and he move rubs himself up and down on the boy. He only stops after the boy feels wet sticky stuff on his leg. His mother’s boyfriend stops coming to sleep with him when she comes in one morning and he hasn’t left the boys room. She screams a lot. He doesn’t stay again.

His journey home from school isn’t a long in distance, only about two kilometres. It takes him over a large grassy field filled with cows. Friesians, he had been told once. They do not seem to mind the small boy that wanders between them. They are busy with their slow churn of the grass they had just pulled from the ground, their blank looks only changing when they let out a moo. From the dirt road there is a tar sealed road that leads down to the beach. It winds down to the left and then straightens out to a road that all the houses sit on. It takes him much longer to get home than it does going to school.

 He stops on the beach and look at all the inetersting things. The washed up sea weed, the upside down crabs that have lost their fight with the sun, the broken sea shells all unique and the footsteps in the sand with their own stories.

The boy likes to make stories for all the different footsteps. Tales of visitors from across at the island, mermaids maybe related to his mother.  Footsteps are fewer in the winter people don’t come to the beach as much. In the winter he follows the same footprints for days or for as long as the rain doesn’t wash them away. The summer always brings new ones and more of them. People visit the beach much more often so that means more footprints, more stories.

The footprints also bring other children, not just the ones from his school but from the city too. They come with their snorkels, flippers and boats their parents anchor in the bay. They build sand castles with swimming pools. The boy tries to play with some of the kids but their parents don’t let them. Some of the children are nice, some are mean. He doesn’t play with them much.

It is April when his mother tells him that she is going to Nanny’s tangi. “I will be back in the next day or two, don’t use the stove and don’t let anyone in you don’t know” she tells him as she shuts the door behind her. He doesn’t know what a tangi is but he guesses he will ask Nanny next time she comes to visit, maybe with another t-shirt, maybe his mum will bring him one back. She had left him by himself before but only over night. He doesn’t mind, he thinks he will get his Mum a present for when she gets back.

The sea is calm in Taputahi Bay. He decides to swim out to the outcrop and get himself some kina. Breast stroke, freestyle and dolphin dive, spurting water out of his mouth as he goes. He floats on his front then his back. Looking up at the sky clouds float above not moving but changing shape. A duck, a dragon and whale appear from the soft cotton balls as the salty water holds him.

The kina recently have been further down the outcrop getting deeper as the summer came and went. He lovs kina, how it moves, how he sucks the life out of something living. The way the kina still wriggle after you take it out of the water; each needle trying to find the water that it had been taken from. He has got used to the sharp prickles and uses seaweed sometimes to protect his hands when he gathers them from the rocks. He has a knife that he hides amongst the rocks that he uses to plunge into the centre eye of the kina splitting its thick shell it in two or three pieces. Crack, splurt, crack. Exposing the creamy yellow roe and the surrounding flesh he drinks the contents and then scoops what’s left with his fingers, licking them to ensure he gets all the goodness. Prickle after prickle the kina dies.

The tide is lapping at the pinnacle of the outcrop. He is late and the tide is returning. On his third dive down he sees movement. He thinks it may have been a crayfish poking its skeletal head out for a look, searching for its dinner. He grabs some floating kelp and bandages his right hand for protection from the spiky animal. He knows how much his mother likes crayfish; it will be a good present for her. It is only three meters deep on a high tide to swim to the bottom and  he can do it with ease and still have enough time to explore the sea floor. He takes a deep breath and duck dives to the rocks below.  He searches amongst the brown and green seaweed but the crayfish does well at playing hide and seek.

As his chest tightens and he needs to breath he readies himself to push off to the surface. Something tumbles. His foot is stuck. He shakes his leg but the movement tightens the grip of whatever is holding him back. He has been out enough to know not to panic. He leans forward reaching to pry his foot free. Sharp stabs of pain as rock and oyster shell hold his foot tighter. A small trickle of blood draws out like a sea snake, vanishing into dark blue beyond the outcrop His chest grows tighter, burning. Panic, he knows better than to let this happen. He thrashes about grabbing at the water above. Wriggling from side to side grabbing, reaching, pulling at nothing. He doesn’t yell he knows no one will hear him.

The kelp around him tries comfort him, a soft touch of his legs, stroking his ankle, trying to tell him it is going to be ok. It dances in the current around him desperately attempting let him know it will be fine. His chest is on fire, he has to breathe. Finally as he gasps, a gush of salty water fills his mouth. His body draws the water down; a substitute for the air he is grabbing for. Deep down. His lungs fill. His bulging eyes grow even larger. Just before they burst, still open, they begin to relax, drain in silence. Embraced by the sea. Flinching as he did in the bed.. Terror drains from his eyes. Calm. His body hangs held on by the rock. The kelp dances around him reassuring that he will be ok.

As the boy relaxes, he sees fireflies in his eyes. He sees the formica table, he is sitting at it with his mother, laughing and smiling, they are joking, eating crayfish. Fire flies jump around his eyes. He is on a big adventure on the Island across the bay searching for a ferocious animal. Fireflies jump about. He sees his Nanny, she gives him lots of t-shirts, and lots of hugs. They sit and talk and she tells him stories. The fireflies are getting tired. He is on the back of the orcas that have come into the bay. All the other children come and look at him in their boats with their parents while the orcas just swim below the surface. There are not many fireflies left. The boy walks on the beach while the orcas wait for him out in the bay. He wonders if anyone will see his footprint in the sand. The fireflies go out.

Jason Wade

Marc Jacob

Marc Jacob

I started my life on the backside of a European bovine. Grazing from trough to trough fattened by the chemically enhanced feed prescribed for such an end product of my conception.  Once removed from the animal I am stripped, torn and battered into submission by a myriad of machines, men and sometimes children. I find myself dipped and drained until I am the ordered fashion colour of the season. The colour of 2008 was white.

Once my desired hue is achieved I am packaged for delivery to the factory where I will be cut. Stitched, glued and ultimately crafted, I eventually resemble the fashion piece for which I was intended. On leaving the factory I am accompanied by friends of the same and similar design; our colour variant being our only unique feature.

At the store I am unpacked. Bright and ornate lights glisten everywhere and I am but one of many beautiful objects lining the wall. I sit quietly on the shelf day after day longing for the touch of approval. A woman, long blonde hair, slender and smelling of French perfume wanders in under the crystal chandelier. She is my first touch. Her manicured fingers pry me from my resting place. She caresses my exterior before prying at my inner beauty. She splits me looking at my inner compartments pulling and tugging to judge my size.  My name blazons before her; Marc Jacob. She sits me to rest back on the shelf dislodged from my merchandised position. I am adjusted and returned to my intimate liaison with a cashmere scarf.

The first male touch was feminine. His hand is tender, nails are short and well kept and the scent of musk with fresh vanilla pod linger from his moisturiser. He too opens me to examine my uses. Slit by slit testing my ability to retain his precious plastic. I am placed in a pocket. Dim. Light is replaced by his cardiac rhythm. A measured and constant pound pressed against my firm cold exterior. I am removed and placed in his trouser pocket. The polyester lining makes me itch but my fit seems pleasurable to the thigh on which I am pressed. Perhaps I have found my match? “How’s it going to day, how can I help?” the shop assistant enquires. “Fine thanks, just looking” is the reply of the inquisitive consumer. With that tried tested enquiry of “Can I help you” my potential new owner returns me to the temporary home on the shelf.

Over the next few days, then weeks I am prodded and poked, split and slit to judge my appropriateness. I am moved about the store from my humble relationship with cashmere scarf to a torrid affair with a silk tie.  Eventually after completing my cycle I am returned to the comfortable position on the shelf. This time I have a sale ticket adorning the label peeking from beneath. I am cheapened and thus the touch I receive diminishes in its appreciation of my beauty from the surveyors of fine things.

It was May when he entered the store amidst a burst of gaiety.  They were obviously all homosexuals; far too well dressed and flamboyant to be straight Londoners.  They all sauntered around the store pretending to pay attention to the inanimate objects hung, folded and placed in their specific location. “I saw this in Harvey Nichols, I saw this in Harrods echoed around the store. The tall lanky one removed garments from their carefully selected position so that he may parade to and from the fitting cubicle getting the opinion of his fellow shoppers. One was less overt than the other two. Calm and quiet as he glanced and caressed the objects of beauty. He comes to admire me. He stands, pauses and reaches for my touch. He, like the many before, delves into the depths of my soul while wondering if I will accommodate all that he desires.

In little time and without fan fare I am taken and placed upon the counter where the shop person rapes me of my covering and places me in a white plastic bag. The exchange of notes is the prelude to my journey beyond the chandelier. I can no longer see the other two of my new owners’ companions but their cackle follows us out the store so one can only assume they too ensued.

Soon after leaving the store the plastic bag which I have found to be my home for a short period is discarded. I am thrust open on the streets of London. Taxis, busses and cars pollute the air with their noise while the rising aroma of damp urine pervades my previously pristine sense. Cold pieces of oblong plastic are slid into my compartments. Tight and firm they rest in their new location supported by my strong internal craftsmanship. I am closed and my plastic inhabitants are darkened until summoned for future use.

Over the next few months I am most pleased with my use and the acquisition of new and wonderful plastic friends within me. The notes that come and go I offer no consistency. While some are crisp like a fresh apple there are those who have been crushed and crinkled beyond recognition and they smell like their only possible experiences, unpleasant.

As time passes I am taken on many journeys. While I cannot see journey itself the smell and sights at completion of each sojourn educates my senses.  Salty sea air to freshly cut grass, my aromatic intelligence and awareness increases and I am delighted.

In the July I find myself in the dark for a long period of time, 26 hours in fact, obviously a journey of epic proportion. Undesirably I am squashed between sweaters, socks and underwear and I find myself sharing the immediate space with the likes of a toothbrush, razor and other bathroom implements, company far below the standing which I had become accustomed. I did strike an accord with the Isimiaki fragrance that too accompanied me in the darkness; however, I was not impressed at my relegation.

On release from our prison the stench of transport and pollution has been replaced by clean air. People looked different not nearly as refined but certainly much happier.  People hugged and tears stroked the smiles as they embraced each other, jovially telling stories. A family in the corner hugs each other in silence, the flight arrival of their expectant family member intensifying their sombre mood.

A coffee was my first purchase. “A long black please” he asked and retrieves a card from between a slit. He pays the small little man behind the oversized coffee machine that spits and hisses in between him wiping excess milk away. I am rightfully returned to my favourite position in the breast pocket. An hour and half later after a short trip we arrived at my owners’ destination of choice; a far cry from the ornamental elegance of the store from which I was brought in Kensington London. Hamilton.  “Hamilton, the city of the future” the sign proudly announced. Well God help us all, if this is the future then throw me from a bridge now.

As time has passed the appreciation of my beauty has weigned as too did my distain for my current location. The lustre that once contained many wondrous possibilities has crazed, turned grey and can no longer boast superiority to those contained within. Glue is disintegrating leaving me to look dishevelled and common. Dirt from the entry and exit of the plastic occupants stain my once virginal interior. The respect I previously commanded has been lost. I am strewn onto car seats, old bags and a plethora of locations not fit for an item of my lineage.

Not three weeks ago I found myself making love to inexpensive floor coverings of a vehicle of the mass production. Obviously my well being was far less important than the pungent waft of Mac Donald’s that filled our chariot home and filled the stomach of my owner as he left the taxi gorging himself. Usually I am retrieved and clumsily placed in a pocket before I am heaved onto the bedroom floor. On this most recent of occasions my existence was entirely ignored and I was left to fend for myself on the floor of a taxi nestled beneath a seat.

Once left alone I was pushed and kicked about with total disregard. Heels of various heights constructed of synthetic material containing feet stained from attempts at an olive complexion for the summer squeezed beyond recognition into unnatural shapes .  Men’s’ filthy 1997 style shoes of varying shades of black with the contrast of white foot coverings cavorting  at me from beneath  their denim leg attire while I lay staring at the underside of the drivers bottom.

I eventually see the light in two days. While cleaning the abhorrent mess left by the occupants of my horrific night I am sucked by a long cylindrical tube and examined by a new admirer. He prods and pocks at my innards, pulling in and out various cards. I am dropped at a new location where again I am examined. Now I am placed in a clear plastic bag and placed in a plastic tray with most despicable creatures of ugly. How has this happened? How have I experienced such a turn in fortune?

My demise can only be expected. While I may hold the embossed logo of Marc Jacob, a name synonymise with style and elegance, I am only a wallet. I have ended up in the rear end of the world, while I may no longer be on the backside of a European cow, I have travelled full circle; smelly dirty and destined for the ruin of the butchers block.